The cat

Our cat Paco disappeared last week. I let him out of the house in the morning and he didn’t come back for his usual mid-day check in, and he didn’t come back at bedtime. The next day, nothing. And the next, and the next. Until almost a week had gone by and Violet was just starting to stop calling for “Patoe!” every time we went outside.

Then yesterday I was on the phone with my mom and lo and behold, I heard a cat meowing outside. I opened the door and there was Paco, looking at me like, “It’s about time, dude.” He came loping indoors and ate the entire kitchen before falling asleep on the couch for the rest of the day.

He’s lost a lot of weight but seems fine otherwise. I know cats disappear all the time and hey, I grew up in the country, so I really know that cats disappear all the time. But Paco had never been gone for more than a couple hours before, and to suddenly leap to a week-long roaming adventure was kind of a big deal for him.

So of course we’re inventing all these stories about where he was, because, you know, cats can’t talk, which is a good thing because if they did, we wouldn’t have anything to discuss over dinner. The top of the list of possibilities is that he got stuck in someone’s garage who then went out of town and returned recently to find a meowing cat locked up inside. But who knows, really. We’re just glad he’s home. He’s the only pet that actually tolerates Violet and she is head over heels about him for that. Just tonight, she gave him a big hug before body slamming him into the floor. Welcome home, Patoe.