The man looked ashamed, despite having nothing to do with the decision.
“Yes.”
“No shelter?”
“Not that I saw.”
“No neighbor?”
“No.”
“No rescue?”
He shook his head.
Tessa looked toward the fence.
The cat had not moved.
“How long was he here?”
“A while.”
“How long?”
The man exhaled.
“Every day for at least a month.”
Tessa’s throat tightened.
“Doing what?”
“Waiting.”
The word hurt.
The man continued.
“He sat on those steps.”
He pointed toward the broken concrete.
“Right where the front door used to be.”
“Morning.”
“Evening.”
“Rain.”
“Didn’t matter.”
“Sometimes people left food.”
“I did a few times.”
“My wife’s allergic, so we couldn’t bring him inside.”
Tessa said nothing.
The man looked at the animal again.
“Eventually he stopped coming every day.”
“Then I’d see him once a week.”
“Then nothing.”
“I figured somebody took him in.”
He swallowed.
“I should’ve called someone.”
Tessa looked at him.
“You fed him.”
“I should’ve done more.”
“Maybe.”
The man accepted it.
No defensiveness.
That made Tessa’s anger soften.
She returned to the cat.
He remained beside the fence.
Tessa crouched.
For the first time, she understood the red collar.
The address had once meant home.
The cat had carried the directions to a place that no longer existed.
She reached toward him.
He let her touch his back.
Three months.
That was what the neighbor said.
Three months since demolition.
A month of sitting near the steps.
Waiting for a door that would never open.
Waiting for people who had already decided not to return.
Tessa pictured him listening to unfamiliar cars.
Running toward engines.
Searching porches.
Sleeping beneath shrubs.
Learning which neighbors left food.
Then somehow making his way miles from Fairview Lane.
And that morning, he had watched a taxi door open.
He had climbed inside.
Not because he knew Tessa.
Because somewhere inside whatever mysterious calculations animals make, he had decided movement was better than waiting.
Tessa felt something inside her break open.
Not pity exactly.
Recognition.
Her father had died eight years earlier.
Her mother followed four years after him.
Neither death had been sudden.
Tessa had spent months preparing for both and still discovered preparation did not prevent emptiness.
After her mother died, Tessa stopped going home after shifts whenever possible.
She volunteered for airport runs.
Late pickups.
Double shifts.
Anything that kept the apartment from becoming too quiet.
She had spent years pretending she liked being alone more than she actually did.
The cat had waited beside a missing door.
Tessa had simply found more roads.
Maybe loneliness recognized loneliness even across species.
She sat on the curb.
The cat turned toward her.
Those golden eyes looked steady.
Not pleading.
That was what hurt most.
He did not appear to expect anything.
Tessa rubbed beneath his collar.
“I’m not taking you to a rubble pile.”