Adoption

I never slept more than an hour at a time. Every sound was a burglar. Every silence was someone hiding in the dark. My hair was greying. My hands were swollen. One morning Jackie knocked on my door carrying a cardboard box with holes punched in it. Inside was a cat who looked almost as rough as I did. Jackie went back to her car for food and bowls and a handwritten sheet of instructions, and then she left. That night, I didn't sleep thirty minutes at a time. Every silence was the cat, frightened, hiding, not eating. But now, every noise is just little Fernando, and I sleep right through. And the burglars didn't take anything that mattered.