What is your name?

Murky asked of us mostly our absence. She would come out to greet us when we passed by on walks and liked being petted, fluffy cat that she is. She did not need more interaction with us. She had her small domain of two to three backyards and the parking lot of a restaurant and was happy in it. She survived the winter, no doubt because there were a handful of people making sure that she had food left out. She did not seem to want for much.

She was not a born stray. Amber still does not accept my theory that a Bardian discarded her upon graduation, but she acknowledges that the cat was dumped. She is too cuddly and friendly with people to be other than partly tame. Red Hook has no lack of feral, though sedate, cats. We know them on sight, and Amber has joked that she will make a map of their likeliest locations, but we don't name them. These others have not darted from a grassy hiding place that we may stroke their heads, and so Murky is our friend.

Amber knew it was too soon after Jareth's death to consider adopting Murky into our family, but she couldn't stomach the idea that something could happen to her before we were ready. I car could hit her in her enthusiasm to greet someone. In a year, this had not happened, but the world is an uncertain place.

Amber could not in good conscience snatch this cat off the street without preamble. To her way of thinking, that would be unethical. It is not to mine, since anyone who cared to claim ownership over her should have combed the nits from her coat. Amber needed to leave warning and did so by affixing index card notes to collars and snapping these around Murky's neck. Every day the collar would be gone, either take off by someone curious about the note or removed by Murky. Another day, another collar. We went through four (one of which I found, noteless, in some grass in someone's backyard).

Tuesday night, the eve of Murky's capture, Amber receives a phone call from an unknown number. On principle, we do not answer these, assuming they are either telemarketing spam or people who will leave messages. Amber received one days before, refused to answer in a fit of anxiety, and texted back eventually. It was a landline. That was as far as she went with it.

Amber is in the shower, but I take the liberty of answering anyway because I know. This has to be The Call. The narrative demands it.

A young man explains that he had been feeding the cat, which he inevitably called Fluffy, but that his mother would not let him bring her into the house. His mother told him that he ought to call us. His tone is clear that she told him this days before and he was only persuaded to do so after he had in his possession a few of our notes. I think at first that he is taking ownership over this cat, which means Amber will possibly back off the theft, but no. He says, with reluctance, that he is okay with it if we promise we are going to give the cat a good home and will send him updates.

I am surprised to find I am happy to have received this call releasing nebulous ownership, and that I was sad for a second when I thought he considered the cat his alone.

Wednesday, Amber and I walk to the restaurant where Murky is often found, carting a cat carrier.

I walk ahead to the parking lot, singing her name. Amber calls me back to someone's driveway, where Murky is already rubbing against her leg.

Amber's tactic is a simple one. She puts treats on the ground. The cat eats them. She puts treats on the lip of the carrier. The cat eats them. She puts treats in the carrier. The cat refuses. She is no fool. Amber coos at her and opens the top of the carrier so light shines in. Murky, over the course of a minute, explores the idea of maybe one day considering the possibility of tentatively trying to get to those treats. When those contemplations grow so that she is more in the carrier than out, Amber closes the door behind her and drops the lid.

Murky yowls, knowing we have trapped her. I give a short laugh that this process has not been a harder one. Then, as her bellows grow more plaintive, I become quieter. She isn't angry with us. She is not hissing and clawing, in part because -- absent a few attempts at putting a collar around her neck -- we had been among the humans who were good to her. She trusts us. We had betrayed her. We are about to remove her from what she considers her home. She doesn't know what is happening, but she wishes we would stop.

As I hold the carrier in my arms, Amber says, "I hope she doesn't have kittens." She means this as a joke, but I am not able to listen. We would have noticed Murky pregnant. I don't wish to think about a litter of kittens now starving to death, so we can fill a role that isn't necessary to fill.

It is a short walk from the restaurant to our apartment. The whole walk, Murky cries for us to love her enough to let her keep her freedom. Amber tells her to hush, that she is making us look bad.

When we arrive home, Amber insists upon taking the carrier from me, as though past the threshold it is her domain alone and I was the package delivery man.

We put Murky in the bathroom, in which Amber has put a scratching post with carpet, a litter box, food, and a water dish. She doesn't leave the carrier for hours. When she does, it is to hide in the basket where we store our toilet paper. She does not leave this basket. Not to eat. Not to use the litterbox. She presses into it as much as she can, as though she can hide and we will forget her. I pet her a few times, with no fear that she will attack me. She is too sad for that, hurt by our disloyalty but not mad. Part of me wants to let her back outside and apologize, knowing I would never see her again if I did this, knowing more that I would not deserve her affection again.

Here was an animal who was happy, but Amber couldn't have her be happy on the outside. The outside was no place for a cat so fluffy. Much as the cat pushed herself into a small space among the toilet paper, Amber expects Murky to press herself into the hole Jareth left in her life.

I sit on the stairs, observing as my own sadness grows. Amber goes upstairs, witnessing only the very beginning of this, then asks if I am okay or, if I am not, if I want to be left alone. I see no reason that I have to face this alone and tell her as much. When she gets back to the stairs, I am tearing up. In a minute, I am weeping.

"What's wrong?"

"You know what's wrong." I cry not the composed tears of someone contemplating an unhappy moment, but the sobs that originate somewhere deeper and less easy to reach with words. I elaborate the cursed words. "I don't want this cat. I want my Baby Cat back."

We have quarantines Murky until Amber can take her to the vet tomorrow. The last cat in this position was Jareth, dying from his cancer. His face distorting with tumors, his life draining in gulps, fills my head as punishment for even considering this new feline endeavor.

We have done a Bad Thing, a selfish one. Kit-Kat didn't much need us, but he had the fortune of settling on our porch and Amber could seduce him with wet food. Jareth needed care and came to our doorstep, so he found our ready family. He was keen to come indoors, giving little complaint even when we made clear he had lost his unleashed outdoor privileges by dint of having feline leukemia. Murky didn't need us or want us. She had her territory and never seemed bothered by this, and we kidnapped her from her life.

When I broach the obvious unhappiness of this cat, Amber says that she is a kitty and will get over it. This is what cats do.

The only way to make Murky eat is to pet her until she is purring, at which point she turns ravenous and will, between sessions of rubbing against my legs, eat whatever is in her bowl.

I made Amber agree that, if Murky is sick with anything terminal, we would not keep her. I cannot put myself through that pain again, not so soon. Amber tried to argue that we could handle FIV, but not feline leukemia, for which we would give her to a shelter. I will not have an interloper threatening Kit-Kat's life.

This debate doesn't have to escalate. Murky has a clean bill of health. Living on the street for a year -- even the street of cozy Red Hook -- gave this cat no malady or she would already have died. Little Jareth, so newly alive, started with feline leukemia. Murky was on the street longer than Jareth was alive. Murky does have a scarred cornea that makes it flash green eyeshine, but it is not a handicap and isn't worth treating. She is about three years old. She has no microchip. Amber gave her a few inoculations and a dose of Bravecto. She took Jareth's annual appointment, since he couldn't.

I did not edit this picture.

We don't have a proper name for her. "Murky" was only ever a convenient appellation, one Amber never liked but used anyway for want of something formal. Amber is rolling around in her head other options: Columbia and Snicket being the top of the list, but by no means certain choices.

As unnecessary as this is for strangers to know, you've come this far reading about a kitty kidnapping, so we will come to a conflict: poop. The cat did not feel the need to do it. We are not comfortable letting her into the rest of the apartment until she does in the litter box. She urinated in her carrier on the way home from the vet's office, but her litterbox remained untouched.

Friday, Amber must be at work until late into the night. She suggests that I take the cat out on a harness and leash to see if she is more inclined to evacuate herself in dirt. The idea of this excites me -- the walking and not shitting -- and I agree.

This works for two and a half minutes. She then hears something in the small woods behind our house and takes off. Still, I have harnessed and leashed her, so I do not worry much. She then manages to yank herself out of the harness and is gone. I set to pursue and find her in moments in a hole. I reach down slowly toward her, trying not to spook her. This is a mistake. She takes off further into the woods. I try to follow, but she is small and fast. I must deal with branches and briars, and I lose her.

I text Amber my failing. She seems not too concerned. Other women I have known would not have forgiven this accident soon, particularly not if I did not return the cat. Amber blames herself for suggesting it. To her, I am a hapless tool in her plan.

I spent the rest of my Friday trying to find the cat, mostly by standing on the edge of the woods and calling the cat's name. I then sit on my back porch in hopes she will come out because she understands that forty hours makes her ours by rights and we are now her home.

I imagine how much better this Friday would have been if I had not taken the cat out. I would have enjoyed a bike ride. I would have written in a cafe while having a small dinner. I would have relaxed for a few hours before Amber returned home. We would get to bed early and have a lovely Saturday together. I could have induced her to go to the drive-in with friends.

Instead, I pick small burrs off my pants and eat a bowl of leftovers on the porch in penance.

I post on the local pet finder group. They give advice I know (get a cage, put out pungent food and something that smells like them). A woman texts telling me I should consult a psychic, who has great success in finding pets by saying generic things, no doubt. ("Your cat is... hiding somewhere... it's... yes, it's dark. She is scared, but she misses you. She is hungry and wants that favorite meal you give her. She wants... yes, I see it clearly... she wants you to give me more money.") Jackals.

I see Murky after a few hours, walking on a stone wall in the woods. I call out to her. She bolts. This still assures me that she hasn't gone far and won't.

Amber returns home late, changes into pajama shorts and flip flops, and sets out to search the woods. They are fifteen feet wide but still most of a quarter mile long. She has a small flashlight.

Amber disappears. When I first saw how Amber dressed, I assumed she would keep close to the apartment. For a while, I can see her flashlight in the distance. This is a relief, but then her light is gone. I call to her and I do not hear her reply.

It comes to the point where I do not care about the volume of my voice or the lateness of the hour. I call to Amber full-throated and still receive no reply. I begin to consider that something happened to her, but the woods are small and bordered by homes. Nothing much could happen that could not be quickly discovered. Horror movie worry comes over me, imagining how ill-equipped Amber is. What if some goblin used the cat as bait to lure Amber away?

She will tell me later that she saw the cat and took to slowly chasing her, which seems like the wrong tack. Murky does not want to be chased. She wants to come to us. We knew this from when she lived on the street, when she would flee if we approached, but would rub against our legs and roll on her back when we left her alone.

Amber's legs are a collection of scrapes and scratches. She has a cut on her forehead and cheek from where a branch hit her. She says that, if anyone questions these injuries, she will tell them that I beat her.

We sit on the porch. At the edge of the light, Murky appears and watches us until we call out to her. Then she moves a little farther. Amber stays out until two, watching the cat watch her, close and impossibly far.

The cat will be fine. Even if we do not find her -- and I am certain we will -- she has been independent for at least a year and survived that well enough. Our small woods between yards to stalk is better by far than the corner of Cherry Street and 199.

We do not find her for much of Saturday. Amber has us check the restaurant. I know the cat will not be there. I have some sympathy with things that may love me. I know their inclinations. When we met the new rats, I knew the one that loved me on sight would never do me any harm, and he never has. I can get inside his head. Even only a quarter mile from her old territory, she would return as long as she knew where we were, and we provided food.

Around eleven, I go outside to check the traps and see the white flash of the cat running. Not running away, but to an observational distance. I call to Amber in the house. She doesn't reply. This is becoming a habit with her. The cat comes within eight feet of me. If Amber had come down, we would have had the cat and this chapter in our ownership titled The Time Thomm Lost the Cat could end.

Eventually, Amber does come down. I apprise her of the situation, pointing my cellphone camera at Murky to provoke her eyeshine. We watch her for a while with the light on, then Amber suggests it is time to douse it.

We sit outside on the back porch in the dark. We watch Murky. If she were a grayer cat, she would be invisible now. She is watching us back, her chatoyance flashing. She is aware we are there, standing at though she has something she wants to say to us and is slow in getting up the courage.

The cat comes closer over the course of forty patient minutes, Amber and I remaining still. Within ten feet, she hops from the porch to the grass and I think we have lost her. She continues her approach from down there. I reach down to pet her, and she lets me, happy for the affection. I then scruff her as Amber had taught me and yell for her to grab the cat. I am not sure how long I could have held my grip, but not long past when Murky recovers from the shock.

Once back in the bathroom and with us, she starts purring. She is not a fighter. She knows what a good home feels like.

Amber says she is grateful that she doesn't have to text the kid that we already lost the cat, in case Murky should turn up in his backyard.

When I was tentative around the idea of adopted Jareth a year ago, one of our neighbor's kidnapping him to an animal hospital pushed me over. Once you rescue someone from the unknown, you have a responsibility to keep them safe, or I would like to think that is the case.

After her initial dolefulness, the cat likes being inside, though I hope to bring her outside the bathroom as soon as is practical. It is odd to wait on an animal's defecation before we can free her from detention.

There is an object lesson to this, that searching scares away the skittish and that those who want to be found will come right up to you.

It is a wasted twenty-six hours, which will bleed over into the next few days as I try to recover from the sleep deprivation, but we got a cat out of it. It seems fair.

Soon in Xenology: Sanity. Writing. Summer.

last watched: Jessica Jones
reading: What the Hell Did I Just Read?
listening: Damien Rice