The Choice

The Choice

    She got up too early--again. Dark outside, cold inside. Too early. Nothing happening, nobody needing her.

    Well, the cat did, the insistent, early morning cat always awake when she got up, rubbing against her ankle, ready to sit in her lap when she stopped pacing, eager to stretch out on the book she was trying to read, ready always to be petted, adored, comforted.

    Until he wasn't. Which is what she loved about him. She must have been prescient when the kitten showed up on the doorstep, the scrawny, demanding, scrappy kitten. When she'd opened the back door, the cat strutted in like he belonged, which is why she named him Solomon...because, even as a kitten, he was kingly. Or wise? (Well, yes, to show up at her door.) Or demanding? or just because....

    Well, they were both up now, coffee made, warm milk already half gone in Solomon's dish. 

~

    "Who warms milk for a cat?"

    "He likes it that way."
    "Well, I don't." Carl's last words before he erupted and stormed out, slamming the door, yelling, accusing...how to describe that morning, an eruption--yes, an eruption, an eruption from a spewing volcano.

    His final words, his ultimatum, floated down from the ether of first light and greeted her every morning.     "It's the damn cat or me," he'd shouted, sputtered, spewed like the human volcano he was.

    "It's the ...."

    "I heard you," she'd finally said, "and Solomon is staying."

                                                                             ~

    Last words. Proud words. But she still woke up too early every morning, haunted by her  Solomonic choice. Harder than she expected and still unsettling, until the cat, Solomon, the cat, rubbed against her ankle as she warmed his milk.

    They'd both chosen wisely.