She knows the sound of my car, even though it's been a while since I lived there. It's still my house, she's still my cat. She is already making her way across the front lawn to greet me before I've had time to pull into the driveway.
She is getting on in years now and her miaow-er is broken. She mimes a miaow or two as she pads towards me, but there is only the faintest trace of a sound.
She flops provocatively on grass a metre from my feet and looks up at me with her limpid blue eyes. I know better than to rub her exposed tummy. I scoop her up in one fluid motion and prop her on my left shoulder,wondering as I always do whether the G-force affects her tiny brain. She starts to purr. If she's happy she'll support her own weight and balance there without my aid. But if she's restless for food she tolerate me for a few minutes before she makes herself a dead weight and leans toward the ground for release. She'll only sit on my left shoulder, not on my right. Not on anyone's right. Only the left.
Sometimes she'll lick my cheek just once, She imprinted on me when she was a tiny kitten. She's still my cat. This is still my house.
Today she is happy to stay on my shoulder, if I lean forward to put her down she will dig her claws in to stay.
I lean against the front porch and watch the wind swirl the leaves in the gumtrees. It's a warm spring day and sky is my favourite shade of eternal blue. I try to remember the happy times but my memories are still fleeting and feeble. Mostly they hurt too much.
I bury my face in the warmth and softness of Bella's fur, so no-one can see the tears.
Bella always smells good. She smells like home... And now more than ever she reminds me of him.
"Have you noticed," I asked Katie once, "that Bella always smells so sweet, like she has the faintest trace of perfume on her?"
"Yes." She agreed. And we debated and laughed about the fact that cats must really just smell like cat spit. Bella spends hours and hours grooming herself, so she must really just smell of cat saliva. It's a weird thought.
It took me a long time to figure out that the fragrance was his aftershave because she spent so much time on his shoulder, or curled up in his lap. She was my cat, but she was drawn to him, he indulged her. It was he who named her Bella. And after Katie and I moved away, she became his cat.
She leans heavily away from me and thuds onto the front steps. Time is up, she must have something better to do now.
Sometimes she sits in his chair next to the computer and sometimes she suns herself in the backyard on the teak chair where he used to sit. And sometimes she slinks down to his room where she tries to burrow under the bedclothes before she is caught.
It took me the longest time to realise she no longer smells of his aftershave.
I know cats. They like to return to their happy places.
