Page 60 of Hold the Pickle
Nadia gives the other kittens one more pat, then heads across the room to the bed. “Cattarina, you can’t steal MC’s babies.”
As if to counter Nadia’s words, Cattarina places her paw protectively over Ferris.
“Come on,” Nadia says. “Let’s get on your bed, and you can keep the kitten for a while.” She reaches in and takes the kitten. “Come on.”
“Where should this go?” I ask, sliding the large cat bed across the floor.
Nadia blows out a gush of air. “Maybe between the sofa and the wall? That feels protected without being too hard for us to reach.”
I nod and set the bed in the corner. Then I back away.
“Come along, little Ferris,” Nadia says, carrying the baby to the big bed. “Maybe you can convince Cattarina to sleep out in the room.”
The moment the kitten is left alone, Cattarina leaps across the floor. But she approaches the bed tentatively.
“Let’s see what she does,” Nadia says. “Hopefully, she’ll accept being out here.”
Cattarina places one paw into her bed, leaning down to nose the kitten, who has fallen asleep. She curls around it.
“Look at that,” Nadia whispers. “It worked.” She looks up at me with the happiest expression I’ve ever seen on her. My belly warms over. I want her to always be this happy.
“Looks like you’re a cat mom six times over,” I tell her.
She points at where my hand has mindlessly returned to the box of cats to stroke them one by one. “And you’re a cat dad.”
What is happening here? I’ve never had one pet, much less half a dozen. But as Nadia and I take kittens out one at a time to feed them, then take the mama cat aside so she can eat in peace to regain her strength, I realize—I like it.
Now it feels even more like home, the sort of home I’ve never known before now.
19
NADIA
Four kittens, a weak mama cat, and a thieving Catzilla are a lot of work.
When Dalton leaves for his shift that evening, I’m tasked with feeding four kittens, teaching them to use the litter box, and continually bringing them back to their mother when Cattarina the Great steals them for her own bed.
By two a.m., I’m exhausted. I lie on the bed, barely registering when Cattarina jumps up beside me. She rarely does that, but I’m too tired to figure out why.
When Dalton comes in the next morning, he tries to be quiet, but the mere arrival of sunlight in the room wakes up me, Cattarina, and the kittens, and the mewling begins.
I sit up, trying to push my wild hair into some semblance of order. “Shift go okay?”
“Easy one. How was the first night as a mother of six?”
“Exhausting.”
He chuckles, and the sound makes me smile despite my tiredness. “You go back to sleep. I’ll handle a round.”
“I don’t think I’ll sleep.”
He turns on the kitchen light. “We have two kittens in the crate. Mama Cat in Cattarina’s bed. And we’re missing a big cat and two babies.”
I shift my pillow to reveal the oversized Maine Coon and two kittens.
“I see.” He leans beside me to scoop up the two kittens. “I’ll borrow these.” I catch a whiff of him while he’s close. There’s a hospital smell, for sure, one I’ve gotten used to, something antiseptic. But also a quality that is always his, clean cotton clothes and a hint of herbal shampoo.
Cattarina glares at him as he takes the kittens away. I stroke her head. “They’ll be fine, Cattarina. Let Dad feed them.”
