The Inmate's Cat...

The Tourist Nest ??? · My neighbour went to prison. Asked me to watch his cat "for a few weeks." That was three years ago. Every month without fail I get a handwritten letter in the mail addressed to the cat. I read them to her. She sits on the letter when I'm done every single time. I have 34 letters in a shoebox. He gets out in November. She still sits at his front door every morning. I need to tell this story because this man is coming home in four months and someone needs to know what his cat has been doing while he waited. My neighbour — I'll call him R — lived in the other half of our duplex in a working-class neighbourhood outside of Cincinnati. Single guy, late thirties, quiet. We shared a wall for about two years. He was polite. We weren't close. He kept to himself, worked odd shifts, didn't cause problems. He had a cat. A big orange-and-white tabby, probably seven or eight years old, named Clementine. That cat sat in his front window every day like a security guard. If you walked past the duplex, Clementine was watching you. Always. In the fall of 2023, R knocked on my door one evening. He looked rough. He told me he had to go away for a while and asked if I could watch Clementine. He said "a few weeks." He handed me a bag of dry food, her vet records in a folder, and a litter box. He scratched her head, set her inside my door, and left. I found out from another neighbour two days later that R had been sentenced and was being transferred to a facility about three hours south. I won't say what for because it's not my business and it's not the point of this story. I'll say only that it was nonviolent and that R never talked about it and neither will I. A few weeks turned into a month. A month turned into a year. His unit sat empty. The landlord eventually re-rented it. I kept the cat. Clementine adjusted to my place but she didn't adjust to R being gone. For the first two months, she sat at my front door every morning from about 6 to 7 a.m. Just staring at it. Waiting. She didn't meow. She didn't scratch. She just sat there and watched the door like she was on a schedule. When I opened it, she'd walk across the shared porch to R's front door — six feet away — and sit in front of it. Sometimes for twenty minutes. Then she'd come back inside. She still does this. Three years. Every single morning. She goes to his door, sits, waits, comes back. His door isn't even his anymore. Someone else lives there now. Clementine doesn't care. She sits at the door she saw him leave through and she waits. About three months after R left, I got a letter in the mail. Handwritten, lined notebook paper, standard prison envelope. It was addressed to Clementine. Not me. The cat. Full name on the envelope — "Clementine, c/o" and then my name and address. I opened it. It was a short letter. I'm not going to share the exact words because they're not mine. But I'll describe it. He wrote to her like she was a person. He told her about his day. He told her what he ate for dinner. He told her he missed sitting on the couch with her. He told her he was sorry for leaving. He said he'd be home and to be good for me. He signed it with his initial and drew a small picture of a cat face at the bottom. Not well. Just a circle with triangle ears and whiskers. Like a child would draw. I read it out loud to Clementine because I didn't know what else to do. She sat on the kitchen floor and looked at me the entire time. When I finished, I put the letter on the floor to see what she'd do. She sniffed it. Then she sat on it. I thought it was a coincidence. The next month, another letter arrived. Same format. Handwritten, addressed to the cat. I read it to her. I put it on the floor. She sat on it. She has done this with every single letter. Thirty-four letters over thirty-four months. She sits on each one. Every time. She stays on it for five, ten, sometimes twenty minutes. Then she gets up and walks away and I put the letter in a shoebox in my closet. I have thirty-four handwritten letters from a man in prison to his cat in a Nike shoebox on my closet shelf. Every one of them is addressed to Clementine. Every one of them asks how she's doing and tells her he's coming home. The letters have changed over three years. The early ones were short and rough. He didn't write much. By year two, they got longer. He started telling her about books he was reading. He started asking me questions in the margins — "is she eating okay" or "does she still like the window spot." I started writing back. Short notes. Updates. I sent him a photo of Clementine once and he wrote back that he put it on his wall. He gets out in November. I haven't told R about the door thing. I haven't told him that his cat walks to his old front door every morning and sits there. I haven't told him about the letters, about how she sits on every single one. I'll tell him when he gets home. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll just hand him the shoebox and let her show him herself. People are going to judge R. People judge people who go to prison. I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for him or to make him a hero. He made choices. He did his time. That's between him and the law. But what I will say is this. You learn something about a person from how their animal waits for them. Clementine has not forgotten this man for one single day in three years. She goes to his door every morning. She sits on his letters. She sleeps on a t-shirt of his that I kept in her bed because it was the only thing that stopped her from crying the first month. Animals don't wait like that for people who weren't good to them. That's not how it works. You can't fake what Clementine does every morning at that door. Three years. Rain, snow, July heat. Same door. Same routine. Waiting for the same person. Whatever R did or didn't do, he was good to that cat. And she is keeping his seat warm until he gets back. November. Four months. I hope she hears his footsteps before I do. I think she's earned that