“She was so small when I found her.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t walk away.”
“I know.”
I turned toward him.
“That’s one of the reasons I married you.”
“Because I rescue kittens?”
“No.”
I smiled.
“Because when you find something that needs you, you stay.”
He was silent.
Then he said,
“I stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Not only with Scout.”
I knew what he meant.
“No.”
“With you.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty years.”
“Yes.”
Then quietly:
“I love you, Ellen.”
“I know.”
“I should say it more.”
“You say it in other ways.”
“Like kitten formula at nine-thirty at night?”
“Yes.”
“And sleeping in the back seat?”
“Yes.”
“And contingency rescue organizations?”
“Especially those.”
He laughed.
Then he fell asleep.
At four in the morning, my alarm went off.
I went downstairs.
Scout was awake in her box, looking directly at me.
On the counter was David’s notepad.
Exact amount of formula.
Correct temperature.
Feeding instructions.
And one final note:
She likes to be held with her head slightly elevated.
I warmed the formula.
Then I picked her up exactly the way David had written.
She drank.
She was unbelievably small.
But there was something fierce about her tiny existence.
As if being alive was something she had already decided she was going to keep doing.
When she finished, I returned her to the box.
Within minutes, she was asleep.
I remained at the kitchen table.
I thought about David in the garage at two in the morning.
Then four.
Then six.
Every two hours.
Holding something small that had no one else.
I thought about all the things people carry alone because they are frightened that sharing them will somehow make them more fragile.
And how often those things would actually become easier if we simply allowed someone else to help us hold them.
I thought about seventeen years of sleeping on the same sides of the same bed.
The chipped green coffee mug.
The routines.
The habits.
The thousand tiny choices that slowly become a marriage.
And I thought about a tiny kitten beneath our back steps looking at David.
She needed someone.
He happened to be there.
So he stayed.
Sometimes that is what love looks like.
Not grand speeches.
Not perfect decisions.
Sometimes it is driving to a pet store at nine-thirty at night.
Setting an alarm every two hours.
Sleeping in the back seat of a car.
Leaving detailed feeding instructions on a kitchen counter.
And learning that the person beside you should have been trusted with the difficult thing from the beginning.
I went back upstairs.
David was still sleeping.
I returned to my side of the bed.
He remained on his.
Downstairs, Scout slept safely in her box.
She wouldn’t always be that tiny.
Soon she would grow strong enough that she wouldn’t need someone waking at four in the morning to feed her.
But that night, she was still small.
And we were there.
Together.
For that moment, it was enough.
Maybe that was the whole point.
Sometimes being there is everything.
