But evenings were harder.
Once dinner was finished and the dishes were put away, there was nothing to interrupt the clock in the hallway.
So I walked.
Most afternoons, I followed the creek beyond the last fence line. I learned where rabbits appeared at dusk and which trees sheltered birds when the weather turned.
One November evening, after a night of cold rain, I heard something beneath the roots of a fallen oak.
A thin, broken sound.
I almost kept going. It was so faint I thought it might be a bird somewhere farther away.
Then I heard it again.
Under the roots sat a gray kitten, soaked through, trembling hard enough to shake the leaves around him.
He tried to retreat when I crouched down.
He managed only a few inches.
There were no houses nearby. No barns. Nothing that explained how something that small had ended up there.
