waifs and strays: a love story

I have a problem but I've got it under control

Somehow I managed to take in another stray this week. A bit of a relapse, I confess. I have a problem with strays, a history. In my late teens and twenties it was bad, and I thought it was over but I guess I let my guard down. Because of all the therapy, I believed I’d kicked it for good. But Gracie (pictured above) has put an end to that.

All the therapy has helped though. I am, for instance, now conscious of the fact that my stray problem is a symptom of certain latent rescuer tendencies which are linked to my insecure-avoidant attachment style which is the result of growing up a parentified — I’m actually bored of talking about it. See? Therapy works.

So I relapsed but I am definitely more grown up and self aware, but as I found out this week, this is different from cured. Turns out my stray habit wasn’t over or even in remission, it was just lying dormant, biding its time in my unconscious, waiting for the right helpless scrounging mammal to cross my path. I have no idea how it happened. Okay that’s a lie. But it was an accident this time I swear.

Excluding insects, chipmunks and stunned baby birds, the first stray I really adopted in earnest was Squeak, a fat lazy calico who was abandoned at a house party by hash dealer-actor named Mel. Prior to becoming my ward, Squeak was called Basehead, a name he’d earned by being smoked up by Mel’s deadhead friends as a kitten. Poor Squeak never really recovered from this non-consensual drug experience and was so profoundly stupid he used to jump head first into screen doors. Ungrateful and stupid, it turned out, because he eventually left me for some old lady around the corner who fed him tuna straight from the can.

Next there was Franny, a stunted silver tabby I lifted out of a snowbank and took home under my parka who then moved with me to Montreal for undergrad. When she went into heat during exams, my roommates complained and Franny was dispatched to my mother’s farm. Years later she was murdered by a territorial Jack Russell, causing a years long rift between my mother and her farm wife neighbour. Not long after Mum sold up and moved to the village.

There have been other strays over the years — an errant husky I found on a street corner in Toronto in 2004, a philosopher I met Tinder who turned out to be a married money launderer, a semi-itinerant Brazilian dancer friend of my then-evangelical Christian live-in au pair, a Vietnamese fighting fish who was left on the northbound platform of Baker Street station in a bag. Most of them I shook off or accidentally murdered in time to avoid any lasting damage to my sanity or home life. But with Gracie it’s different. I have kids now and unfortunately they have strong opinions. Even if we don’t give the cat a vote, as a single parent, which means I’m overruled two-to-one.

Here is what I remember about the relapse. It was about 7 pm on a Wednesday, I was strolling home from Tesco with a chicken pizza and box of Tropicana listening to a podcast on cord-cutting rituals. Overhead the sun was straining through the spring clouds. My mood was neutral. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’d had seven hours of sleep the night before.

The next thing I knew I was sitting in my kitchen cleaning black gum from the hypnotic amber eyes of a starving female tabby with a cotton bud. She was skin and bones, mewling, recently postpartum. No kittens in sight thank god. Though I’m not ruling out the possibility she might have a litter hidden somewhere in the house. When the boys piled into the kitchen and started cooing and cheering (kids are invariably pro-stray-adoption), I said something like, ‘Don’t get excited. It’s only one ONE NIGHT.’

The timeline between walking home and the stray ending up in my house remains patchy. A kind of intermittent black out punctured by flashes of dialogue.

There was definitely a young woman in a purple sports bra. ‘Is this your cat?’ she asked. Then me saying something like, ‘I’ve got a cat carrier at home.’ A packet of kitty treats in the young woman’s hand as she scooped up the tabby and carried her into my house due to my own hands being full of groceries. Sports bra saying she lived just around the corner. Me promising to loan her my carrier to take the cat to the vet. Her pointing out the cat’s teats then saying something about the poor thing having lost her babies. Me looking at the cat and thinking, Oh my god you poor thing, some twisted bastards probably bred you for money and put you out with the rubbish.

Sports bra’s last words I do remember for sure. ‘I’ll be back for her tomorrow!’ she said. Then the front door slamming shut.

Then Thursday and Friday came and went. Now it’s Saturday. Predictably, no sign of Sports bra. She doesn’t call, doesn’t text. I’m not even sure if I have her number in my phone.

Last night I caught the her scratching the sofa and this morning she ate half a pound of butter off the counter and I said to the boys, ‘That’s it!’ But then Solly solved the problem with a spritz bottle, which took the wind out of my sails.

While the kids were at school I called the rescue centre and the lady who answer said they’re full up. When I suggested the pound over dinner, Solly barricaded himself in his room with the stray. ‘You’re not taking her to a crematorium!’ he shouted. I told him pounds aren’t like that anymore, hello? It’s 2025? Then he sent me a TikTok link to a hidden camera video footage taken by a PETA activist and I knew it was a fait accompli.

She’s called Gracie after Thomas Cromwell’s daughter who died of smallpox which I guess is kind of sweet. Our other cat is Thomas Cromwell, I should add. And it’s true the two of them look so alike they could be related, plus the real Thomas Cromwell himself took in a lot of strays, which seems fitting. Maybe it’s not the worst thing. Maybe recovery is overrated. Maybe Sports bra will turn up. Who knows?