On the beaten path

When I woke up at 3:30 that morning to the howling wind and clanging metal chimes on our porch, I immediately worried about the outdoor gang since, the last time I saw them, they were all having their 11 p.m. bedtime snack outdoors.

My husband, Jim, God bless him, made the mistake of rolling over just about then, and I said, ‘I’m worried about the cats.’

He groggily asked why, and when I told him about the wind, he said they were OK and not to worry.

‘But they’re like our babies,’ I said.

He said, ‘It’s 3:30 in the morning!’

But he got up, puts Sam in the room with me and closed the bedroom door.

From my position in the warm bed, I could hear him whistling for cats as the wind continues to howl.

I heard two trips across the kitchen to the basement door and back again.

Then came a horrendous chorus of terrified meows!

It was Phoenix, Jim’s favorite, the little girl he calls Puffball because of her ‘fluffiness’ (read: paunch!). She had leaped out of his hands and was crying at the top of her lungs. She was under our kitchen table scared to death, and she wouldn’t come near him.

Genius that I am, I went to “help,” forgetting about Sam who was hearing all of the commotion, too!

I opened the bedroom door, and naturally, Sam went right after Phoenix.

Jim was yelling at me for letting Sam out and yelling at him for hissing at Puffball! I tried to separate them and yelled to Jim to open the outer door to the house as Puffball wiggled free of Sam and from under the table.

She got close enough to him so Jim could shove her out the door with his toe, and into the night she went on the dead run.

Then I saw Jim, standing there in the kitchen in his shorts, with no glasses on, his bathrobe askew and half open, hair all messed.

I saw a series of deep, red scratches on his belly and hands from his tussle with Puffball.

I saw the fury in his eyes, but miraculously, he didn’t unleash it on me.

Instead, he said, “I’m going to bed.”

My barrage of apologies fell on deaf ears as we got back in bed, which is when I was suddenly overcome with a great wave of love for him and the sacrifices he makes just to make me happy.

I bet he wishes 10 times a day every day that he was still single.

But it is my tremendous blessing that he is not.

I started to cry because I am so grateful that he is mine, but hearing me crying, of course, made him feel bad since he thought I was crying because he had yelled at me during the fracas.

I couldn’t make myself be understood that it was a good cry not a bad cry I was having, but when I was finally able to get a grip and tell him, he gave me kind of a sigh of resignation and understanding and rolled over.

The wind was still howling, but I kept my mouth shut.

And Puffball appeared on the porch for breakfast unscathed.