“My couch goes into the foster room.”
My relief evaporated. “The foster room is for fosters.”
“The foster room is for fosters and for the couch that has sentimental value to me. I’m not getting rid of it, and the fosters will love how comfy and broken in it is. Plus, it smells like me, which is a smell that the fosters find comforting, as documented by the fact that every foster we’ve had has chosen to sleep in my laundry basket.”
“The fosters sleep on your clothes because your clothes are on the floor more than they’re in your laundry basket.”
“The fosters sleep on my clothes because my clothes smell like safety. This is another of the ‘knowing-my-cat methodology’ applied to a broader data set.”
“It’s still not science.”
“It’s my version of science, and that’s all that matters.”
The couch went into the foster room where the current litter of five kittens, which Benji had named Wasabi, Sriracha, Tabasco, Cayenne, and Chipotle (the Spice Girls having been adopted out two months ago to families that I’d vetted with a thoroughness that Benji described as “more rigorous than the Supreme Court confirmation process”), were climbing on Benji’s boxes and batting at packing tape with the chaotic enthusiasm of creatures who believed that the world had been created specifically for their amusement.
Wasabi, the boldest, had claimed the top on the highest box and was surveying her domain with a confidence that reminded me, uncomfortably, of General Tso.
General Tso himself was on the refrigerator, watching the proceedings with the expression of a creature whose territory was being altered without his consent. His tail moved in slow, measured arcs, the metronome of a cat who was processing a great deal of information and would deliver his verdict when he was ready and not a moment before.
Hiro was on his bed, unbothered.
Hiro had been unbothered by everything since the day Benji had sat on my floor at 3 a.m. and stayed until morning. Hiro had decided, with the simpleclarity that dogs bring to emotional decisions, that Benji was his, and everything that followed from that decision was acceptable.
Potato was on the couch.
Potato had been on the couch during every significant event of the past six months.
Potato would be on the couch during every significant event for the foreseeable future.
Potato was the fixed point around which the apartment rotated, immovable and wheezing, a four-legged anchor in a sea of endless shedding and change.
The whiteboard was last.
I stood in front of it with a green marker while Benji sat on the counter, which was his counter now. The whiteboard contained the apartment’s essential information: feeding schedules, foster status, clinic hours, medication protocols, and, in the upper right corner, a section I’d added three months ago titled RESIDENTS, which listed the animals by name, species, and medical status.
I uncapped the green marker and added a line at the top of the RESIDENTS section, above General Tso, above Hiro, above Potato, above the rotating roster of fosters who had passed through this apartment and into families who would love them.
BENJI KWON — PERMANENTRESIDENT
“Permanent,” Benji said, reading it from the counter.
“Permanent,” I agreed. “I even used permanent marker. You can’t be removed.”
“You wrote ‘permanent’ on the whiteboard in green permanent ink next to my name, which you wrote above the cats’ names?”
“Above all the animals. You’re the first entry.”
“I’m the first entry on the whiteboard.”
“You’re the first entry because you’re the most important resident. The cats are essential. The dog is essential. The fosters are temporary. You’re permanent.”
“Peter.”
“The whiteboard is now accurate. It reflects the current configuration of the apartment and its occupants. That current configuration includes you, permanently and in green, which is the correct color for planned and intentional things.”
“Peter, I’m going to need you to stop talking about the whiteboard, because I’m about to cry, and I don’t cry about whiteboards. If I start crying about a whiteboard, that’s a threshold I can’t uncross. I’ll spend the rest of my life being a person who cried about a whiteboard.”
“Whiteboardsare moving. Your emotional response is appropriate. This particular whiteboard contains life-altering information.”
