Turns out The Cat has a past, and she’s a he, but we want this to work

We probably should have gone to the vet a bit sooner. If we had, then when he told us The Cat was chipped and its owner wanted her back, we wouldn’t have already been nearly five months deep with her. She wouldn’t have had time to learn how to knock on my bedroom window with her paw, demanding admission at all hours of the night. She wouldn’t have been sleeping on my bed, if only we’d jumped sooner.

But for ages I kept thinking she would leave again, just as suddenly as she’d appeared and moved in on the day my brother died. And in the wildness of my grief, I didn’t want to face the vet I’d last seen when we said goodbye to The Dog, a year ago today. When I checked the website, it said they were only treating sick animals during Level Five, and The Cat was in rude health and I was really busy with work and maybe I didn’t want to know.

But when a stray cat has been living with you for almost five months, you have to do the responsible thing and enrol it for vaccines. So we borrowed a cat carrier from her arch enemy across the road and she cried all the way to the surgery.

And then she stopped and I considered starting when the scanner emitted a decisive beep and the vet confirmed that our cat had a provenance and a contactable owner. The bigger shock was that she also had a penis. Which was mortifying, obviously, for all of us, including The Cat. Suddenly, his reluctance to wear a bow on Christmas Day made sense.

But in the moment, the bigger issue was the owner and the due process that would now take over. The vet would call the owner, explain that her cat had shown up and see if she wanted it back. Then he would call me.

For a day, my broken heart was just freshly bruised. The Arch Enemy’s owner reassured me with stories of chipped cats whose owners had moved away, or had babies or a million other reasons why they no longer wanted a cat. And surely that would happen in this case, because why would a cat show up at our door on the day my cat-loving brother died if they were just going to leave again while I was only barely standing?

And then came the vet’s call, and confirmation that the delighted owner would love to have him back. He suggested I drop him off at the surgery and the owner could collect him there. Or I could phone the owner, he said, and we could make the arrangement ourselves.

Which is what I did, though not before I looked at Mark’s photo and had a very urgent word with him. You got me into this cat-shaped pickle, I reminded him; you can’t let it end like this. The owner was lovely, and she and her children had been so thrilled to hear F **** had shown up (I’m redacting The Cat’s original name to protect the innocent). It turned out that they had lived on the road that backed onto ours with their two young cats before they moved to another house, about 15 minutes away, and after two weeks F **** had gone missing. That was two years ago. I assured her that he was healthy and very content in our home, if a little gender confused. And we chatted a bit more and she said she was a bit worried that F **** might wander off again because he didn’t know their area and they lived on a main road. And she would discuss the situation with her children that night and phone me back.

My own kids were already very, very sad that The Cat was leaving, so I didn’t tell them there might be a shard of hope. Instead, I stormed the heavens and then the owner called back and said that she and her amazing children had agreed that the best thing for The Cat was that he would stay with us. And I thanked her, I thanked Mark and then I told the kids and we all cried again and Markie eyed us from my bed with his usual disdain and presented himself for more cuddles.

I know where he came from now, but at the same time, I don’t really know where he came from. All I can say for sure is that he came into my life on the worst day of it, and he has made every day since a bit more bearable. And finally, he is home.