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You’ve always hated home, the air tainted with the stench of unpleasant memories under what felt like an overlay filter of putrid green. The walls, a grungy yellow from years of avoiding a repaint, and several generations worth of grimey children running their hands along the walls as they ran. Grey and green couches and loveseats respectively sat along the walls of the living room, surrounding the glass table that was just barely see-through due to the accumulation of dust on its surface. The atmosphere was always thick, filled with residual stress of bad memories; while you’re hesitant to admit there were some good ones, they’re faded, difficult to reach. You got the call that the house was left to you, their only reachable child, many years ago, but only just now had mustered the will to turn lukewarm brass handle of the swollen wooden door and enter the living room. You’ve never associated this quaint farm house with a place even capable of nurturing life, and having proven yourself right with the visit you turn around to leave the house for the time. The humid and mossy air suffocates your every movement, almost as if the house wants you to stay, trapping you in the very place it did for eighteen years.
Your hear a distressed and high pitched yelp from behind you and you jump a bit, the humidity's grip suddenly releasing it’s hold on you long enough for you to whip your head around to the source of the noise. An adult cat, it’s short grey fur almost slick with the water in the air, sat in the far corner of the room faced away from you, meows again, this time, much louder. You draw closer to it, slowly, not surprised that such a decrepit house has a wild animal infestation, but interested in the cat nonetheless. It seems to be doing too much shouting of its own to realize you’re now crouching right next to it. You come to see that ‘it,’ is actually a ‘she,’ carrying a decent sized litter of kittens inside of, what you assume used to be, her white fur covered tummy. She’s laboring, beneath her a puddle of whatever uterine originated bodily fluid, and even though you don’t owe a thing to a feral cat in a trauma ridden childhood home you feel a moral responsibility to stay with her, ‘it must be horrible to give birth all alone,’ you think. And so, you stay there, sat next to her for hours before being greeted with a clowder of hairless, mini-hers. The mother is exhausted, and knowing she’s safe and watched over, she lays down next to her squirmy pride and joys, and naps. Another hour passes, and then another, and you stay in the house. It no longer feels like you're struggling against the current to leave, but drifting in a lazy river, to get to your destination.
You’ve almost nodded to sleep yourself, woken again only by the collective shout of the grey tabby and your phone's notifications. You yawn softly before looking again at the litter, and the cat meows at you again softly, as if to thank you for staying with her and watching over her at her most vulnerable, just as she did you. She seems rested, and as you stand up from the carpet, soft and velvety from what used to be overwhelming moisture in the air, you have a feeling they’ll all be fine. You pull your phone out of its pocket and read the text from your partner, asking how the visit to the house went. You look back at the cozy cottage, frozen in time as you grasp the smooth metal handle to crack the door, stepping outside.
“Good.” You text them, “It went really good.”