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September 1989
Andrei is in the middle of a months-long campaign for a pet.
He’s been very methodical about the whole thing. Katya is in on it, and helps validate his arguments, but he’s the driving force behind the whole thing—he started out subtle, talking about the pets of his friends at school, or pointing out the dogs he would see out and about, or mentioning something about animals he’d learned in school or on TV. He was also making sure to get all his chores done on time, because Katya pointed out this would be the next hurdle—showing he was responsible enough to take care of one.
In the last week or so, he’s ramped things up a little bit. He has a timeline—Christmas is in a few months, and that’s going to help his cause a lot, he thinks. Around then is when he plans to pull out his full-fledged presentation on why he should have a pet. For now, he’s just been talking about what life could be like if he had one. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could go for walks with a dog instead of by himself? Wouldn’t it be nice to go to sleep with a cat cuddling with him? Wouldn’t it be fun to teach a songbird how to sing songs, or to watch a lizard eat bugs? He would even settle for a fish tank if it came down to it.
Mama is going to be a hard sell, Andrei can already tell. Florence is far more persuadable. He’s going to have to focus his efforts there.
Fortunately, Andrei’s timeline moves up a lot one Friday when he and Katya are walking home from school. They’re almost past a big grassy lot next to the sidewalk when they hear the sound of pathetic mewling.
The two of them stop in their tracks. Andrei looks up at his sister. “Is that a cat?” he whispers, hardly daring to hope.
Andrei knows that cats can belong to people, even if they’re outside. But they hear the noise again, and they’re wading through the tall grass moments later.
He finds the kitten on the other corner of the lot, struggling to climb through the tall grass. It’s so incredibly tiny, he tears up a little bit when he lays eyes on it. It’s barely bigger than the palm of his hand, and squirms ineffectively when he picks it up and holds it to his chest.
“I want to hold it,” Katya says as soon as she realizes he has it—they squabble over it for a minute, but she’s bigger than him, and she comes out victorious.
“What do we do?” Andrei asks. He can’t take his eyes off it for even a second. It’s stopped struggling against Katya’s hands, apparently having given up. It blinks at Andrei, and the large world around it.
Katya looks conflicted. “We should look for the mama, right?” she ventures.
Andrei pouts, but nods. The thought of the mama cat wandering around unable to find her baby fills him with an acute sense of despair—they need to look for her, at least.
But after an hour of looking through the lot and around nearby neighbors’ yards and asking anyone who walks by, they’ve come up empty—the only other cat they come across, appearing by the sidewalk to investigate what all the mewling is about, is Brutus, the old boy cat that spends his days sleeping on the neighbor’s porch.
The kitten’s cries have become more frequent and sad—or maybe that’s just Andrei’s imagination. “I think it’s hungry,” he says, worried. They don’t have any cat food at home.
Katya nods, chewing on her lip. “We should go home and talk to someone,” she decides.
Andrei wrestles back possession of the kitten for the walk home, and it settles easily into his arms. It’s a little white and gray cat with light blue eyes, and Andrei thinks he would die for it if the need arose.
The closer they get to home, the more nervous he is about how Mama will react. He hasn’t had the appropriate amount of time to work on her, there’s still months left in his timeline. Will she be willing to accept a cat into her life now? Maybe she’ll be won over by how cute it is.
When they get home, it’s Florence who meets them at the door.
“There you two are! It’s late, I was getting worried,” she says. “Did something happen?”
“Uh,” Katya says. She shifts, bringing the kitten into view.
Florence gasps. “Where did that come from?” she cries.
“We found it by the sidewalk,” Andrei rushes to explain. “We looked everywhere for the mama but we couldn’t find her, and it’s so little and hungry, can we please keep it Florence? Please please please?” He adds on his best pleading eyes, and Katya does the same—she can’t possibly resist the both of them, and Andrei can see in her eyes that she’s cracking under the pressure immediately.
“Well… I think we can at least keep it for the night, while we figure out what to do,” she says hesitantly. “Your mother won’t be home until a little bit later. We’ll discuss it with her.”
“But it’s hungry now,” Katya says. The kitten mews helpfully. “What do we do?”
Florence wrings her hands. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting to be faced with this today. “Alright—let’s go to the pet store. We can ask what to do and pick up some food.”
Andrei hides his grin until Florence has gone to get her keys. Once they have cat food, it’ll be practically impossible for his parents to try to kick the kitten out.
The people at the pet store tell them the kitten is too young to be away from its mother, and will need to be fed every few hours for the next couple of weeks. Florence looks supremely unsure about that information, but Andrei takes it all in with determination and commits it to memory. He doesn’t care—he’ll get up as many times as he needs to to feed it. They pick up bottles, kitten formula, and some canned food, along with a litter box and litter, and Andrei and Katya even talk Florence into getting a couple of toys.
It’s practically a done deal. Florence helps them prepare the kitten food and watches them take turns feeding it. Andrei makes sure to lay it on thick how happy he is, and to thank Florence profusely.
And then Mama comes home.
By that point, the two of them are following the little creature as it toddles around the house. She looks unmoved by how adorably tiny the kitten is, and that isn’t a good sign.
“That can’t stay here,” she says firmly.
Andrei has practically already started crying. “Why not?” he asks, distraught.
“Because I’m allergic to cats,” his mother says, folding her arms over her chest.
Florence winces. Andrei sees his whole life, all the plans he’d made that involved this little kitten, crumble before his eyes.
He isn’t above crying and begging, and over the next hour, he does a lot of that. He tries to pull out all his carefully planned-out arguments, but it’s too early in the timeline, he hasn’t had time for them to be truly effective yet. Katya tries to help, and Andrei sees her lip wobble a few times at the thought of losing their beloved little kitten, but their mother stands firm.
Finally, Andrei removes himself from the situation—he and Katya go out to sit on the front porch, the kitten wandering around between them. They take turns redirecting it from the edge and dangling the little string toy around for it to play with.
“Maybe it can live outside,” Andrei sniffs.
“What if it gets lost?” Katya asks. “Or something happens to it?”
The thought is too much to contemplate—a big dog coming by and snatching it up, or it getting hit by a passing car. Andrei could never go on. “Yeah,” he sighs. His mother had suggested taking it to a shelter. They would never see it again.
Gently, Florence opens the front door and comes outside. “Hey, guys,” she says softly.
“Hey,” Katya says, flat and devastated.
Florence sits down criss-cross on the porch with them. “I’m really sorry,” she says. “I didn’t realize your mum was allergic to cats. It’s never come up.”
Katya hadn’t known either, and she’d known Mama longer than either Florence or Andrei, so it probably isn’t Florence’s fault. That doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking—Andrei can only find it in himself to shrug weakly.
Florence pats her knees decisively. “Well. I might have a solution,” she says. Andrei looks up. “I can’t guarantee anything, but—I called over to your father’s, and invited him and Freddie over for dinner. They’ll be here soon. I mentioned on the phone that you’d found a kitten that you’ve gotten terribly attached to.”
Andrei’s breath catches. He hadn’t considered that possibility before. “Do you think they’ll want to keep it?” he whispers, hardly able to believe it after the emotional roller coaster of the day. “And we can see it when we visit?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Florence says. “But you had some pretty convincing arguments in there. Plus we’ve already bought all the supplies. I think you could make a good case for it.”
Andrei meets Katya’s. Andrei is filled with a new sense of determination—Florence leaves them on the porch to plan, and before too long, Papa and Freddie walk up.
They meet them on the front stairs. Andrei holds the kitten up to their eye level. “Look what we found on our way home from school!”
He is careful to study their split-second reactions. On Papa’s face, he sees mild surprise. On Freddie’s he sees weakness.
“Jesus, it’s so small,” Freddie says, bringing his fist up to his mouth. “Where’s the mom?”
“We looked everywhere, we couldn’t find her,” Katya says sadly. “We found it lost in the tall grass. Florence took us to the pet store to get food, and they said it’s too young to be away from its mom, so it needs to be fed every few hours, otherwise it’ll die.”
That’s good, Andrei thinks—plant the image in their mind, of something bad happening to this poor, defenseless, adorable creature if no one intervenes.
“Your mother is letting you keep it?” Papa asks, sounding surprised.
This is Andrei’s cue. He lets his eyes well up with tears. “No… she said we can’t keep it because she’s allergic,” he sniffles. “But—Florence said maybe you would want to keep it.”
The two men stare at him and Katya’s pleading expressions, and the squirming kitten, with looks of mixed emotions. They look at each other, and Andrei is pretty sure they’ve got them.
“We travel a lot,” Papa says, his voice low.
“Okay, well…” Freddie trails off, motioning to the children. “They could come take care of it while we’re gone, right?”
“Right!” Katya interjects, and both of them nodding enthusiastically. “We’ll take good care of it, promise.”
Papa looks unsure. “You said it needed to be fed every few hours?” he asks them.
That one is a little harder. “Only for a couple of weeks. And we can do it this weekend! We can take turns staying overnight and feeding it,” Andrei says. He thinks fast, seeing he needs to escalate things a little bit. “Here, Freddie, do you want to hold it?”
Andrei doesn’t wait for an answer, holding the kitten up to Freddie’s chest. It instinctively clings to his shirt, and Freddie quickly grabs it, gently extracting the tiny claws from his shirt. He holds it up, and Andrei thinks he might cry.
He looks at Papa, pleading. Papa sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “You’re going to feed it every few hours on school nights?” he asks.
“It’s just for a couple weeks,” Freddie argues softly, as if he’s afraid of startling the kitten. “How bad could it be?”
“When you start to complain, I’m going to remind you you said that,” Papa says. He turns to Andrei and Katya. “You said you already went to the pet store?”
Andrei beams, nodding quickly. “We got food and toys and a litter box. We have everything you need!”
“Alright,” he says, resigned. “Let’s see if your mama will let it stay in the house while we eat, at least.”
Freddie hands Katya the kitten, and the two of them go inside. Katya turns to Andrei, her eyes wide.
“We did it!” Andrei whispers, elated, pumping his fists in the air. He can hardly believe it—he gets to have a pet, and so far ahead of schedule! It’ll be sad that their kitten won’t be able to live at home with them, but Papa always says they can visit whenever they want. They’ll just have to take him up on it more often.
“Maybe we can keep her in the bathroom while we eat,” Katya says, turning to the door.
“Her?” Andrei demands. “It’s not a her!”
“You don’t know that!” Katya says, hugging the kitten to her chest. “We won’t know for a few weeks anyway.”
Andrei huffs. That was what the person at the pet store said—it’s too young to tell one way or the other, yet. “How do we pick a name if we don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy?”
Katya shrugs. “Maybe we pick two, and call her both,” she says.
“That’ll just confuse her—him—it,” Andrei says.
Florence comes to the door, a small smile on her face. “Come on, it’s time for dinner,” she says. “Your mama said you can keep the kitten in one of your rooms for now.”
“My room!” Andrei calls dibs. He runs inside to get the litter box and hauls it upstairs. In the dining room, he sees Papa, Mama and Freddie talking. Papa looks resigned and Mama is shaking her head with exasperation, but Freddie is grinning.
Maybe he’s been campaigning for a pet, too.