Helen Brown - Cats & Daughters: They Don’t Always Come When Called

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Becoming an international author has brought some amazing people into my life. Michaela Hamilton and her team at Citadel have done a tremendous job introducing my books to American readers. I had no idea our family stories would be embraced so warmly in the United States. Michaelas a cat person from way back, and Ill always be grateful for her dynamism and enthusiasm.

Heartfelt thanks to the wonderful U.S. readers who sent e-mails. Ive loved reading your stories and tried to respond to them all. Thank you for recommending my books to your friends. Its the kindest thing you can do for an author.

Ive often wondered why authors thank their agents. Since the divine Elizabeth Sheinkman of William Morris took me on Ive understood why. Along with her assistant, Jo Rodgers, Elizabeth is an authors dreamcheerleader and visionary rolled into one.

Gratitude to Louise Thurtell of Allen and Unwin in Sydney. And to the many international publishers who translated Cats and Daughters and Cleo into their own languages.

To the medics who guided me through breast cancer, thank you is not enough. Scribbling a book or two is nothing compared to the work you do saving lives.

People sometimes ask how the members of my family feel being the subject of my books. Theyre incredibly tolerant and bighearted. Philip, Katharine, Rob, Chantelle, and babies Annie and Stellayou are the jewels of my life.

Deepest thanks of all to Lydia for so generously agreeing to be central to this story. No doubt youd tell it differently from your perspective. Perhaps someday you will. In the meantime, I hope you appreciate this book for what it is... a kind of love story.

And Jonah, if youre reading this, that goes for you, too.

www.helenbrown.com

About the Author

H ELEN B ROWN was born and brought up in New Zealand, where she first worked as a journalist, TV presenter, and scriptwriter. A multi-award-winning columnist, Helen now lives in Mel-bourne, Australia, with her family and feline. Cleo rose to the top of the bestseller lists in its first weeks in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, and Australia, and has been translated into more than sixteen languages. You can visit Helen Brown at www.helenbrown.com and follow her on Facebook.

Whiskers Tip

I never thought wed end up with a cat crazy enough to want to go for walks. But felines change people. I should know that.

As evening shadows crawl across the kitchen, Jonahs footsteps drum down the hall. He appears in front of me, his red harness snared between his teeth.

Not now, I say, peeling a carrot. Dinners only half an hour away.

His eyes widen to become a pair of lakes. He sits neatly in front of me, snakes his tail over his front feet, and examines my face. What do cats see when they look at people? They must be appalled by our lack of fur.

After a moments reflection, Jonah, still carrying the harness, stands up and pads toward me. He balances on his back feet and stretches his impossibly long body against mine. Patting my abdomen with his front paw, he flattens his ears and puts his head to one side. Lowering himself to ground level again, he drops the harness at my feet and emits a baleful meow.

Irresistible.

Crouching, I clip the harness around his soft, athletic body. The cat arches his back in anticipation. His purrs reverberate off the cupboards.

Cruel, too cruel! I hear Mums voice saying. Cats are wild animals. What are you doing to this poor creature?

Its strange how Mum stays inside my head, even years after shes gone. I wonder if itll be the same for my daughters and theyll hear me wheedling and encouraging them when theyre in rocking chairs.

In an ideal world, Jonah would be free to roam the neighborhood. But times have changed. We live in cities. Roads are plagued with cars.

A normal cat would hate going out in a harness. Three years with Jonah have taught me hes anything but ordinary. Apart from the fact hes learned to love his harness, his obsession with gloves, florist ribbon, and womens evening wear is beyond the realms of feline sanity.

Hes complicated. While he can seem incredibly intelligent sometimes, he thinks cars are for hiding under. Its not that I want to keep him prisoner, but we live in perilous times. He needs to be safe.

Carrying him into the laundry room, I attach the harness to a leash, which is connected to an extension lead, allowing him as much freedom as possible. His purrs vibrate up my arms as I open the back door and place him on the grass.

Standing motionless for a moment, he lifts his nose to savor the warm evening breeze. Its perfume carries stories of mice and pigeons, fluffy white dogs, and catsboth friend and enemy. Tales my human senses are too primitive to detect.

Jonah charges ahead, straining at the lead, harness jingling, as we scamper down the side of the house. His youthful energy is exhausting. His confidence, terrifying. Not for the first time, he reminds me of our older daughter Lydia. In fact, sometimes I think this beautiful, headstrong creature is more like Lydia than like our previous cat, Cleo.

As Jonah pauses at the front gate to sniff the rosemary hedge, I can almost feel Cleo looking down from Cat Heaven and having a good chuckle. Half wild and streetwise, she thought harnesses were for show puppies.

Cats step into peoples lives with a purpose. Many of these magical creatures are healers. When Cleo arrived nearly three decades ago, our family had been shattered to pieces by the death of our nine-year-old son Sam. His younger brother Rob had seen Sam run over and was traumatized. Yet I was so paralyzed with grief and anger toward the woman driver I was incapable of giving Rob the support he needed. Part of my anguish came from the thought of Sam dying alone on the roadside. As it turned out, Id been misled. Years later, I received a letter from a wonderful man, Arthur Judson, who said hed been on the roadside and stayed with Sam the whole time.

It took the arrival of a small black kitten called Cleo to make six-year-old Rob smile again. Cleo seemed to understand we were in crisis. Through cuddles, play, and constant companionship, shed helped Rob embark on a new life without his older brother. For the first time I understood how profound the healing powers of animals can be.

Our lives changed after Sams death and our hearts never healed completely. But through the years, Cleo stood guardian over us as we slowly pieced ourselves together. Shed curled around my expanding girth through a subsequent pregnancy, then kept me company during endless nights of feeding baby Lydia. A few years later shed been my divorce buddy and, when I was ready, cast a feline eye over my pathetically few suitors to make sure I chose wisely. As it was, Philipthe first man Cleo approved ofturned out to be the right choice, even if he spends most of his life on a plane these days. Before our daughter Katharine was born, Cleo resumed her tummy-curling duties and was with me during the breastfeeding again.

Of all our children, Rob had forged the strongest bond with Cleo. Shed played kitten games with him throughout his boyhood and watched over him when he was struck by serious illness in his early twenties. That little black cat had seen us through grief, migration to Australia and, ultimately, a messy kind of contentment. Then, around the time Rob fell in love with the girl of his dreams, Chantelle, Cleo took a gracious step back and suddenly sprouted white whiskers. It was almost as if she felt her work was done with Rob grown up and happy, and our family on its feet, more or less. She was finally free to leave us and move on to Cat Heaven, if theres such a place.

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