The spindly wanderer leapt through Mattie’s window Sunday afternoon, undaunted by a sweltering, mosquito-fat humidity. Its coat, a raggedy indigo blue, was soft beneath her ancient fingertips.

Mattie was confident her caregivers, with their hateful, gliding vowels and condescending consonants, would hardly tolerate it—so she kept the darned thing.

Jennifer Fales is an award-winning author and freelance writer from Southern California.