Married: 5 years
"Missy dear, are you playing kitty?" Rapunzel asked her daughter, looking up from her book. She could've sworn she had heard a cat's meow. Certainly not!
Three-year-old Missy whirled around, grinning. "Meow? Meow," she tried to imitate a cat's meow at the mention of kitty. Rapunzel smiled at her, but set her paperback book aside and tilted an ear towards the front door. A hot breeze eased lazily through the house from the door, which was cracked open. Missy went back to playing with her blocks on the floor, but the noise persisted.
Finally, Rapunzel got up from the couch and strode to the front door, opening it to find a gray and white cat.
"Well, hello," Rapunzel knelt on the floor, holding her hand out to it. The cat, whose belly was quite round but whose hipbones were jutting out from the rough, dirty patchwork coat, shied away from her hand. Missy pounded over towards the door, giggling and reaching her chubby hands out. "No, sweetie - stay back. I don't know if it's friendly or not. It's scared right now. You can watch, but you can't touch it yet. Okay?" Rapunzel turned around and addressed her daughter gently. She poked her lower lip out in a pout, sitting down and crossing her little arms. A moment later, though, she was leaning up against Rapunzel's shoulder, watching with curious brown eyes.

The cat stared warily. Rapunzel cooed to it, trying to gain its trust. Finally, she stood up and, shutting the door and asking Missy to follow her, she headed to the kitchen.
"What're you gonna do, Mommy? Is it okay?"
"I'm not sure, honey. We have to make sure it isn't sick. But I'm going to get it a can of tuna and we'll see if it eats and drinks." Rabies was her main concern, obviously; but the cat wasn't acting disoriented. She opened a can of tuna and bustled back to the door, setting the can on the porch. The cat stared warily at her for a moment, but then approached and immediately began eating. When the can was emptied, Rapunzel pulled it back inside to fill it with water, setting it back outside. The cat drank thirstily, kneading the cement porch with its claws. It looked up at her and meowed, then went back to the water.
"Is it okay?" Missy asked once more.
Rapunzel nibbled her lip. "It seems okay, but don't pet it yet. I don't want you to get sick. Okay? I'm going to call Daddy - why don't you pick up your blocks?"
"No, I'm still playing!" Missy exclaimed, running back to the living room. Rapunzel grinned, shaking her head, and retrieved her cell phone.

"Hey, hon. What's up?" She could tell Eugene had his mouth full; she must've disturbed he and Levi's lunch break despite the fact that it was nearly two o'clock.
"Ah, we have a stray cat on the porch right now. I'm not sure what to do; I gave it some food and water, but it won't stop crying," Rapunzel peered out the door at the creature before continuing, "I don't know if it's wormy or what, but it's really chubby in the belly, and its hipbones are protruding. I don't know if someone lost it, or...I don't know. What do I do?"
Eugene cleared his throat, processing this. "Is it acting disoriented? Frothy along its mouth?"
"No," Rapunzel shook her head as if he could see. "Should I bring it inside? It's supposed to rain later. I don't want the poor thing to get all wet. It seems...it's not disoriented, but it seems concerned."
Eugene held back a groan. Their house was likely about to be infested with fleas. He didn't mind animals, but fleas? They were nothing but pesky little beasts, and terrible annoyances. "Put it in the bathroom, I guess. Then if it messes, it's just contained to one small area. I'll get some litter and a box for it before I come home. Tomorrow, we'll see if someone's missing a cat or if the humane society will take it."
"Okay," Rapunzel glanced back outside, then towards Missy. "Now the real battle begins: keeping Missy out of the bathroom when she realizes that a kitty's in there." She dropped her voice to a whisper at the mention of kitty.
Eugene chuckled. "Good luck. I should be home around six, okay? I love you."
"Love you too," she ended the call and perched her hands on her hips a moment, surveying the situation. The cat continued meowing at the door, pacing back and forth. Rapunzel rushed up her spiral staircase into her painting studio-slash-library, carefully emptying a box of new canvases and brushes. It was just the right size for a cat. Taking some of her scrap towels, she made a bed in the box for the cat, then got two small dishes: one for more tuna, and one for water. After setting this all in the bathroom on the main floor, Rapunzel went out onto the porch and crouched down. "Hi, kitty-cat. What's got you so upset?" she asked, wiggling her fingers at the cat.

The cat, which she now placed as a female, stared at her pensively with golden eyes. Finally, she raised a paw to her face, rubbing it clean, and then licked her stomach a few times before looking back at Rapunzel, ears stuck between being plastered back in anger or fear and being pricked upwards with curiosity. Continuing to coo compliments to the cat, Rapunzel inched forward on the deck, shuffling her feet. One nosy neighbor stared at her peculiar actions for a second, but she didn't notice. When the cat didn't run, she reached out to tickle its chin. The cat leaned into her touch, so Rapunzel scooted over and scooped the cat right up.
"For being so bony, you're plenty firm down here," Rapunzel notified the cat, carrying it inside. She deposited it in the bathroom and showed it the tuna and water. The cat drank more, but ignored the food. It resumed pacing the room, releasing a quiet chirp once in awhile. Rapunzel slipped back outside of the bathroom after scrubbing her hands and arms, and then returned her attention to her daughter.

When Eugene came home bearing items from the local pet shop, they ate supper and waited until Missy was off to bed before they tended to the cat. Eugene went in first, while Rapunzel tucked Missy in bed.
"Rapunzel!" Eugene's howl traveled up the staircase. Rapunzel carefully shut Missy's door and headed for the staircase. "I thought you said there was one!"
"There is only one!" Rapunzel hollered, pounding down the staircase.
"I can count!" he yelled back, "And there's five-"
"I'm here, no need to yell," Rapunzel appeared behind him, and he sidled over so she could see, pointing wordlessly, "and I can guarantee-oh my goodness!"
The gray and white cat lay curled up - not in the box made for her, but on the bathmat. Wadded on top of the soft bathmat was one of Eugene's shirts; both articles she must have pulled from the laundry basket in the bathroom. She purred and kneaded the messy shirt as four little balls of fur nursed at her stomach, which wasn't nearly as firm now. The tuna was gone once more.
"She must have had them while we were eating," Rapunzel gasped, hurrying in and kneeling a short distance away. "Your big belly wasn't due to worms, I take it! You're a momma cat!"
Eugene stood, staring in disbelief. "Four kittens. Four kittens and a mother. What're we going to do with them? And on my good shirt to boot. Well, we don't have a clean bathmat anymore, but we have cats. Five of them."
"That must've been why she was crying so much. She wanted a safe place to have her little ones," Rapunzel held a hand out carefully to the cat, who stared warily at her. So as to not scare her, Rapunzel withdrew her hand. "Poor girl! Wonder how long she's been wandering the streets, then?"
"Long enough, I suppose," Eugene sighed, coming to his senses enough to start setting up the litter box. "I'll call the humane society in the morning, I guess. I don't even know if they'll take a brood of kittens."
"Oh, but how can you be very upset?" Rapunzel asked. "Look how precious they are!"
"...Fleas everywhere...Curtains shredded...Pascal mutilated-" Eugene continued to mumble potential tragedies.
"Pascal will not be mutilated," Rapunzel broke him off. "He'd stay away from them. Thought we were calling the humane society tomorrow, though."
"Like I said, they might not even take them," Eugene reminded her. "And then we're in a huge pickle."
"Not a huge pickle. Just...one midsize pickle and four teensy pickles. Doesn't amount to a huge pickle," the optimist reasoned.
"Wouldn't that equal one huge pickle, then? Four teensy plus one midsize?" Eugene, though teasingly, shot back with mild annoyance.
Rapunzel shook her head. "No. A large pickle, perhaps; not a huge one. Huge would be, what, extra large?"
Eugene groaned and shook his head. "I'm gonna choose to be the optimist and hope that we won't have to have five cats for very long."

The next morning, as predicted, the humane society would not take the cats. They were full-up with cats- just like most other shelters in the area, apparently. Eugene bumped his head on the edge of the bookstore's old pickup bed with frustration. And then he came home to an elated three-year-old and a wife whose eyes showed that she was in love with these cats. Two tabbies, one gray and white, and one gray kitten made up the litter. The mother cat grew more trusting with more tuna - and the small bag of cat food Eugene brought home didn't hurt. To Rapunzel's patient explaining, Eugene was shown that the cat did not have an infestation of fleas.
"You were probably more filthy when I first let you stay here than she is," Rapunzel teased him gently.
"Well, yeah - she can clean herself! I couldn't," Eugene defended himself indignantly.
"I know we'll have to rehome them, though. Or at least most of them..." she trailed off.
"Show me some flea medication and we'll talk," Eugene said. To his surprise, Rapunzel dashed out of the bathroom, came back with a piece of paper, and showed him the cart list and tracking number of the order she'd just placed: flea medication, wormer, special kitten food for when they got old enough, and a couple of toys. He tried to be mad, but couldn't.

Seven weeks later, three of the four almost two-month-old kittens were rehomed. It turned out that Levi knew the manager at a horse boarding stable; all three of the kittens would be used as barn cats to keep the rodent population in check. The leftover tabby and the mother cat stayed at the cozy Victorian house. Pascal spent most of his time in the painting studio, or on cupboards where the rambunctious kitten couldn't catch him. The mother cat was patient with Missy and allowed her to pet and play with her. The kitten seemed drawn to Eugene, especially when he was working on manuscripts through the night when everyone else was asleep. Maybe the cats' presence could be tolerated. And not a flea was to be found.