A few years ago, a stray tabby cat picked her way gingerly through my backyard. She was shabby and thin, jumpy and timid. By the time I’d opened my back door to try to see her more closely, she’d already fled.
I’m a hopeless cat lover. I left out some food. The next day, the tabby was back, eating my offering with tension quivering in every hair. I peeked out at her through my back window. She was a charming molasses-cookie brown under her stripes. Her left ear was cut flat—the sign she had been trapped, spayed, and released again.
Again I tried to go outside. Again she was gone.
I put out breakfast the next morning. She came back. Over time, she stopped running, first staying a few yards away and then waiting for me every morning. I began to call her Jane.
I knew that stray cats weren’t ...
