Chapter One The Tabby in the Window-by Jennifer H.

Ashleigh laid in her bed, an Algebra book open in her lap and a pencil tipping up and down in her hand as she daydreamed absently about what to wear and who she was going with to her junior prom, which was hardly a month away. There was an abrupt knock at her door that brought her back to planet Earth. “Yeah?" she called, knowing it was her mother. Her mother cracked the door open a little and peeked in.
“Will you be eating dinner? It's almost done," she asked. It took Ashleigh a minute to grasp what she had said.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” she said in a spaced-out manner. Her mother furrowed her brows at her and chewed her bottom lip.
“Are you all right?” she asked suspiciously. “You’ve been acting really strange lately.”Ashleigh gave her mother a look of false surprise.
“Really?” she shrugged. “I haven’t noticed.”
“Of course you haven’t, that’s what’s wrong with you!” her mother sighed. “Anyway, come on down before the food gets cold. You’re father won’t be home for another two days.” Ashleigh noticed her mother said the last part with her usual exhaustion and disappointment. Ashleigh’s father was never home, but she was used to it. Her mother, however, could never get over the fact that her father had a job that kept him from his family. She constantly was hurt by it.
Her mother turned abruptly and left, but not before Ashleigh saw the little gleam of tears that were gathering in her eyes. Ashleigh sighed heavily. It was going to be another long night of her mother’s cries echoing down the halls of their seemingly empty house. She felt sorry for her, but it had become routine. Her father went overseas for a long period of time, sometimes for months, and her mother would bawl and curse him and tell Ashleigh what a good-for-nothing man he was, then he’d come home and she’d be too happy to hold it against him, and everything would go back to being the same as it was before he left.
Ashleigh sighed again and tossed her pencil and text book aside and stood from her bed. She glanced at her pink and gold clock on the wall. It was only 5:35. Her mother must have tried to keep herself busy by cooking. That was how she pushed the thought of Ashleigh’s father away. Ashleigh opened up her bed room door, but as she was about to walk, she saw something orange flashed at the window from the corner of her eye. She craned her neck to see what it was. The window curtains were fluttering with the brisk evening wind. Funny, she hadn’t remembered leaving the window open. Cautiously, she walked to the window and looked out of it.
Nothing was there. The pink and orange sun began to set behind the hills of her small, quiet neighborhood. The constant-blowing wind was rigidly cold. Ashleigh exhaled the breath she’d been holding and shut the window and locked it. Not only was she distant these days, but she was beginning to see things that weren’t really there. She shook away the chilled feeling the wind had given her and turned away from the window. She made her way stiffly downstairs to join her mother.

“That man has more problems than anyone should ever have,” her mother ranted as she served Ashleigh a second helping of spaghetti. “Doesn’t he know that he’s going to miss your Aunt Bea’s wedding? Your prom day? Or even…”she trailed off, placing a hand on her swollen belly. “He’s got it coming’ for him when he gets home!” she said, but it didn’t sound as fierce as she had meant it to. Ashleigh smiled at her mother consolingly.
“Mama, you know he wouldn’t do that. He’ll make sure to be here. He knows better,” she assured her with a grin. Her mother smiled back.
“I know, sweetie. I just get so frustrated! All he ever does is work, work, and work! I hate it so bad! Do you know what I mean?” she asked rhetorically. Ashleigh nodded shortly and turned to look down on the mounds of spaghetti her mother had piled too high onto her plate while she had been ranting and raving.
“Um, I think I’ve had enough to eat, Mama, thanks,” she said awkwardly. She scooted back from the table and made her way back upstairs.
“Well, if you’re finished, I’m going to bed. I’ve had a long day today!” her mother called up to her.
“All right,” was all she said in return. She went into her own room and flopped down hard onto her bed, her books, paper, and pencils all bouncing onto the floor. She was too tired to worry about homework. She’d just have to do it on the bus in the morning. It wasn’t long after Ashleigh had drifted into a light sleep when the house phone rang. She heard her mother walk into to living room and answer it.
“Hello?” she asked politely into the receiver. Her mother always forgot to check to caller ID. Her father played pranks on her all the time, calling in with false names. You’d think she would learn from it after the first zillion times. Ashleigh tried to listen in the conversation that suddenly sounded very serious. She got up from her bed and went to the door to crack it open so she could hear the conversation better.
“How could you, James? You’re a lying dog! Did you forget you have a family to raise here? You can’t just keep doing this!” her mother shrieked accusingly into the phone. There was a pause, and then her mother spoke again in a less indignant tone.
“What about the baby? No, I’m not talking about Ashleigh, you idiot! Send you pictures? Is that what you want me to do? As if! You should be hear for the birth of your own child! Tell that idiotic boss of yours that you can’t take the job, that’s what I want you to do!” It went on like this for a good half hour until her father talked her mother down into an almost human speaking level.
“Do what you want,” her mother said, sounding suddenly tired and down. “You always do. Yes, of course I’m mad, I have every right o be!” her mother snapped, but then sighed. “I’m so tired of this, James. You wanted to have a family more than anything in the world, and now you’re abusing us all. I suppose I’m used to it. Call me when you get to the airport……Yes, I guess…..You know I do. All right, bye,” her mother said finally, and hung the phone up.
Ashleigh heard her plop down onto the sofa. She knew her mother was crying. She quietly went down stairs to comfort her.
“Mama,” Ashleigh said tentivley as she walked into the living room and saw her mother slumping on the couch with her head in her hands, “are you okay?” Her mother breathed a long, heart-breaking sigh and mumbled something incoherently about hating Ashleigh’s father.
With a small smile, Ashleigh sat on the sofa beside her and put an arm around her shoulder.
“What did he say? Is he going to be gone even longer than he said?” she asked. Her mother sat up slowly and hugged Ashleigh to her tightly.
“A year,” was all her mother said, and Ashleigh looked up at her with a gaping expression. Her mother nodded, as if to say “Tell me about it”.
“That’s ridiculous! Is he crazy? What about all that’s happening here!?” Ashleigh demanded. “Is his job more important than us or something?” Her mother shrugged.
“It doesn’t really matter, sweetie. I’m used to him leaving like this. The best thing for us to do is just go on living without him like usual. It’s not as if he’s here very long when he visits, anyway,” Her mother shrugged again and laid her head on top of Ashleigh’s.
“We’ve got each other, and that’s all that matters. Heck, if I didn’t love your father so much, it would probably be that way always. Anyway, you need to get back to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow,” her mother said, letting go of Ashleigh and giving her a little nudge with her foot as Ashleigh stood. Ashleigh looked back at her mother as she reached the stairs.
“You’ll be all right, won’t you?” she asked hopefully. Her mother smiled and nodded.
“Go on, girl, you gotta get up real early tomorrow!” her mother said. With a little laugh, Ashleigh went on upstairs to lie down again. She lie awake for a good hour or so, thinking about all her parents have been through. They always seem to make it through the hard times they had, and something told her this time would be no different. Love, Ashleigh thought with a smile, is the solution to everything. Then she turned on her side and covered up snuggly to go to sleep.
Ashleigh had dozed off when she heard the faint sound of scratching at her window.
At first she thought she was just dreaming it, but then it got louder and more persistent. Irritably, she sat up and glared groggily into the dark. She reached blindly for her lamp on her nightstand and fumbled with the switch. The light of the lamp barely reached the corners of Ashleigh’s room and casted looming shadows perpendicular to the furniture. She stared at her reflection on the pane merged with the profile of a tabby that sat outside her window. She’d never seen the tomcat before in her life, but it was perched on a tree branch that hovered outside the window, watching and waiting for her patiently, as if it expected her to let it in.
“Stray cat,” she assured herself dumbly in her half-asleep state. She got up and went to the window to lift it. A gust of chilly night air swept in and chilled her skin and pinched her nose.
“Come here, kitty,” she said dreamily. He trustingly leapt into her opened arms. Perhaps, she thought, I’m having a weird dream after all. Wild cats usually aren’t so trusting.
The cat’s fur was soft, cold, and his scent was a mixture of earthiness and night air. Ashleigh closed the window and cuddled him close. “You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you? You must be freezing,” she cooed to him. He purred as she sat him down on her bed and rubbed his cold shoulders. “What were you doing at my window at a time like this? Shouldn’t you be cuddled up with your lady friend or something?” she asked. He just stared at her with long, golden eyes and continued to purr and paw at the blankets. With an exhausted sigh, Ashleigh reached over and clicked off the lamp.
“I’ve got to get some beauty sleep, boy-o. Tomorrow, I’ll ask if anyone has lost a tabby cat, or if they would want you as a pet maybe. I certainly can’t keep you. My mother would have a fit,” she said, yawning at the end of her sentence. She got under her warm covers and the tabby crawled up beside her and wedged his way under the comforter and pressed against her back to get warm. Ashleigh was asleep in almost an instant.