The Cat Who Knew

She moved through her apartment like a zombie, each step an act of exhaustion. Three weeks of radiation had hollowed her out, leaving a shell that wore her name but forgot how to carry it.

The orange cat, Barnaby, watched from the windowsill. He'd been David's gift—"For luck," he'd said, pressing the kitten into her hands three years ago, the morning before his first deployment. Now Barnaby's amber eyes tracked her as she paced, his tail thumping once, a question.

"I'm okay," she whispered, though the room was empty.

The counter held the orange prescription bottles, their labels a foreign language she couldn't bother learning. Vitamin D. Vitamin B complex. Something for nausea that cost forty dollars a pill. She swallowed them dry, standing in the kitchen that still held his coffee mug, drained three months ago and never washed out.

Her phone buzzed—David's weekly call from somewhere she couldn't pronounce. She let it ring.

Barnaby wound through her legs, purring, his orange fur bright against the gray dawn. She scooped him up, burying her face in his warm belly, and for a moment she wasn't the woman with cancer, wasn't the wife waiting. She was just the person holding something that needed her.

"You're the only one who sees me," she told him.

The sun rose, staining the sky orange. She swallowed the rest of the vitamins, fed Barnaby, and made coffee in David's mug. Some days, survival was enough.