Unexpectedly today, the tabby I pass every day conjured the memory of a white cat my neighbours owned when we were children. My brain, when racked, produces the name “Claude”, but that was my grandparents’ cat. He was black, not white, but both were prickly, like dogs never are, and like my sister could be; like she was when I knocked on her door when she wanted privacy, and like she must have been when we came home from the Vet’s without her rabbit, and I did not see in her face the concealed blame my memory now reveals to me.