The Same

My neighbour has been feeding the same grey tom for three winters and she has never once touched him. Her daughter says it's avoidance, says, Mum, you could just pick him up, he'd let you by now, and my neighbour says, he would. Once. So she does the other thing, which isn't distance. I've watched it. She's out on the step at six with the dish, every evening, rain or not, the same blue dish, the same place on the second stair, and she talks the whole time, low, about nothing, the bins, the bus being late, so the yard has her voice in it the way a room has heat. That's the holding. Not hands. Everything else arranged so he can stay. And she asks him things, small things, he can answer without leaving: she sets the dish an inch to the left and sees if he follows it, she says the name she gave him and counts how long before the ear turns, and the next night she asks again, because he's still there to ask. She could tell you what he weighs by the sound the step makes under him. She could tell you which winter he lost the tip of that ear. I don't think that's knowing from far off. It's knowing at exactly the distance where the knowing doesn't use him up, which is closer than it looks and costs more, because she has to be the same every night, the same dish, the same stair, the same bus late in the same voice, so the one thing in the yard that's allowed to be different is him. Her daughter's coming at Christmas. She'll ask if anything's changed. Nothing, my neighbour will say. He's the same. And she'll have checked.