And she believed that if she stayed beside her cat long enough, he would eventually stand up and walk again.
The cat’s name was Milo.
He was a striped tabby with bright green eyes, a stubborn personality, and a habit of sleeping beside Lily’s pillow as though he had been appointed to guard her dreams.
Milo had entered Lily’s life three years earlier, on one of the most difficult days her family had ever experienced.
Lily’s mother, Sarah, had found him beneath a parked car outside a grocery store. He was a tiny kitten then, trembling from the cold and crying so softly that most people passed without noticing him.
Sarah brought him home wrapped inside her jacket.
The moment Lily saw his frightened face, she sat down on the kitchen floor and opened her arms.
