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Tokyo Rose was gray tabby with blue eyes, so she had some Siamese in her somewhere along the line.

My roommate got a marmalade as a kitten and the vet suggested getting a playmate. Roomie didn’t like the idea, but the vet gave her a two-for-one price, so she took them both. Poor Tokyo was abused ever after. Chased with the vacuum cleaner, chased with plastic grocery bags, the noise of which scared her to death. (My roomie had two kids.) The difference in the way the two cats were treated was like night and day, with Tokyo getting the worst of it.

Because of her mistreatment, she hid a lot and wouldn’t let anyone near her. Roomie tried to catch her to cut the mats out of her hair, but she fought. And I don’t wonder at it.

By the time I moved in, Tokyo was middle-aged and well on the way to being totally blind, but she investigated my room one day when I was lying on the sofa (she kept to the walls) and suddenly, she was on my chest, purring. She was my cat from then on, and calmly let me cut the mats out, purring the entire time.

Roomie said, “When you move out, you can take that d*@%! cat with you.” So I did. She was such an absolute love. So, knowing of the abuse and the things that triggered her fears, I just put her in the bathroom when I vacuumed or when I had groceries to put away.