Here is today’s entry for @flame-x‘s Kitten Week! Trigger warnings ahead for implied neglect and abuse of a child.
There was a part of Jemima–a troublesome little part, like a hangnail that drew blood when you tried to bite it off–that felt jealous of her baby sister. She knew it was awful and made absolutely no sense, but she couldn’t get it to go away. No matter how much she tried.
After all, Sillabub was born in the safest place in the entire city, surrounded by cats who loved her and all came together to sing her a welcome into the family. She got to sleep in a proper den full of soft blankets and stuffed animals, and whenever she cried someone would be there to feed her, play with her, or rock her to sleep. Jemima wasn’t so lucky. Her memories of when she was that small were still foggy and indistinct with long shadows along the edges, but she could remember the cellar of the Palace (that was what Macavity called it–she didn’t learn its full name until later) very vividly. She could remember how quiet it was except for when cars passed the transom window overhead or the pipes rattled and hissed in the winter. Sometimes that rattling and hissing got so loud she had to cover her ears for hours and just listen to her own breathing until the noise didn’t make her want to cry anymore. She remembered how cold it was and how little that tiny wooden box she and Mama had to sleep in helped at all. The blankets were so thin, and it was even colder when Mama was called away upstairs. Oh, sure, sometimes Uncle Jerrie or Aunt Teazer and Bomba would bring her a bird they’d caught or an extra pillow or an old toy from a rubbish tip; but the older Jemima got, the more she realized how much they risked getting in trouble for those tiny gifts, and she almost wished they wouldn’t bring her anything. So on those lonely days, she would just curl up and try not to bother anybody until Mama came back.
Sillabub would never have to worry about being cold, or getting anyone in trouble, or not having anybody by her side all day. And Jemima wanted to resent her for that, but she knew it wasn’t right. She couldn’t help where she’d been born. She had no idea what her parents or sister had gone through before she came along, and Jemima didn’t particularly want to tell her. There was a lot she still didn’t understand herself, that Mama and Daddy said would wait until she was older… maybe then everything would make sense.
Maybe there was a reason she’d been born in the cellar instead of the Junkyard. Or that Macavity had to be so horrible. Or why she felt like such a bad sister some nights, looking after Sillabub and knowing she loved her, of course she loved her baby sister, but still wanting so badly to scream It’s not fair!
“Sometimes life isn’t fair,” her Papa told her one of those nights, after she’d already cried on his shoulder for what felt like hours and he’d reassured her that she wasn’t a bad cat for feeling this way. All the while talking in that slow, gentle way, like he wanted her to understand every word. “We can’t control everything that happens in the world… believe me, I wish we could. But what we can do,” he added with a squeeze of her shoulders, “is try to protect the ones we care about. That way we can make life a little bit fairer for everyone.”
Jemima remembered nodding at that before frowning thoughtfully as the idea settled over her. “It sounds hard.”
Papa gave her a sad sort of smile. “It can be. But I usually find it’s worth it in the end.”
She tried to keep that in mind. Every time her mind cycled back to those days in the cellar and felt that horrible pit-of-her-stomach feeling return, she reminded herself that it truly wasn’t Sillabub’s fault. That she’d never wish that on her baby sister, who was too small and innocent to know, much less deserve any of it. That if anybody tried to drag her down and keep her in some dark, noisy place, Jemima would fight to get her free. That she really did love her, no matter what the worst part of her mind might try to tell her. That she had a duty now to be a good sister… and to make Papa feel less sad about making the world a little more fair.
It didn’t fix things–not completely. But on nights where Sillabub fussed in her sleep and Jemima was the first one awake to hold her and her favorite toy in her lap for a while, she could feel it starting to help.
