**A Mothers Heart**
“Mummy, who is Phyllis? Is she our mistress? Why does she feed us so poorly?” Little curious eyes gazed up at Sienna, waiting for an answer. “No, my dear, she is no mistress of ours. She is just a frail, troubled old woman. She doesnt know what shes doing…” “Mummy, will the big cats eat me too, like they did my sister?” whispered Ginger, trembling with fear. Sienna sighed deeply. “No, my love, they wont! I promise!” She began licking her beloved childnow her only oneuntil, soothed, he drifted into a soft, sweet sleep.
Sienna had been born in the cellar of a London tenement. There had been four kittens in her litter. Her mother was young, barely more than a kitten herself. It was her first brood. And when a new tomcat appeared on the scene, the mother abandoned them without a second thought. Yet Sienna remembered her with gratitude. Flighty as she was, her mother had given them tenderness, nursed them, taught them to fend for themselves. After she vanished, the kittens crept out of the cellar into the harsh world beyond. At first, they huddled together in the courtyard, where kind souls sometimes left scraps. Time passed… Their grey brother was struck by a carriage; their striped sister torn apart by dogs. Sienna mourned them, her tears falling on their lifeless bodies, staying with them until the caretaker chased her away. She watched as he scooped their tiny forms onto his shovel and tossed them into the refuse bin. Her other sisters fate remained a mystery.
As she grew, Sienna learned the cruel laws of the streets. She kept to the shadows, silent and solitary. Then, one day, she stumbled into hell… Phyllis. She found the old woman rifling through rubbish bins, stuffing her bulging sack with scraps. Phyllis fixed her with a wild stare and crooned, “Puss, puss, come here!” No one had taught Sienna to fear toothless old women, so she ventured closer, hoping for food. Suddenly, bony fingers clamped around her, and she was whisked into a filthy flat.
“Youre Sienna now,” Phyllis declared, then forgot her entirely. Dozens of hungry eyes turned toward her. “Puss, puss!” came the call from the kitchen, where Phyllis sorted her treasures, and the catslosing interest in Siennascrambled toward the voice.
The flat was a nightmare. Heaps of grimy clothes, towers of unwashed dishes, the stench of filth, swarms of flies and roaches. And catsso many cats. Some cowed and skeletal, others brutish and bold, Phylliss favourites. Why she kept the rest, no one knew.
Sienna adapted as best she could, hiding in a dim corner. Then, one day, terror seized hershe was with kitten. On the streets, shed known a dashing tom, but his courtship had been fleeting. Now, in this hell, her children would be born.
She birthed them silentlya sleek black girl, like her father, and a ginger boy, her own image. Pebble and Ginger. She guarded them fiercely. But hunger drove the other cats closer, and the kittens, curious now, strayed from safety.
The memory of that day haunted her. Exhausted, shed dozed for just a momentthen woke to Pebbles tiny shriek, the sickening crunch of bones. Her baby had wandered out… Siennas fur bristled, a snarl ripping from her throat. She poised to leapuntil she heard Gingers whisper: “Mummy… did they eat Pebble?” She turned. His eyes, wide with terror, stopped her. If she died here, who would save him?
“Well escape,” she vowed, weeping. “Ill get you out.”
Thensalvation. A pounding at the door. “Open up! Police!” Phyllis panicked. As the door swung open, Sienna seized her chancedarting past with Ginger in her jaws, down the stairs and into freedom.
Oliver looked into her pain-clouded eyes, tears streaking his cheeks. He understood. “Dont worry,” he murmured. “Ill care for him. Hell be safe.” Beside them, Gingeruncharacteristically quietlicked his mothers face. Sienna was dying. Her heart, broken by loss, could bear no more. In her dreams, Pebble called her across the rainbow… and she let go.
Rain fell the day they buried her in a birch grove. Oliver remembered how theyd come into his lifeduring his darkest days, after his parents funeral. Duty had dragged him to that reeking flat, to the madwoman and her wretched horde. Thena flash of ginger fur, a desperate plea in Siennas eyes as she struggled with the door. Hed helped without thinking. “Runaway? Cant blame you. Come home with me. I… I could use the company.”
Hed called her “my beauty.” Ginger kept his name. Oliver spared no expensetoys, treats, the finest foodanything to make them forget. When Sienna fell ill, he begged the best vets to save her. But her eyes had begged toofor release.
Now, as the rain cleared, a rainbow arched over the trees. Oliver lifted Ginger, kissed his damp nose. “Well be alright, little one.”
Two wounded heartsa grieving man and a tiny catwalked on, neither alone.
