The tables were long and flat, made out of a solid, heavy wood, and sitting at them always made Leora feel as if whatever she was doing there had suddenly taken on a great importance, as if she were a medieval scholar copying out a book in the days before printing presses. Remembering the last time she had taken a tour around the world, she opened the printed volumes she had pulled from the shelves and began reading all the entries in the Encyclopaedia Judaica about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the same year Christopher Columbus discovered America, as she tried not to think of how much she wanted to talk to Naomi.

MANY MONTHS LATER, Leora was the last person to notice the cat getting bigger. Jason had given her the cat, which she named Sammy after the “true seal” at the East Mountain Zoo, at the very end of the summer after graduation, stopping by her house in New Jersey as if for a final farewell before he left for Israel. At the time, Sammy was the size of a fairly large kitten, and Leora had assumed that he was already several months old. But as the weeks and months passed and he continued growing ever larger, Leora soon began to suspect that he really was a newborn at the beginning, and that he was just a damn big cat. At first she noticed nothing unusual. Sammy may have had an impressive appetite, but he was just a kitten and he needed his food to grow. Leora’s family went out of their way not to say anything about it at first, to avoid reminding her of Jason, and their silence fueled her ignorance. But as the months passed by, even her parents began to make little comments to her about Sammy’s size.

“Don’t you think Sammy’s getting kind of big for a normal cat?” her father would ask as he and her mother sat reading the newspaper on a Sunday evening.

“No, he’s just growing,” Leora retorted, glancing up from her book and then looking down again, pulling the book closer to her face. “He’s probably full grown by now.”

“But that’s what we all thought a month ago,” her mother said. “I don’t know much about cats, but I know a cat isn’t supposed to be the size of a dog.”

“He’s not the size of a dog. He’s the size of a cat.”

“You can believe whatever you want. I’m just telling you, this is not normal,” her mother said. “Look at him. He’s practically the same height as the coffee table.” Sammy was walking past the coffee table, and as much as Leora didn’t want to admit it as she peered over the edge of her book, it was a little alarming to see his spotted fur moving level with, or higher than, the tabletop. But soon he slumped down on the floor so that it was impossible to tell how big he was. And the doubts continued.