“You don’t understand,” Tyler said. “This isn’t about water. This is because she doesn’t like us.”

“Come on, now,” Momma said. “Didn’t y’all promise to try really hard to give her a chance?”

“I guess so. Anyway, we’ve got homework. She’s coming home early to help us, so I guess we’d better go.”

“She is the cat’s mother,” Momma said.

“Huh?” Hunter said.

“You shouldn’t call her ‘she.’ By the way, what are you calling her?”

“Oh! Listen to this! Did we tell you she said we should call her ‘Mother’?”

“Yes, I was standing there. Remember?” I said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Hunter said, looking to Momma to explain. “I said we couldn’t call her that because she wasn’t our mother, that our mother was in heaven with the angels. She went nuts on us!”

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “She did.”

“It was awkward,” I said.

“Oh, dear,” Momma said. “I think it’s going to take her a little more time to feel comfortable.”

“I agree with Momma,” I said, thinking I’d agreed with her once again and was this becoming a trend? “She needs time.”

“So what are you going to call her?” Momma said.

“I don’t know. Probably Sharon. She’s not ever going to be a momma to us,” Tyler said.

“Give it time, sweetheart. Come on, I’ll walk y’all home and stay until she gets there,” I said.

I walked the boys home and as soon as I opened the door, Sharon’s cats appeared and started meowing and meowing and meowing.

“What the heck is the matter with these two?”

“They’re hungry,” Tyler said.

“Well, then, let’s feed the little devils,” I said.

The boys and the cats went right to the kitchen and the boys started unpacking their backpacks. I dug around the cabinets, found a container of cat food, and looked around for their bowls. No bowls. No water bowls either.

“Hey, boys, do you know where the cat bowls are?”

The cats were walking in between and around my legs, and I found it unnerving. And annoying.

“Dishwasher,” Hunter said.

Dishwasher? I thought and pulled down the door. Well, there were the animal dishes with the family’s dishes, and I wondered if that could be sanitary. It didn’t seem like a good idea, but anyway, I just took them out and filled one with cool water and the other with cat food and put them on the floor. The cats jumped on the bowls like they hadn’t been fed in a month. I was relieved they weren’t all over my legs.

The boys stacked up their worksheets and I looked at what they each had to do. Their assignments were light that day.

“Piece of cake,” I said. “Let’s get started.”