You Can Rehome a Cat But Not a Kid by Tracie Adams

Runner-up, 2026 Contest for Flash CNF

Maybe those petty people are just being catty when they say adopt a cat instead, but you tell them you’ve already filled out the paperwork for a kid — an eleven-year-old boy with a file thick as a phone book, a single-spaced list of diagnoses you can’t pronounce. They say aren’t you brave. They say bless you. You smirk, shrug, because what do they know.

Then you study the medical histories, the photos of a boy’s smile bracing for rejection, and you make the hard choice. You say no to the cat, yes to the boy. Maybe the boy is wild — climbing curtains, pouncing and pacing. Those rubberneckers love your wreckage. They feed you I told you so’s like catnip. They become voices in your head: in the grocery line when he melts down in aisle seven, in Sunday School when he refuses to sit, in the school office when the principal says again.

You tell yourself you are bigger than adversity, stronger than trauma, above regret — until one night he asks if this is his forever home, and your mouth opens too slowly.

What if they were right? Maybe adopting a cat would have been in your wheelhouse. A cat could be fixed with hypoallergenic litter and laser toys. A cat wouldn’t ask impossible questions. Maybe wishing for easy is itself a betrayal.

What do they know about a child who hisses and scratches? Public scrutiny? Private doubt? What do they know about loving something you can’t return?

Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Enoch Leung