The Empty Veranda
Swetha Amit
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I don’t remember it the way most people do. It comes back in fragments—the heat on my skin, a flash of white paws just out of reach. The rest has been filled in by Ma, who recalls that day as if it never loosened its hold on her.
I was three, living in Bangkok with Ma and Pa. My world stretched only as far as I could see from our veranda. That’s where I first found them—the two Siamese kittens. Curled together, they were a single breathing bundle of white and brown, like snow dissolving into chocolate. Their green eyes shimmered with curiosity; their ears, sharp and alert, caught every sound.
“You thought they were your siblings,” Ma once told me, stroking my head. “It didn’t occur to you that there could be a mother cat.”
She said I talked to them in half-formed words, reaching out with my small hands, mimicking their soft sounds. I imagine myself sitting there, watching their tails flick, waiting for them to move so I could follow. They were inseparable—when one stood, the other rose; when one wandered, the other trailed close behind. They were a pair, and I tried to belong—to make us three. That is what I remember—or what I’ve chosen to remember.
“They slipped off the veranda that day, just like always,” Ma said, her fingers twisting together. “They ran into the street. It wasn’t unusual. They always came back.”
She paused.
“But that day, you ran after them. I was making your favorite green chicken curry,” she said. “I dropped everything and ran after you, begging you to stop. But you didn’t.”
The street outside was loud, alive, crowded — Bangkok in motion.
“They crossed the road,” Ma said, her voice thinning. “And you followed.”
I remember flashes—the blur of my steps, the kittens ahead, the sharp screech of a car.
“I reached you just in time,” Ma went on.
I faintly remember the sudden pull—my pink frock yanked back. It was my favorite dress, embroidered with white roses. The fabric tore. I cried for the rest of the day. Ma said I stumbled as people shouted and the driver—a stranger—stopped just long enough to see I was safe, then drove on.
“After that, I never let you out of my sight,” her face paling, her voice breaking into uneven fragments. “God knows what would have happened if that car hadn’t…”
But what stayed with me was something else.
“The kittens were still there,” she said softly. “Watching. Waiting.”
That is the part etched into me: two small bodies, side by side, as if nothing had happened. Ma said I tried to go to them again. I wasn’t crying. I only wanted to bury my hands in their soft fur, as if that was where I belonged. Eventually, she carried me home. Later, the kittens returned too, slipping back into their corner of the veranda. I sat with them, and they rested their heads on my palms, quieter than before, as if they understood something I didn’t.
A few days later, they left again—and this time, they didn’t come back.
The veranda felt larger after that—emptier. I remember sitting in the same spot each day, watching the corner where they used to curl into each other, waiting for the flick of a tail, the soft press of fur against my hands.
Soon after, we moved back to India when Pa was transferred. The kittens faded into memory, but something in me didn’t. I began noticing every cat I saw—feeding strays, trailing them with quiet fascination. We never had one of our own; Grandma was allergic. So, I found companionship in the gray and black cats that wandered into our apartment complex, their yellow eyes gleaming in the dark.
Once, I chased away a boy older than me with a stick because he was hurting them. Ma had to apologize to him and his mother. I never did. Then one day, those cats stopped coming too. I was left alone again—this time, I felt it. Around the same time, Ma went through two miscarriages. Grandma passed away in her sleep. Loss settled into the spaces around us—quiet and persistent. Still, I never stopped looking.
Fourteen years have passed since that day. Even now, I stop to pet stray cats, to feed them, to stand between them and those who try to harm them. Ma said my love for them must come from some karmic connection. Her voice is more composed now. Smooth and steady.
Sometimes, when a cat leans into my hand and goes still, I feel it again—that quiet, fleeting certainty that I am exactly where I am meant to be. Then the cat pulls away, and the moment breaks. Something small and wordless slips out of reach. I used to think I was looking for those lost kittens—for the two small bodies that once made space for me beside them. But it wasn’t them. Not really. It was the feeling of almost belonging. Of reaching out and, for a second, believing something might stay. The fragments never became a whole memory. They never will. But they left behind a shape—a space I’ve been trying to fill ever since. And sometimes, in the brief warmth of a living, breathing thing beneath my hands, I come close enough to forget it was never mine to keep.
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Swetha Amit is an MFA Graduate from the University of San Francisco. She is the author of a memoir, A Turbulent Mind, and three chapbooks. Her words appear in Had, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Cream City Review, and others. A member of the Writers Grotto, her stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fiction, and Best Microfiction.
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Posted in Third Annual Pet Writing Contest and tagged in #boudin, #fiction, Fiction