That’s not exactly true.
Enzo lives at my son’s house, and I had been in the same room with him plenty of times. But there’s a difference between seeing a cat and actually noticing one.
For a while, Enzo was just part of the house. Not furniture exactly, because furniture does not occasionally turn its head and look at you as if it had been expecting more from the species. But close. He was there. He occupied space. He watched people come and go with the calm of something that had no bills, no appointments, and no intention of explaining itself.
I don’t think much about cats. This is not an oversight. I’m a dog person. Dogs make sense to me. A dog comes into a room and gives you the whole emotional inventory: joy, hunger, guilt, panic, loyalty, and whether the vacuum cleaner has been up to something. Dogs are not complicated unless you are holding ham and pretending not to.
Cats are different. A cat does not come when called. A cat receives the request, reviews the matter internally, and reaches a decision you are not entitled to know. People say cats are affectionate. I believe them, in the same way I believe there are good reasons for the Electoral College. Someone must have thought so at the time.
Enzo, however, was not doing normal cat business. He was not scurrying under furniture, yowling for attention, climbing the drapes, or hurling himself onto a high shelf to remind everyone that gravity has loopholes. Enzo presided. He looked less like a house pet than a lynx that had been stuffed by a very good taxidermist and then, inconveniently, resumed operations.
He has the ear tufts, the winter coat, the huge tail, and the general expression of an animal that has known the forest and now has to put up with kitchen appliances. There is wisdom in his face. There is also disdain, but not the flashy kind. It’s more like the look you get from an old Mainer who watches you try to back a trailer and quietly decides not to help.
Then, a few days after I finally noticed Enzo, a friend came to our house for breakfast and asked if I knew anything about Maine Coon cats.
Had he asked me a week earlier, I would have given the standard dog-person answer: get a dog. Dogs are honest. Dogs are loyal. Dogs have souls visible from the driveway.