The Guardian Claw

“Not again, Kit!” I moved my cat away from the shattered remains of the cup of tea I had left on my desk a minute ago. My husband, Bruce, stepped in asking what had happened and sighed at the sight of the tea staining the carpet.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” he said, grabbing Kit and leaving for the living room. I cleaned the mess wondering what had gotten into my cat during the past couple of days. It was the second time he had done this; it was a new habit he had picked up out of nowhere. I wanted to check with my friend Abby about it since she was a vet, but that needed to wait another day until the weekend arrived.

Bruce insisted he make me another cup of tea before I left, but I was already running late for my meeting, so I declined. That night, I came back home to find Kit at the door, as usual, to greet me. “Come here, you little troublemaker,” I said, bending down and holding out my arms to let him hop in for a warm hug. I lifted him up and petted him. His purrs were as loud as ever.

“Are you doing all this for more attention?” I asked.

He looked at me with his usual sleepy expression and leaned in to snuggle in my arms. Bruce then walked in to greet me with a cup of tea already in hand. I thanked him and put Kit down, accepting the tea and sitting on the sofa, but before I knew it, Kit’s claws struck down my cup once again. I was dumbfounded. Bruce was visibly furious; he yelled at Kit to leave the room.

I skipped my morning tea altogether the next day and took Kit to see Abby. She had a look at Kit and said there wasn’t anything visibly wrong with him. She ran some tests and they, too, showed no bad signs. Abby said Kit was very healthy overall, and that there was nothing to worry about; but seeing how stressed I was, she promised to come by that evening and see how he behaved around the house. She said she wondered whether one of Bruce’s habits was agitating him.

That evening, Abby stayed over for a couple of hours. Something odd happened. Bruce was suddenly called in for an emergency work matter, so Abby made tea for us that evening. She asked me to leave the cup on the desk like before while Kit was in the room, but Kit didn’t come anywhere near it. He barely even paid attention to me keeping the cup on the desk.

Abby frowned. “Is Kit only doing this when Bruce makes tea?”

I looked back on the past few days and remembered how he insisted that he made tea for us day and night. It wasn’t unusual for us to take turns making food and drinks, but I did find it odd that he was more eager than usual. When I spoke of this to Abby, she said we should wait for him to come back and see what happens.

It was the same as the times before: Bruce made tea and Kit knocked my cup over. Just mine, not Abby’s, even though she was seated right next to me. Bruce sighed and took Kit to the other room. Meanwhile, Abby grabbed a sample of the tea with a small test kit she had brought with her and snuck it into her handbag.

I received grim news from Abby the next day: Bruce had been trying to poison me all these days and Kit had saved my life, rising against every attempt he made. Abby asked me to meet her immediately; we took the evidence to the police and filed a complaint against Bruce. He confessed to trying to poison me in an attempt to work around the prenup so he could be with his mistress.