Lara huddled in the darkest corner of the front porch, trying her best to keep her sobs muffled so she would not be discovered. She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth, as the night breeze dried the tears and blood on her cheeks and set her fresh wounds to stinging. It wasn't the pain she concerned about. Pain she could endure; after all, she'd been surviving for three years of her husband's alcoholic abuse. It was her face she was worried about.
Michael had really messed her up this time, carried away by the argument. Her right eye was almost swollen shut, and the coppery blood on her tongue let her know that her lower lip was more than likely split open. She couldn't go to work like this, looking like a prizefighter had mauled her. It would mean she would have to call in again for the third time in two months, and Lara knew well enough what that would mean. She would lose her job, the job she'd been so proud to get only a few months previous, hoping that the money would pacify her husband and his temper.
She would lose her job, and then Michael would never believe that he was the cause for her dismissal and he would beat her again. Lara had been through the cycle enough to know exactly how it would go, and she felt the curl of fear in her stomach. Her husband was still in the house, judging by the sound of things breaking every now and again. If she was lucky, he'd grow bored of tearing their home apart and make his way down the street to hang with his "gang" at the local bar.
At least then it would mean he wouldn't make his way home until almost five in the morning, and maybe he'd be so drunk by then he would simply pass out and leave her alone. For now, she kept to herself in the darkness. She had just reached her fingers up to wipe at the moist, hot river of her tears when there came a nearby shuffling sound on the wood of her porch. Lara cried out and whirled in that direction, frightened that her husband had found her. Instead, she found herself staring not at Michael's hulking form but instead the yellow eyes of an animal making its way over to her from across the porch. As it drew closer, Lara saw that it was a cat, the largest cat she'd ever seen in her life. Its fur was the same inky shade of black as the night sky itself, making the feline appear little more than a shadow with amber eyes. Given the comparison, she would judge that it stood about as high as a small dog. It stopped its pace a few inches from her, looking up at her with that yellow gaze in invitation. Lara stretched her fingertips slowly towards the cat, and was rewarded for her offering with a low meow.
"Who are you, little fellow?" She murmured, as the animal rubbed against her outstretched hand so that her fingers massaged the soft midnight fur. "You're not one of the neighbors' cats. Are you a stray?"
Stray or no, the cat must have had human contact before, because after a few moments of her petting he found his way up to her lap and plopped down to lay across her legs. The animal was warm, and when he had settled against her body properly he began a low rumbling purr that vibrated his entire body. The tension left Lara's body a little; she concentrated less on the throbbing pain of her eye and more on the way the cat responded to her gentle touch.
The little fellow's body was so warm, and she could feel his heart beneath her hands as she picked him up and cuddled him against her breast. The cat's yellow eyes closed trustingly, and he captured the hand that was stroking his face with his two strong front paws. He washed her hand with a few short licks, and fresh tears flooded her eyes. In only fifteen minutes, the animal had formed an unconditional love for her, something her husband hadn't been able to do in their entire relationship.
"You're going to stay here with me, no matter what Michael says," Lara said with a trembling smile. Staring down at the black bundle against her, his solid weight a pleasurable feeling, she knew instantly what she would name him. "I'm going to call you Angel." And for a long time they lay together in the darkness, until she heard the back door slam shut and knew Michael had left the house. Lara gave it fifteen minutes until she was sure he wasn't just wandering about, then gathered the stray in her arms and took him inside.
It didn't take her long to unearth a can of tuna fish from the pantry, which she put down on the bathroom floor for Angel to eat while she tended to her face. Staring in the mirror made her angry and sad again. Her face was a mangled mess of bruises, the biggest one covering all of her right eye and half of her cheek. Her once-lovely mouth was just as ugly, the lower lip swollen and bearing a bloody line down the center where the skin had split. Blood was matted in her hair, but the worse thing was the look she saw in her own eyes. Fear, loathing of her husband and of her own helplessness, and rage all mingled there in the brown depths.
She'd tried to justify Michael's actions up until this night, telling herself that he was right, that maybe she didn't do enough around the house...that maybe she was the lazy slut he always called her before his fists said the rest. But tonight, she saw things a little differently. She saw herself for the first time as a victim, and it was the cat that showed her this. Angel didn't know a thing about her, and really didn't need to know. If she happened not to make the bed before she left for work, the cat wouldn't care. If she got home a little late and dinner was a few minutes behind the normal time, Angel wouldn't mind.
Those things were trivial to a cat, and should be trivial also to a human. The only thing that mattered to Angel was the compassion she showed for him, and the compassion that he could give her in return. Lara fumbled in the medicine cabinet for some peroxide, but that had been used up long ago and the bottle rested empty in the wastebasket of the bathroom. To purify her wounds, Lara made her way to the living room and retrieved the bottle of whiskey that had started her husband's tirade. It was still a quarter full, and she took it back to the bathroom with her.
Pouring some on a cotton pad, Lara dabbed the alcohol on the split lip, hissing in pain as it cleaned the wound. She treated the rest of the small cuts on her face, until they were burning with a fiery sting but purified of all bacteria. The cat had long since stopped eating the tuna, and was watching her movements carefully with his golden eyes.
"Angel," she whispered, sinking to the floor with the whiskey in her hand. "What am I going to do?" She took a sip of the drink, warming her stomach and trying to calm her jittery nerves. "You made me see that this is wrong, but I don't have anywhere to go. The house, the car are all in his name...damn you, Michael..."
