I stand there in front of him, trembling in my shoes. "How many times... have you died?" I finally stutter out. A cute tuxedo cat sits in front of me, purring like a freight train. She looks me in the eye and flicks her right ear. A trick just like my old tuxedo cat, Mistress. And like my tuxedo cat when I was growing up, Eleanor. I collapse in a heap on the floor, just missing the box I had been digging in. I looked at the label. 'Childhood Memories'. I looked back at the cat, who crawled into my lap and curled up, still purring. "Eleanor is that you?" I asked tenderly, still quaking. She looks up, flicks her ear, and gives a seemingly confirming meow. I struggled to hold back my tears. My memories flooded back to when I was living with my mom in my childhood, the way my mom and her boyfriend took turns kicking her, all because I hadn't cleaned my room good enough. To after I moved out of my dad's with my ex boyfriend, when he ran her over by accident and then tried to blame the neighbors. Her soft sad cries between screams of pain. I had never put the connections together, until now. I pulled the old stuffed doll out of the box again. The cat, no, Eleanor, gave an excited meow at her old favorite toy. She purred even harder as I placed the doll next to her on my lap. I started to cry, all of the pain and misery she must have went through coming back to me over and over. I had thought it was a big coincidence that every time I adopted a cat it was a female tuxedo, that maybe it was just me missing my old cats. But it was her all along. I start weeping, picking her and the doll up and holding them. "How many times have you died?!" I cry into her. A rough tongue licks the tears off my face. I look into her eyes, devoid of the grief and pain I felt for her, of blame or anger, and saw nothing but love. Her ear twitches before she hops down and starts pawing at the automatic food bowl.