Him I knew a little, her not much at all. But at least we’ve still got pictures, images that show how they smiled at one another and how each held the other’s hand. The seven black-and-white wedding photos with her in her long gown, the same one that had been worn by her own mother more than twenty-five years earlier, silk accented with lace. And him in his dark dress uniform, showing the eagle and arrow gold buttons on the front, smaller ones for the pockets and what we know was a beige tie and the insignia of a private on his upper arms, standing straight and proud to hide his fear. Because they both knew that getting married was a risk, that he was about to be sent to Europe to fight Hitler, and that after their short honeymoon she was going to stay home and touch her growing belly and worry. We have the letters that tell us how nine months later he asked her to tell his newborn child that he loved them forever. Every day she would pray for my grandfather, that he would come back to her, and he would pray that he would see her again.

But in the other pictures we have of my grandparents, sometimes, there might also be Edgar.

Edgar, a black and white cat, off to one side or on her lap, staring at the camera like he knew, like he understood. Because what do cats see? Did they see the madness of the war, the uncertainty and the death, the constant fear that any knock on the door might be those men with that news? Please come home to me, my grandmother wrote, letter after letter more precious than gold. Please be careful. I love you.

I love you, he always answered.

My mother was their second daughter, their third child out of four, because he did come home, about two years after my oldest uncle was born. But who was my grandfather then? A husband? A veteran? A man with unseen scars? That is only one of the mysteries.

* * *

Every American family has its lore, stories about its past. Ancestors on the Mayflower, perhaps, or ancestors who were brought from Africa as slaves. Many have ancestors who passed through Ellis Island. And of course there are those whose ancestors came before any of these, the real first immigrants who crossed from Asia countless centuries ago. But they all have stories, told from old to young, stories that become part of who you are. I heard our stories when I was just a boy, from my mother and my aunt and my uncles, and that’s how I learned about Edgar and about Grandma.

Her, sitting, waiting.

I can’t remember the first time, or even how often, I thought about these two grandparents. Mom, telling me and my brothers, explaining. Maybe Grandpa’s funeral, when I went in that uncomfortable black suit and I remembered the last time I saw him alive, when I was young but old enough to know what a man on his deathbed was. Or maybe the years before, when I was so little and I was frightened as we scattered Grandma’s ashes into the sea.

I’m too old now to do more than remember. I wish…

There’s a purr, something brushing against my leg. A silent voice that comes all at once.

You wish? A wish is good when it honors the past. But do you want to know more?

Callie. A calico, black and white and orange, from a line of cats that has been in our family forever. I pick her up from the beige, carpeted floor of my living room. She likes it when I scratch her behind the ears, settling into my lap, and now I look back at the photo album. The man is so handsome. The woman is so beautiful. But what did he come home to? What did he come home as?

Normandy, the story went. Already a combat veteran on June 6, 1944. Hitting the beach at Omaha, fighting through the wet sand with his rifle in hand as all around him other young men died, praying, maybe?

Oh God oh God oh God…

And that moment about a year later, appearing at the door, that moment when she saw him and everything else stopped. Hold me now. Never let me go.

Another purr. Callie again.

I hear my own voice.

“What was it like? How did it feel? Who were you, Grandma and Grandpa?” And then, a second time, the voice from nowhere that changes everything.

Do you want to understand more? There is a way, if you trust me.

Callie?

I blink, staring at the cat. Again no sound, not even quite words, but something more, something different.

Do you want to trust me? Will you trust us?

“Us?” I ask.

Us. Both of us.

“How?”

Look at the next picture. The picture of them.

Not knowing why, I turn to a new page in the album.

Grandma, Grandpa, and the dark cat with them, its fur patched with light. Its eyes, staring back.

Good. That’s good. The eyes do not simply see outward, you know. They also see within. When they look from the past, what are they looking at? Who do they really see?

“I don’t know.”

Callie moves, and I feel her claws dig in, just a bit. Not enough to hurt, but enough that I cannot ignore them.

Admitting ignorance is the first step toward learning. Do you see it now? Look at the picture. That cat is my ancestor and that is your bridge. Do you choose to cross it?

For some reason I find my gaze wandering. Not to Grandpa, not to Grandma, but past them, past them.

Past them to where the black and white cat stares back.

Edgar, I hear. His name was Edgar. Your name…

* * *

And then I see her first. But not the same, not what I should have expected. Standing and high above, in the kitchen, cooking. The smells are rich and unfamiliar, and the colors…

Blue, yes. That I see. But red? The red of her apron seems faded, unclear. And the smells, the sounds. Too much. A voice, a different voice, but as before, no sound.

It takes a moment to adjust. Your senses and ours are different. Relax.

Edgar?

The smells. Her scent, unique and familiar, home.

Go to her.

I do, obeying, and I feel her leg against my fur. Her voice that I somehow know. Somehow I remember it past the decades of forgetting.

“Hello, little one,” she says. “Don’t worry. I’ll feed you soon.”

The sensation then, deep within my throat. I’ve never felt anything like it. Pleasant, needful. And then her fingers scratching, caressing behind my ears.

Who are you? I ask in the silence.

Don’t you recognize her?

Not her. You.

Ah. You have seen me, but never in the flesh. Only through the bridge, the photographs.

I don’t understand.

Callie. And now Edgar.

* * *

That smell, that rich smell, the taste. I eat. Grandma brings milk and I lick it up.

“That’s a good boy.”

Grandma sits in the living room, by the window. It is silent and she doesn’t move. I look up and her face becomes familiar, like I have suddenly known it forever.

You have, Edgar tells me. Her blood runs through you.

Is she waiting? I ask.

What do you think?

Is this a dream?

Everything is a dream until we wake up. Think of the past. Can you touch it? Can you see it except in memory? Am I a memory, or am I real? Is Callie a memory? Not yet born, is she nonetheless a memory? You remember her, but neither of you yet exists. Where does time begin or end?

Suddenly hands, reaching down for me, raising me to her lap. I feel my purr, and I hear her weep.

“Please come home to me. Please be safe.”

He will, I try to tell her. He will come home; I am proof of that.

* * *

What is time? My grandmother rises each morning, keeps the house and feeds me. She does her part on the home front, working long hours in the USO and the AWVS. I have learned now to rest on her lap, feeling her growing belly. Purring has become natural, and I feel her fingers gentle against my fur. Sometimes, not really meaning to, she might leave one of his letters open, and I can read part of it.

I miss you, my darling. I’m not allowed to say where I am, but each of the boys tells me to tell you hello. They keep me safe and I keep them safe. Your letters sustain me. I am…

A fold in the paper, and I can read no more. I still cannot really see red, and I wonder if this means I cannot see blood.

* * *

Her blood. The call to the midwife, delivered by the young son of her neighbor, the sound of her crying out. They don’t let me near but I can hear her. Even knowing that she will make it through, that this will be my uncle, does not lessen my fear. I want to be close to her, want to purr and bring her comfort.

Now you know what we feel, Edgar tells me.

How do you stand it? I ask. When you see us suffer, when you see us afraid, how do you stand it?

We stand it the same way you do. Despite all the wars and the cruelty that is so human, you can also be kind, can love. We watch you forget this and do such evil to one another. We watch from this place outside of time and we try to teach you the lesson you are learning now.

The lesson? What lesson?

The important one. It may be large or it may be small. For your grandmother and grandfather it was hope. I stayed by her as you are staying by her now, as she endured her pregnancy afraid, the birth of your uncle and his first years without her husband at her side. I didn’t know if your grandfather would return either and that was all the more reason for me to stay. Because what we bring to you, the things you don’t even know we are bringing, are faith and hope. You need these things so much. Watch now.

* * *

She waited a year, then two, then more than two, until finally the radio, the cheers. The streets filled with joy on VE Day. I see this, all of it. I see Grandma weeping, sobbing and holding my uncle who is still too young to understand. I will remember playing catch with him later, years from now when he is a man and I am a boy, in the future made possible because Edgar stayed by my grandmother’s side. My aunt and my mother and my second uncle, unborn, unconceived, are still waiting, but they will come.

Now, Edgar tells me. Now the most important time is close. Now you will learn and will see what you have always wished you could see.

Grandpa, at the door. For some reason he knocks as though he is a stranger. My grandmother’s cry, her tears, his tears.

I see it all.

And my body, this feline body that has somehow become who I am, moves forward. I feel my grandfather’s leg, the cloth of his uniform trousers, against me as I purr. Time is short and I sense Callie close, ready to take me home. But not just yet. Please, not just yet. They are me and I am them and time has no meaning.

Only love. Grandma and Grandpa. Love is outside of time.

Good, Callie and Edgar both purr. Now you have learned. Now you know them. Now you are whole.