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threatening to come and take her treasures away.
    As she sat in the comforting nest of her things, Caroline quivered with anger, remembering the unexpected visit from her daughter, Barbara. Caroline managed to hold back another bout of tears, of which there had been many of late, all brought on because Barbara chose to stick her nose into business that didn’t concern her. Caroline sneered with the memory of her daughter’s overwrought emotional response, pleading with her mother to seek help, if not for her own sake, then for the sake of her brother, Caroline’s son, Isaac.
    Caroline had argued a blue streak, telling Barbara that everything was perfectly fine, that she and Isaac were getting along very well and didn’t need her involvement in their lives. But Barbara was always a stubborn thing, and when she got an idea into her fat head, there was nothing that was going to change it.
    As if sensing their owner’s distress, Caroline’s cats—her fur babies—emerged from various places of concealment about the room, meowing and chirping as they approached. Some leaped up onto her lap, while others walked across precariously piled stacks of equal parts books and rubbish.
    She’d lost count of how many there were now. All she knew was that they were her friends, her furry children. This was as much their home as hers, and she wasn’t about to let anyone take it away from them.
    But she’d agreed to her daughter’s demands, agreed to let a television program about filthy people and their filthy, cluttered houses come see her home. It was the only way to shut Barbara up, to get her to agree not to call Adult Protective Services on her and Isaac.
    The presence of her feline friends calmed her. She stroked them as they walked upon her or passed by on their way to some other area of the house also bursting at the seams with stuff.
    Just the idea of somebody coming into her home, to judge her . . .
    Caroline seethed, an anger that she worked so hard to control over the years bubbling to the surface. It was the kind of anger that could get her into trouble . . . the kind of anger that made her do things she always regretted later.
    Sitting there in her chair, surrounded by her cats and by years of accumulation, she imagined how easy it would be to set it on fire. She bet that would make Barbara happy. It would certainly take away all her concerns.
    Caroline saw herself burning with all her things and almost convinced herself that this was what she should do, but then she thought of her cats, her babies, and how they would suffer.
    And then there was poor Isaac.
    He was her other baby, her special boy. Hit by a car when he was only four and developmentally challenged as a result of extensive head injuries, he had brought her nothing but joy these sixteen years.
    No, she could not do that to him.
    But what to do?
    A Maine Coon cat called Mrs. Livingstone got right in her face, meowing questioningly, before head-butting her.
    â€œI don’t know, pretty kitty,” Caroline said, running her hands down the length of the enormous cat, right down to the end of her fluffy tail. “Perhaps you could tell me?”
    The cat abruptly turned around, sticking her furry behind in Caroline’s face, making her laugh. “I’m not sure that would be effective,” she told the animal, who suddenly snarled and sprang from Caroline’s lap with a hiss, angrily attacking the other cats meandering around the chair.
    â€œIs that what you’ll do to those horrible people coming to our house?” she asked the big cat. A full-fledged fight had now erupted, with Mrs. Livingstone spitting and swatting at the other cats.
    â€œMaybe you’ve got a point,” Caroline said to her furry friends, deciding that there might be another option besides burning her house down or giving in completely to her daughter’s whims.
    Mrs. Livingstone leaped upon the back