Maple (Orange Tabby)

Maple was an orange tabby with one white sock, a dramatic tail, and a gift for sitting directly on anything Priya was trying to read. She arrived as a rescue kitten in Columbus and immediately took possession of the apartment, beginning with the windowsill and expanding from there. Her days followed a strict schedule: breakfast, sunbeam, patrol, nap, second patrol, keyboard interference, dinner, and then the late-night purring shift. She had a chirp instead of a meow and used it with surgical precision whenever a door, drawer, or human failed to meet expectations. In her last months, Maple spent more time curled in Priya's lap, quieter but still unmistakably in charge. The apartment now has fewer orange hairs and far less authority. Priya would take the hairs back in a second.