Today marks three years since Edgar Allan Poe strutted out of Princeton’s Meow and into our lives, and, let’s be honest, took over the place. Three years of “good, good boy time,” midnight zoomies followed by the 3 a.m. delivery of a wet mouse toy to my chest or head, and a perfectly curated collection of stolen tampons, chapsticks, hair ties, mouse toys, and other bits and bobs he has deemed worthy of play, all artfully scattered around the house and tucked under the couch.

Poe started life as a stray in Laurinburg, NC. A woman took him in and even documented where and when she found him. Unfortunately, like so many in our society, she struggled with mental health challenges, and her desire to help stray animals turned into a devastating hoarding situation.

Three years ago, authorities seized the animals in her home, over 50 cats kept in cages stacked on top of each other. I’m told it was one of the worst situations they had ever seen. Poe spent the first two years of his life like that, caged in a garage, sitting on top of and under other cats.

He never saw the sun. He never ran after fuzzy mice, never had healthcare or regular meals. The only floor he knew was a wire grate. The only bed he knew was that same wire grate. Most of the cats they rescued could not be saved and had to be humanely euthanized. But Poe… Poe endured.

He was sent to Mac Tabby Café in NoDa, where they posted a bio of him on their Facebook page. They called him Nick Barkley. I don’t know why, I imagine it must be hard naming the hundreds of animals that come through their doors. But something in that image, that story, and those yellow eyes hooked me.

At the time, I had two cats at home: Stella Sugaree Garcia Blue and Dan the Adventure Cat Rooney. You might remember them from this story. Still, I had been quietly searching for my next true love, Stu Two if you will, and something in that gaze told me I had found him.

Maybe it was his coloring, all white with a few black spots and a black tail, a Stuesque remix with black where the orange had been. But I think it was more than that. In that photo, I saw a cat, call me crazy if you want, who was a fighter, a survivor. He wasn’t hiding or cowering in some corner. He was bold, upright, ready for the next episode, ready to tackle whatever life threw at him next. And I knew, whatever that was, I wanted to be there for it.

It turns out that, like most things in my life, it came with unexpected injuries. Three days after being removed from a cage and set free in a cat café, Poe (née Nick Barkley) jumped off a table and broke his leg.

They reached out to let me know I couldn’t come see him and that he would be in traction and unavailable for at least two months while he healed. It hurt, but I wasn’t deterred. I kept tabs on him as they moved him to Princeton’s Meow, a wonderful cat rescue in my hometown, while he recovered.

The only downside was that he was now back in a cage with a casted leg. His first taste of freedom had been short-lived. We visited him a few times at Princeton’s and got to love on him while he sat there, little leg in a cast, in a crate. He was so receptive to the attention, purring nonstop and rubbing his head against our hands, always asking for more.

Finally, after almost seven weeks of waiting, I got the email I had been hoping for: Nick was ready to be adopted. The message came on July 31, but we were going out of town that week, so he had to wait until August 8 for us to officially bring him home.

I set up the appointment and planned to pick him up at Princeton’s after my dentist appointment that day. We prepared the bedroom for his arrival, knowing we’d need to keep him quarantined and do a slow introduction to Rooney and Stella. Then we started counting the days.

The day I was bringing him home, I went to work with my cat carrier in the back seat. I had a dentist appointment around four to get a filling replaced, but that wasn’t going to stop me from getting my boy.

I pulled into the lot at Princeton’s and, as I was putting my car in park, a face popped up in the window.

It was Nick Barkley. It was like he had heard my car and somehow knew it was his ride to a new life and freedom. They were busy that evening with intakes and let me sit in the room he was in while they finished their work.

I waited to complete the paperwork and pay the adoption fee to take him home. There were about ten cats in that room. All of them came over, wanting pets and to play. But not Nick. He walked into the cat carrier, despite spending two years in one, and laid down. It was like he knew, this is my mom.

He came to us a little unsure, a little aloof, like he wasn’t quite convinced we were worthy of his time. We kept him in the master bedroom behind a closed door so we could ease all three cats into the transition slowly.

After about a day, he was no longer thrilled with his confinement. That night, when I used my leg to block him from escaping as I shut the door, he jumped up and nipped me on the wrist. I was startled. I remember gasping and feeling the hot sting of tears in my eyes. I’d never been bitten by a cat that wasn’t playing.

Ten minutes later, I tripped over him getting into bed and he jumped up and bit my leg. That really sent me spiraling. I was upset and unsure. I knew I hadn’t made a mistake, but I was afraid I had adopted a cat that wouldn’t be able to be socialized.

I reached out to Princeton’s, curious about his background and whether they had ever had issues with him. I assured them I wasn’t returning him, that we would stick it out, but I needed advice. They told me he had never displayed any aggression and that they were as surprised as I was.

In the end, I decided it wasn’t aggression. He was advocating for himself in the way he knew how. He wasn’t being mean, he didn’t break the skin, it didn’t even hurt, well, just my pride. It was his way of letting me know, “I’m here, I’m unhappy, and yes, a bit scared.” It was the first and last time it ever happened.

Naming him proved to be about as difficult as it was to name Rooney. I knew we didn’t want to call him Nick. My cousin is Nick, and I didn’t want a cat sharing the name of my favorite male cousin.

He was almost all white, so we called him Spooky for a bit, mostly because T found his bright yellow eyes a little off-putting. We called him Possum because my sister thought he looked like one, and to be fair, he kind of does. We called him Monkey because he reminded my BFF Morgan of Marcel from Friends, and again, he kind of does.

But none of those felt right. About two weeks into our life together, I was curating an ELA lesson on poetry and prose and I came across a picture of Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe you don’t see it, but we did. He has that same stare. That same “my mom cuts my hair” look. The expression, the eyes, even that slightly serious “I’ve seen things” energy.

And it was settled. Nick Barkley became Edgar Allan Poe. Poe, PoePoe, Poebert, for short.

I wish I could say that introducing him to the girls was smooth sailing, but it wasn’t. Even now, I’m pretty sure Rooney still hates him, and maybe us just a little, for bringing him into what had been a pretty normal and peaceful existence.

He and Stella get along well enough; they’ll play together, but she’s his age and can keep up with him. Rooney, on the other hand, has taken a different approach. They’ve settled into a relationship built mostly on mutual avoidance, with the occasional moment when he decides to stalk her and she promptly kicks his ass. Honestly, I think he’s more afraid of her than she is of him. He knows she isn’t to be trifled with.

Then there was the litter situation. We had a carefully curated system that worked beautifully with pellets in every box, no smell, easy cleanup. Poe refused to use them. His protest forced us to switch one box back to clay litter, which we all hate.

To make matters worse, he developed an irrational fear of the Litter-Robot. That led to accidents in the house and a lot of cursing over a $500 litter box rendered useless by one insolent child.

Even after three years, he’s still weird, still a bit standoffish. He doesn’t let me hold him like Stu did. He doesn’t cuddle. He isn’t a lap cat. I’ve had conversations with him about it.

Sometimes, by accident, we call him Stu. It’s a slip of the tongue, a memory, and a pain that time hasn’t completely erased. So he knows that, through no fault of his own, he is a replacement cat. In some strange way, he is Stu Two. But he’s fine with that, because he also knows I love him for him. He knows I know he isn’t Stu. Still, there are moments when the guilt creeps in.

And now? He supervises everything I do, from laundry folding to dinner prep, positioning himself just far enough away to watch with judgment but close enough to insert himself if he feels like it. His daily naps sprawl across the house like feline performance art, deep and unguarded.

He has a basket on the coffee table where he can nap or watch TV (and yes, he really does watch TV) and be close to us, but not on us. It respects his personal space, something he values greatly, and he will remind me of that, gently, when I press my face into his.

Time heals all wounds, even the ones a cat carries after two years in a cage. Sometimes, when he’s in his basket and I call him, he’ll come and sit on my chest on the couch. He doesn’t stay long and he won’t let me pull him into an embrace, but we are slowly making adjustments and moving in that direction.

He sleeps near the door on the couch and greets me when I get home. He will roll over and show me his belly, though touching it can still be a gamble. He chirps when I open a can of food and knows exactly when it’s dinner time. He comes running every morning for his “coffee treats” and perks up at the sound of a Churu being opened in the evening.

The best thing about Poe is our nightly routine. I call it “good, good boy time,” and it’s become a running joke at the office because I’ve talked about it so much.

Every night, and I mean every night, when it starts to get close to my bedtime, usually around nine, Poe begins to get antsy in his coffee table basket. Every time I walk down the hallway he sits up and waits for me to call him.

When I am finally ready for bed I say, “Ok, Poe, it’s good, good boy time,” and he jumps up, follows me down the hallway, and hops onto the bed. We spend about ten minutes playing and getting pets, and then I lay down on my back and he crawls onto my chest to lie down.

He only stays for ten or fifteen minutes, but it’s enough. I’m a side-sleeper, so if he stayed longer I’d never get any rest. Sometimes he moves to the edge of the bed and sleeps there. Most nights, he sleeps with T and Stella, which annoys me, but what can you do?

Every morning, before my alarm goes off, no matter what time it’s set for, he comes back about ten minutes before it’s due to ring, crawls onto me, and settles in. I think it’s his way of asking me to stay just a little longer.

I know I’m just setting myself up for heartache in the end. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want another Stu. But I’m human, and these sorts of attachments and this sort of love are what make us unapologetically real and raw. I don’t regret it, even if I sometimes fret about it.

And Poe, that little cat in a box, stole my heart all over again, for all the same reasons, and for all the different ones that Stu did.

No matter what, he is Poe: independent, particular, a little mysterious. But in the three years since he came home, the edges have softened. He trusts me now, in his way. And sometimes, when he sits in his basket and blinks slowly at me, I think maybe he’s saying, “You did okay, Mom.”

Adopting Poe was one of those decisions that made the whole world feel a little softer. He’s proof that rescue cats rescue us right back. Here’s to many more years of purrs, headbutts, and unapologetic bed-hogging.

Happy Gotcha Day, Poe, three years as a free-range kitten, and you’ve perfected the art.