It was a spring that felt more like winter last week in New York; suddenly it feels like summer. After my air-conditioned bedroom, the living room and kitchen was like a walk-in oven. A weirdly yellow bulb lit the kitchen. The kids must have left it on when they went to bed.

I made an espresso. Alerted by the sound, Snow White appeared from wherever she had been napping. I opened a can of wet food for her and laid its contents on a paper plate, separating it into two servings—not that any cat here but Snow White ever eats the wet food.

As she bent her small white head to the task, young Jasper showed up. He is always curious, always gives her plate a sniff before jetting off to walk his rounds. But this morning, instead, Jasper bent his tiger striped head and ate alongside his elder sister.

Gazing down at the two heads bobbing as they ate, I felt a sudden warmth that had nothing to do with the hot dead air of the room. 

Maybe two small creatures scrambling for food reminded me of my brother Pete and me when we were young. Or maybe I remembered how Pete, in the last years of his life, had delighted in playing with Pablo, the split-faced cat—dark on one side, light on the other—who still lives with Cheryl, three years after Pete’s death. 

I recall those thoughts—and then, for a sweet moment, Pete just there with me.