My Mom calls Molly “a dickens.” (Lovingly, of course.) She can squeeze her way through narrow openings, never met a box or bag she didn’t explore, and never met a closed door she didn’t want opened. If her voice were human,  it would be filled with laughter.

Molly is quick as lightning and runs at the speed of blur. It took her 11 years to trust me holding her for anything more than 10 seconds. Since then, she can’t get enough of me. She’s persistent, knows what she wants, loves to get brushed and turns everyday activities – changing sheets, scrubbing the floor and bringing in the groceries – into a game. Molly loves to “read” by pawing at magazine pages front to back, back to front over and over again.

She has also managed to climb the brick wall in the family room to the ceiling, jump from the kitchen floor to the top of the refrigerator and hide on top of the basement ductwork hours before her vet appointment. Somehow, she and MacKenzie, her littermate sister and friend for 14 years, wordlessly communicated that it was a day to hide.

There were two cat beds, two cat dishes and two of their favorite catnip toy of a dog’s face, but neither ever claimed one as their own. Thankfully, with no human training, neither of them ever tried to get outside, walk on the counters or climb onto the table.

When someone went into the bathroom they anchored each side of the door like stone lions at a mansion. These days Molly sits lengthwise in front of it. It seems as if her sprit has withered since MacKenzie died

At first Molly would start each day in what seemed to be a search for her sister. She sleeps in some of MacKenzie’s favorite spots and pushes through the stairway spindles like her sister did reaching for a kiss on the top of her forehead. One day I was deleting audio files and came across one of MacKenzie, who loved to chat. Molly dashed in and looked up with hopeful eyes.

I think it’s almost time to search for a sister.

— Marylynn G. Hewitt