In a small used bookstore in Vermont, a gray tabby cat slept in the front window, curled atop a stack of novels no one had bought in years.
Her name was Poppy, and she had once belonged to the original owner, a quiet woman who collected both books and strays. When the woman died, her son inherited the store and the cat.
“I can’t take her home,” he told the staff. “But she can stay here. Customers like her.”
They did. Poppy accepted soft pets and the occasional treat, eyes half-closed, purring like a distant motor.
Years passed. The son sold the store to a young couple who dreamed of modernizing it—adding a coffee bar, live music, Wi-Fi. Poppy, arthritic and slow, didn’t quite fit their vision.
“She’s, what, like fifteen?” the new owner said one evening, watching her hobble toward the litter box. “We should… you know… find her a place.”
They called the local shelter. “We don’t have room for seniors right now,” the shelter said apologetically. “But we can put her on a waitlist.”
The bookstore staff put a small sign in the window: Poppy Needs a Retirement Home. Customers cooed and took pictures. Some said, “If my landlord allowed pets…” Others said, “She’s adorable, but I just got a kitten.”
Weeks passed. Poppy’s fur thinned. She ate less, slept more. The staff started noticing that her once-constant purr had become intermittent.
One regular customer, an older man who spent hours reading in the back corner, began staying later, just to sit near Poppy. He stroked her gently and whispered, “You’re a good girl. You’ve seen more stories than any of us.”
One snowy night, the owners decided to close early. They turned off the lights, leaving only the dim glow of the streetlamp filtering through the window. Poppy slept in her usual spot, gently rising and falling.
In the morning, when they came to unlock the doors, she was still there, in the same curled position. One of the staff members tapped the glass lightly, then froze.
They brought her inside, cradling her small, cooling body. The regular customer arrived just as they were wrapping her in a soft towel.
“She…?” he began.
They nodded. “Peacefully,” one of them said. “She just… didn’t wake up.”
They buried Poppy in a small patch of earth behind the store, between the dumpsters and the alley wall. Someone placed a single, dog-eared paperback on her grave.
The bookstore got its coffee bar and live music. New customers came, unaware there had ever been a cat in the window. The regular occasionally glanced at the front, half-expecting to see a gray shape curled atop forgotten stories.
No obituary mentioned Poppy. No rescue page told her tale. But for fifteen quiet years, she had watched people discover books, fall in love, break up, grow old, and move away. And then, without fanfare, she left the story herself.
