When I got home I removed the star from its packaging and positioned it at the top of the tree, connecting its plastic wiring to the outlet of one of the strings of lights that was already wound around the upper branches, so that its own lights came on. One of the cats was sitting on his haunches, on the coffee table, watching me, and the other was asleep in a cardboard box on the floor at the other end of the apartment. A. had been at the gym she goes to, and came in through the door only a minute or two after I’d arrived. “Ooooh!” she said, when she saw what I was doing. “Pretty nice,” I said, and stepped back to look at the tree.