My cat went missing. The same day I lost my car keys. These things happen in pairs. Which is why I’m anxious. On the bus I check my backpack a dozen times to make sure my money is in the same zippered pocket, or I enter an address into my GPS twice just in case I don’t catch how the app slyly inserted the wrong city when I wasn’t looking. It’s enough that I’m doing everything I can to stay ahead of the curve, eat right, exercise, take vitamins. Other things have gone missing, but that’s on me. After all, what good was my holding on to a memorial program for the city’s first Asian councilman, or a certificate naming me as one of the first to ride beneath the San Francisco Bay, even though both would be worth bunches today on Craigslist or eBay? I threw out the documents a while ago, had no appreciation for my being a witness to local history, one of the reasons why hindsight can be a pain in the ass, which is the same reason why my friend has saved everything since she was eight years old and rents a storage unit hoping she’ll never have to be sorry for tossing a scrap of paper that turns out to be the find-of-the-year on the Antiques Roadshow—part of her personal history, her scrapbook. I understand the urge. My friend is an only child who doesn’t have siblings to recall her stories. Instead, she has boxes filled with paper. Don’t get me wrong. I also have collections. There’s my bookmarks, for example, ones from all over the country bearing slogans, sketches, and quotes from famous authors, and some with my own scribbles about page 9 or 56. Then there are the unofficial bookmarks: receipts from the post office, someone’s business card, a card reminding me to subscribe to a magazine for a special discount. Along the way, I collect things like refrigerator magnets, each with its own story. But none of this can tell me where my cat is, my favorite cat in the whole world with a face that is all about pure love and adventure and the joy of being a cat. Where is he? When is he coming home?