Residents and Transients

Residents and Transients Summary | Detailed Summary

As this story begins, the narrator, a married woman named Mary, tells us she has a lover. Her husband, Stephen has started a new job in Louisville, and while Mary originally agreed to the move, she has now changed her mind.

Her lover is Larry, the family dentist. Like Mary, Larry grew up in the area; Mary, however, was away for eight years completing her education. She returned three years ago to care for her elderly parents who have since moved to Florida. Now that she is back, Mary wonders why she ever left in the first place. Larry, on the other hand, stayed in town; he became a dentist and married. He has since divorced.

Mary met her husband shortly after she returned home. He is not from the area; rather he is from the North, and he was transferred to the area by his employer. Even though Mary was born and raised in the area, being away for so long makes her feel like an outsider. She notices that the long-time residents are wary of the many people who have recently been moving to their town and believe they are a negative influence on the town's children.

Despite being away for so long, Mary has grown accustomed to living in her parents' old farmhouse. When her parents left for Florida, Mary agreed to handle the sale of the house and its contents. She has grown fond of the old house and she is reluctant to leave it. She tells her husband that she does not think she can get used to the idea of living on a residential street.

Along with caring for the house, Mary also has charge of her parents' eight cats. She feeds them in her mother's canning kitchen, a place where her mother spent many hours canning fresh fruits and vegetables. Mary finds it ironic that her mother now lives in a mobile home and buys all of her food from grocery stores.

Mary explains that she began seeing Larry shortly after she made a visit to his office for her six-month check-up. While she does not know exactly what prompted him to do so, she was nonetheless happy when he pulled into her driveway one day bringing ice cream. As they sit on the porch eating the ice cream, Larry tells Mary that he believes the area of Kentucky in which they live is the prettiest in the state and that she should not move. Mary agrees and says she remembers a time when she could not wait to leave.

When her husband calls one afternoon to tell her that he found a house, Mary realizes that she misses him. Even so, she is reluctant to go to Louisville to see the house. As she speaks to Stephen on the telephone, she is holding one of her cats, Ellen, who recently lost a litter of kittens after having an x-ray. Mary was sure to provide every detail of what had occurred in a letter to her parents but her parents' return letter mentions the incident. Stephen then provides Mary with instructions for obtaining a mortgage. While Mary argues that they should pay for the house outright, Stephen insists on applying for a mortgage.

Meanwhile, Larry visits nearly every day. As they lay in bed, the cats surround them. While Mary is accustomed to them always being around, she notices that Larry also does not seem to notice they are there. In fact, she realizes that he rarely comments on them at all.

One afternoon as they are playing Monopoly and drinking Bloody Mary's, Mary tells Larry that her father used to bury her grandmother's savings in the backyard as a means of avoiding inheritance taxes and over the course of ten years, managed to save $10,000 from her social security checks. As she tells the story, she comments that some people have difficulty letting go of things.

As they continue their game, Mary silently thinks about all of the items in the house and barn that will need to be discarded and realizes that she will have a hard time deciding which items to keep and which to get rid of. Suddenly, her thoughts turn to the cats and she tells Larry that she has been doing some reading. She has learned that in the wild, there are two types of cats: residents and transients. While it was originally thought that the residents were the stronger of the two, she says scientists are now wondering if perhaps the natural curiosity of the transients makes them the stronger group. Larry tells her he finds that interesting but does not believe that the findings belong to domestic cats.

One evening, the two go out for dinner. Mary remarks that they are careless about being seen together publicly. As they wait for their food, she notices pictures on the wall that feature various farm tools and she is reminded of her father's tools. Larry is unusually quiet during the meal, and on the way home, he asks Mary if she would like to stop seeing him. He senses she is bored with him and while Mary does not deny this, she says she does not want to go to Louisville. Larry tells her he wishes she could stay and that they could be together. As they drive, Mary sees a rabbit along the side of the road that is frantically trying to move but cannot because its hind end has been smashed by a car.

When they reach Mary's house, she is so inconsolable that when the telephone rings, Larry answers it. Stephen is on the line and Mary realizes that she needs to pull herself together so that Stephen does not suspect anything is going on. She quickly tells him that she is coming to Louisville and Larry is there to drive her there. Stephen apparently does not hear what she has said and begins to scold her for being so attached to her parents' home. Before hanging up, he tells Mary that she needs to be more accepting of change.

When Mary goes outside, Larry is still there. As they stand on the porch, they see Brenda, one of Mary's cats, walking up the lane. In the darkness, her eyes - which are normally different colors - appear to be red and green, like a traffic light. As she looks at the cat, Mary realizes that she is waiting for a light in her own life to change.