It's Like This, Cat by Emily Neville

Dave and his dad fight all the time and Dave’s mother gets sick. Dave brings home a cat who he appropriately names Cat. Cat helps Dave meet Tom and Mary and binds Dave and his parents into a real family.

I can remember reading this book when I was a young girl. I remember being confused about people who live in apartments (people do that?) and hearing a dad and his son argue all the time (a son is talking back to his dad and surviving?). I remember thinking Tom was an odd duck, a boy who was ignored by his family (does that really happen?) And the lingo the people speak, especially the young people, a dialect and vocabulary so different from my Texas lingo….This book took me right out of my little small-town world.