At 33 I Dream of Kittens

Last night I was sure our cat was dying.

I came home from work to a worried husband who ushered me inside to see her silent on the couch, no meows, none of the usual squeaks. No interest in water or food, she had followed Jordan inside when he got home and not moved since.

Touching one particular spot on her back got me hissed at. Her breathing was irregular. Surely she had been attacked by some errant larger creature, claws or teeth or talons had punctured an organ through her deep white fur, now matted in a few spots. Surely she was bleeding internally. Surely she would be dead by morning.

There was no blood, no visible wound, and yet she was absolutely in pain.

Let’s back up for a second. I have never really been a pet person. I grew up with dogs (only ever one at a time; they rarely lasted more than a few years each) that slept in the shed off the kitchen and spent their days gallivanting solo around our 80 acres. I tended to the occasional cat, always outside creatures, never on the couch and heaven forbid, never on anybody’s bed. When these animals wandered off a final time or were killed by the school bus I rode in or mauled by larger beasts, I was sad, and then I got over it. These were not my friends; they were simply animals. Functional critters, they guarded our front porch or sniffed out birds or kept the territory mouse-free. We did not have a vet on the Rolodex. Our pets were on their own.

I am thirty-three years old, and I have fallen in love with a fluffy white cat. When I was convinced she was dying, I tucked her gently underneath the afghan on our couch and nuzzled her nose, tears in my eyes. I went to bed and cried, then laughed wryly at how ridiculous it felt to cry over a cat who was not even dead yet. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamt that she had leapt onto our bed and snuggled in between us. I woke several times in the night to silence, sure that she had no breath left, a limp and static body twenty feet away in the darkness.

At six o’clock this morning, she meowed.