My Second Pet

This is a continuation of My First Pet...

About two years after giving away my first cat because of asthma, my cat-loving girlfriend and I got married and moved into a house. At first she was resigned to not having a cat. But after trying to put up with me for a few months, she was clearly unhappy.

So we struck a compromise. We would get a cat and keep it in the lower level of the house. I figured that by being in a house that was larger than the apartment in which I couldn't breathe, I might not have trouble with allergies. Also, I had been getting allergy shots for two years, and I was taking medicine to control the allergies. Besides, the woman we bought the house from had a cat in the house.

This actually worked out pretty well. My breathing wasn't as clear as it should've been, but I wasn't laboring to breathe. And the cat spent time outside, from mid-morning until dusk.

The cat was our baby for a couple of years, an orange and white tabby with white paws. My wife called her "Twinkie." When our real baby came along, Twinkie finally realized that the crib wasn't for her.

The cat didn't like our daughter too much. Our daughter's attempts at petting the cat were met with flattened ears and extended claws.

One windy October day, about one month after 9-11, our daughter came home from pre-school. The cat was not there. But she didn't ask about it until she was a bit older and saw pictures of the cat. By then it was easier to say that the cat was hit by a car and killed. I didn't tell her how the neighbor walked over to tell us. Or how upset her mother was. (My wife vowed she'd never have another cat in that house again.) Or how I placed her stiff body into a copy paper box and then into a hole I'd dug into the ground.

I showed our daughter the grave, which I marked with a small cairn. It was in the center of a square formed by four small trees, except that today only two of those trees still stand. When we would walk by, we'd say a small prayer, "Please God, welcome Twinkie into your Kingdom." I'm not too good with prayers, but our daughter liked that ritual.

Five years later my wife's legs started to feel numb, and she had trouble walking. She was soon admitted into the hospital and treated for transverse myelitis. She was released after four weeks. It was a strange time in our lives. The birds stopped showing up at my wife's bird feeder. But a skittish cat started to show up and run away when we approached it. It was an orange and white tabby, with white paws. I told my second-grade daughter that it was Twinkie, looking for mommy.

That cat visited us every few days, but it would always run away. After my wife came home and resumed walking, the cat stopped showing up.

That's the story of my second pet. But it wasn't the last pet....