to knit three little cats in their honor.
Miranda and I put Midnight, Scratchie, and Flipper into two cat carriers and get on
the bus after a long negotiation with the bus driver about having pets on board. Everyone
stares at us, cats mewing underneath our feet.
The vet is nice. She’s a sunny-faced woman with a gap between her front teeth and
a buzz cut. She tells us to go to the 7-Eleven across the street and buy a disposable
camera. She says we should take some pictures of these guys; she says it’s important.
Miranda rubs her temples and says that this is a good idea. And so we buy the camera
and I hold Midnight, Scratchie, and Flipper while Miranda snaps pictures. The cats
are listless in my arms, like rag dolls. I cradle them like babies. Miranda snaps.
I put them on the examining table and push their little heads together, gently, so
we can get their faces in the same frame. Snap, snap. The vet lets us do this for
a long time.
Finally, she appears in the doorway, her face heavy. “Okay,” she says. “Do you want
to say good-bye now?”
“They’re just going to sleep,” I tell her, and she smiles at me like I’m half stupid.
This is fine. I’m used to people thinking I’m retarded because of my eye.
The vet shoots something into their veins and then says I should hold them again.
So I do. I cradle them and feel their bodies grow lighter, and only then do I understand,
because I’ve done this down at Clover Point with Lydia-Rose.
I’ll probably never get the pictures of them developed. Or not for a while. Someone
videotaped Lydia-Rose’s grandfather’s funeral and it sits on our bookshelf with a
handwritten label that says Grandpa’s Funeral . Once, I watched the whole thing on fast-forward.
A week later, we return to pick up their ashes. Miranda frowns when she looks into
the bag. There are three little white urns, sealed shut, and each has been wrapped
in fancy ribbon, two pink and one green, as if they are birthday presents.
“This is distasteful,” Miranda says, removing one of the ribbons and dangling it in
front of the receptionist’s face. “Whoever had such a stupid idea.”
The receptionist takes the ribbon from Miranda’s hand and looks at her sheepishly.
We catch the bus home, Miranda cradling the bag of urns on her lap. When we get back,
she stands in the middle of the living room, an urn in each hand. Winkie circles her
feet, nose in the air, trying to figure out what she’s holding. Lydia-Rose sits slumped
on the couch, her feet in fuzzy tiger slippers, dabbing at her bloody nose.
Miranda surveys the room, exasperated. “I don’t really want to put these anywhere,”
she says.
“Let’s bury them,” I say. “Let’s give them a funeral.”
There’s a little park between our house and the high school that nobody ever hangs
out in; it’s just this weird vacant stretch of grass with a bench. Lydia-Rose and
I go out after dark with a shovel and a flashlight, the urns in my backpack. Miranda
has instructed us to tell the police the truth if we’re caught doing what we are about
to do. She says they’ll besympathetic, and that they’ll make us fill up the holes, but that’s all. Lydia-Rose
and I don’t have anything to worry about, though. No police ever come around our neighborhood.
There are a lot of rocks in the little park, and each time the shovel hits one, sparks
shoot out. It makes me feel like a cave person, discovering fire.
I put the disposable camera in my treasure chest under the bed. It’s been a while
since I’ve looked through it. When no one’s home, I take it into the bathroom, try
on my mother’s sweatshirt, slide my thumbs through the worn-out thumbholes, fiddle
with the Swiss Army Knife, stare at the photographs. In them, I am a strange-looking
child, too small, with no hair. Sometimes I imagine that I was abandoned by accident—that
my mother set me down for a second and
Miranda and I put Midnight, Scratchie, and Flipper into two cat carriers and get on
the bus after a long negotiation with the bus driver about having pets on board. Everyone
stares at us, cats mewing underneath our feet.
The vet is nice. She’s a sunny-faced woman with a gap between her front teeth and
a buzz cut. She tells us to go to the 7-Eleven across the street and buy a disposable
camera. She says we should take some pictures of these guys; she says it’s important.
Miranda rubs her temples and says that this is a good idea. And so we buy the camera
and I hold Midnight, Scratchie, and Flipper while Miranda snaps pictures. The cats
are listless in my arms, like rag dolls. I cradle them like babies. Miranda snaps.
I put them on the examining table and push their little heads together, gently, so
we can get their faces in the same frame. Snap, snap. The vet lets us do this for
a long time.
Finally, she appears in the doorway, her face heavy. “Okay,” she says. “Do you want
to say good-bye now?”
“They’re just going to sleep,” I tell her, and she smiles at me like I’m half stupid.
This is fine. I’m used to people thinking I’m retarded because of my eye.
The vet shoots something into their veins and then says I should hold them again.
So I do. I cradle them and feel their bodies grow lighter, and only then do I understand,
because I’ve done this down at Clover Point with Lydia-Rose.
I’ll probably never get the pictures of them developed. Or not for a while. Someone
videotaped Lydia-Rose’s grandfather’s funeral and it sits on our bookshelf with a
handwritten label that says Grandpa’s Funeral . Once, I watched the whole thing on fast-forward.
A week later, we return to pick up their ashes. Miranda frowns when she looks into
the bag. There are three little white urns, sealed shut, and each has been wrapped
in fancy ribbon, two pink and one green, as if they are birthday presents.
“This is distasteful,” Miranda says, removing one of the ribbons and dangling it in
front of the receptionist’s face. “Whoever had such a stupid idea.”
The receptionist takes the ribbon from Miranda’s hand and looks at her sheepishly.
We catch the bus home, Miranda cradling the bag of urns on her lap. When we get back,
she stands in the middle of the living room, an urn in each hand. Winkie circles her
feet, nose in the air, trying to figure out what she’s holding. Lydia-Rose sits slumped
on the couch, her feet in fuzzy tiger slippers, dabbing at her bloody nose.
Miranda surveys the room, exasperated. “I don’t really want to put these anywhere,”
she says.
“Let’s bury them,” I say. “Let’s give them a funeral.”
There’s a little park between our house and the high school that nobody ever hangs
out in; it’s just this weird vacant stretch of grass with a bench. Lydia-Rose and
I go out after dark with a shovel and a flashlight, the urns in my backpack. Miranda
has instructed us to tell the police the truth if we’re caught doing what we are about
to do. She says they’ll besympathetic, and that they’ll make us fill up the holes, but that’s all. Lydia-Rose
and I don’t have anything to worry about, though. No police ever come around our neighborhood.
There are a lot of rocks in the little park, and each time the shovel hits one, sparks
shoot out. It makes me feel like a cave person, discovering fire.
I put the disposable camera in my treasure chest under the bed. It’s been a while
since I’ve looked through it. When no one’s home, I take it into the bathroom, try
on my mother’s sweatshirt, slide my thumbs through the worn-out thumbholes, fiddle
with the Swiss Army Knife, stare at the photographs. In them, I am a strange-looking
child, too small, with no hair. Sometimes I imagine that I was abandoned by accident—that
my mother set me down for a second and
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