We Love Anderson Cooper Page 9

  “Maybe we should sell the house. Get a condo,” I had said over breakfast, the last time science failed us. I scraped charcoal from my toast with a knife, raining black ash onto the pine table.

  “Kids need room to play.” Weldon drowned his oatmeal in milk and rowed a spoon through the mush.

  “Something modern.” I bit into the dry toast.

  When Grievous joined our household, I forgot about a condo. I hated to imagine her trapped in three small rooms, a litter box wedged between the tub and the toilet, and no access to the outdoors. In our house she had free rein. I fed her in the kitchen, brushed her in the living room, and in the bedroom talked to her in that high singsong reserved for babies. No matter that she sharpened her claws on the legs of the eighteenth-century armoire and sliced the thick tweed on the settee. We hadn’t selected these elegant furnishings ourselves, after all.

  Weldon seldom called me from the road anymore. But one night, as he was piloting his tractor trailer on three hours’ sleep and chomping microwaved cheeseburgers from 7-Eleven, I heard from him. “Could you check if I set the DVR to record the hockey games?” he said, though I knew he would never forget that.

  “Let me see,” I told him, and stood before the recorder for the time it would have taken to press the right buttons. “All done.” I waited for him to get to the real reason for his call.

  “Remember to take your prenatal vitamins,” he said as if he had just thought of it. He set them out for me every morning when he was home.

  “Right,” I said. I almost laughed. Except for one occasion of frustrated, side-by-side masturbation, we hadn’t had sex in nearly two months.

  I no longer bristled when clients ordered dresses for christenings and bar mitzvahs. Bold darts flew from the waists and bosoms I sewed. Grievous hopped into my lap at night, softening everything: the armchair, the roar of a passing motorbike, the tick of my pulse. But after a few minutes she grew impatient, wriggled to the floor, and licked off my scent.

  She slipped out each morning. I didn’t know where she went, though once I saw her drinking from a concrete birdbath. Afternoons she ascended a giant oak, sprawled on a high branch, and spied on prey.

  “You want me to call the fire department?” a neighbor asked, as the sun set, and Grievous remained in the tree. An elderly woman with ropy arms who always hosted three generations at holiday meals, she knew nothing about cats.

  “Best time for hunting,” I said.

  I thought Grievous was indestructible, but one day she was hit by a Corvette. We heard the whump of the impact, followed by a cry of rage. Her femur had fractured, and the bone jutted through skin. Unsure if she would survive, we raced her to the vet. The doctor pinned the bone and sewed her up. The accident shook us from our routine. That night, we cradled Grievous and each other.

  After she fell asleep, we tiptoed to another bedroom. “Do you think we’ll wake her?” I asked, but we were already shedding our flannel pajamas. I didn’t think I could become pregnant.

  * * *

  Six months later, we scrubbed the nursery, and Weldon hung the needlework he had bought in an arts-and-crafts shop in Nebraska: “Welcome Baby.” Grievous wove between the legs of the crib, marking them with her scent. She rolled on the beige carpet, seeding it with black fur.

  She had slept in our bed since the accident. “We might want the baby in bed with us,” Weldon said that night. He pulled the covers to his chin and flipped the TV to a show about prisoners. Grievous tapped his hand, but Weldon refused to pet her.

  “There’s room for all of us.” Sitting at a table across the room, I cut out letters of the alphabet for a quilt. The sex of the baby was still a mystery. I pictured a perfect, pink-cheeked infant like the ones on baby food jars, bundled in the quilt.

  “She might scratch the baby.”

  The utility knife slipped, and I sliced off the top of the W. “She wouldn’t. Not intentionally.” I had grown large and hated to bend down, so I didn’t bother to retrieve the severed fabric.

  “Grievous won’t mind. She’s always been very independent.” Since Weldon had learned he was becoming a father, an unwelcome confidence had crept into his manner.

  I tried to object, but he lowered Grievous to the floor.

  She didn’t fit on my lap anymore, and I was too tired to hold her in my arms. I had been having trouble sleeping. Every night, just as I was about to doze off, the baby would kick, waking me. During the day, I nodded over my sewing machine, wearing the only clothes that fit me, tentlike dresses I made myself. My nails grew so fast they were like claws no matter how often I cut them.

  * * *

  We brought the child home, a girl named Neda. Weldon juggled diapers and a bassinet, while I hobbled into the house, aching where the baby had torn me, resisting her entry into the world.

  “I wonder where Grievous is,” I said. I felt an inexplicable longing for her.

  Weldon stroked Neda’s cheek, stared into her gray eyes, and cooed.

  “I’m sure the cat’s fine,” he said.

  The baby cried, a grating sound. Her face flushed. I took off my coat and lifted my blouse.

  At night her bawling woke me from dreams in which a companion and I dined on herring in cream sauce and salmon fillets. Because I was deprived of sleep, my work suffered. Seams veered right and left, unraveled behind missing knots. Erratic cuts ruined bolts of fabric. I left pins in hems and delivered a wedding dress to a man celebrating his fiftieth anniversary.

  I would lay Neda on the couch while I worked, admiring the thin auburn curl I had arranged in the center of her otherwise bald, floppy head. Baby acne dotted her face, fat pooched her cheeks, and she stuck out her tongue. She didn’t look like a girl who would one day win a science fair.

  We saw only brief glimpses of Grievous, but evidence of her was everywhere: scratches on the nursery door, bite marks on the crib, and mice piled high on the porch, babies that looked more stunned than dead.

  One night we heard the childlike wailing of a cat fight. A red-haired EMT who lived down the block said she was coming home from an emergency call and saw Grievous swipe a bobcat.

  The owner of the Corvette, a televangelist whose megachurch was blocks from our house, claimed Grievous slashed his tires. He sped through the neighborhood without regard for pets or children and had been the one to injure Grievous. “I saw her sniffing around the car,” he said, “and the next day they were flat.”

  I could tell Weldon suspected me because of the English teacher, but didn’t have the heart to accuse his wife. I let him believe what he wanted.

  How I missed the days when Grievous would snake around my legs while I pedaled the sewing machine. Feeling the gentle pressure of her body, my heart had expanded, and I understood what it meant to love without words. Neda woke screaming from her nap, and I trudged off to change her.

  * * *

  The little girl grew. When he was home, Weldon sat on the floor with her, plucking a toy piano while she sang “Twinkle Twinkle” off-key. He tried to teach her the sounds of the animals, but she declared moo when she should have cried baa and quacked when she should have roared. When he counted on her fingers, she poked him in the eye. She fell asleep on his lap, listening to stories of his childhood on a Colorado ranch.

  But he was often away, and then it was just the child and me.

  One day, as she played on the living-room floor, she pointed under the breakfront and squealed, “Kitty, Mama!”

  Grievous sauntered out and circled Neda.

  I paused in my sewing. “Good kitty.” I hadn’t seen her in a long time and was relieved she looked healthy, eyes clear and coat shining.

  “Good kitty,” Neda said.

  Grievous stepped onto the child’s lap. Her claws were like scythes. Brushing Neda’s arm, they carved lines in blood.

  “Oh dear.” I wiped the blood with a fabric swatch.

  “Oh dear,” Neda said.

  Grievous purred. I had forgotten what a soothing sound
that was and closed my eyes to listen.

  Neda trailed the cat all afternoon, over couches, under beds and armoires. Dust bunnies clung to her hair, her jumper blackened. When I lay her down for an afternoon nap in the bed we had just bought her, she called for Grievous. The cat ambled across the nursery floor and jumped in bed. I was glad they were getting along.

  That night, I set a plate of tuna casserole in front of Neda, and she spooned half onto the floor for Grievous. After the cat ate, she cleaned herself, licking her paws and rubbing her face. Copying her, my daughter smeared spit on her cheeks.

  Grievous disappeared through the cat door, and Neda tried to follow. She jammed her head through, but her shoulders got stuck. As I pulled her inside, she swatted my hands. She yelled for the cat and was inconsolable, weeping so hard she wheezed. The next night was the same. Not for the first time, I thought how much easier it was to love a creature whose habit was silence.

  When Weldon returned a few days later, he sealed the cat door, trapping Grievous inside. We watched from a few feet away, Grievous and I. “It’s wrong,” I said. “She’s wild.”

  “You’re the one who complained Neda was upset,” he said through the nails in his mouth. I should have known he would do anything for the child.

  * * *

  I had always read to my daughter before bed, but now she shoved Pinocchio and The Velveteen Rabbit aside and patted her belly, insisting I scratch it. When I did, she murmured, a throaty hum. I liked to imagine she was Grievous’s littermate, a second cat we had rescued from the snow. Grievous slept under the covers, her tail in Neda’s face.

  Perched on the window ledge, Grievous stared at finches. She stalked a squirrel, lifting her paw to trap it, but it was Grievous who was trapped on the wrong side of the glass. She crept behind Neda, who was unaware of being followed. I couldn’t help but admire the cat’s stealthy movements, the way she rotated her ears to pick up every sound. They played together, and Neda shrieked and laughed.

  So what if the child never went to the park or McDonald’s anymore—she howled if separated from Grievous—or if I had to put her plate on the floor next to the cat’s to get her to eat? She could learn a lot from Grievous.

  “Do you know she pees in the cat box?” As he interrogated me, Weldon held up a diaper Neda had torn off.

  I suppose he would have preferred a more helpless child. “It’s easier than changing her.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes. I could tell he feared he no longer understood his daughter.

  When he tried to get Neda to play, to pummel the towers he erected from blocks or to gaze at the moon through a plastic telescope, she refused. “Play Grievous,” she said, and off she went.

  Sometimes Grievous lay on the floor, feet splayed behind, content to let Neda brush her. But I found bite marks on Neda when I bathed her. Grievous could be savage, but Neda didn’t seem to mind.

  My daughter no longer clung to my apron or watched me sew. Gone were the days of her reaching for the shiny blade when I cut leather and vinyl. She was off with Grievous, napping in sunbeams and chasing flies. She raked the furniture with her sharp nails and curled in a ball to sleep, her head hidden in her hands.

  One day I heard snarling and yowling. When I went to investigate, I found Neda on the floor of the nursery. Scratches ran the length of her neck and hands, and her forehead was bloody. Fur erect, back arched, Grievous commanded the bed.

  “Kitty won’t let me up,” the child whimpered. When I approached, Grievous hissed. I cleaned Neda up and tucked her into my bed. Despite their fight, Neda called for Grievous to join her.

  When Weldon returned from his trip and saw Neda’s injuries, he waited until the child was asleep and kicked the cat’s bowl across the kitchen. “We’re getting rid of her.”

  “Who, Neda?” I joked.

  His mouth tightened.

  “Neda would never forgive us,” I said. I couldn’t imagine life without Grievous. She was our first, and I wouldn’t give her up.

  “We’ll tell her Grievous ran away.”

  “It’s not the cat’s fault. You trapped her inside.”

  When Grievous padded into the room, Weldon lunged for her, but she scrambled to the top of a bookcase. While he dragged over a stepladder, she dropped to the floor, dashed behind the refrigerator, and then vanished into the basement.

  Weldon put out a fresh dish of cat food and watched it, but Grievous waited until we slept to eat. The next day he built a trap, cutting a hole in a wood chest and rigging a door to shut when the cat went for the tuna inside. He caught only Neda’s arm.

  When he went back on the road, things changed. I lured Grievous with her favorite foods—raw chicken liver and kidneys—and we became a family again. She and Neda batted blocks around the floor, and I massaged Grievous with my toes.

  Weldon phoned from the highway; I said I hadn’t seen Grievous.

  The cat’s ears rotated toward the front of the house when Weldon’s truck rolled over the asphalt. As soon as he opened the door, she darted out. “Good riddance,” he shouted. When he turned back to me, he looked tired, as if he could barely carry his suitcase.

  Neda tried to follow the cat, but Weldon clasped her arm with his free hand. “No more Grievous,” he said.

  She sank her teeth into his fingers, and he drew them to his chest, his eyes narrowing. As she fled from the room, he dropped the suitcase, and it toppled onto its side.

  That night, I slept with the covers over my face, missing Grievous, who had lain against me while Weldon was away.

  Sitting on the couch the next morning, Weldon clutched a cup of coffee he’d brewed from a stolen motel packet in one hand, his other hand bandaged and resting on a pile of unread newspapers in his lap. “Sometimes I think you love that cat more than you love me.”

  Distracted, I plunged the sewing machine needle through my middle finger. While Weldon drove me to the emergency room, I considered all Grievous had given me and how little she had asked in return.

  Neda lay on her bed, refusing to eat or play. She yowled in her sleep, her arms and legs churning as if she were running on all fours. Half-moons darkened beneath her eyes.

  Snow fell. I saw Grievous take shelter under Weldon’s tractor-trailer. I was glad she had found a dry spot. After dark, Neda and I snuck out with sardines. We kneeled in the snow at the edge of the trailer, huddling together for warmth, and I set down the plate. Grievous allowed us to stroke her ears as she ate.

  A week went by, and Weldon left again. He was headed to Missouri but made it only half a mile. Receiving a call about the accident, I remembered the gentle way he had with Neda and the happiness of our early days. I would miss him. The police officer told me his brake lines had been compromised—four neat slashes all in a row—and they tore as he rounded an icy curve. The semi careened down an embankment, landing in a ravine. Weldon died instantly.

  Neda and I were glad to have Grievous back. I unsealed the cat door, and we watched her through the window, hijacking a house finch and biting the head off of a squirrel. I bought a taxidermy kit. We stuffed the trophies she left us and mounted them on the walls of the nursery after painting over the sheep.

  Better Homes and Gardens

  Neal pulled up to a small ranch house with a cracked concrete drive, a pizza-delivery sign gripping the roof of his silver BMW. He rang the bell twice and was about to turn around when a boy of perhaps ten opened the door.

  “My mom said to tell you we can’t pay for it.” The kid stood with one bare foot on the other. He had curly black hair Neal imagined girls would one day run their fingers through.

  “I’m guessing it was you that called.”

  “Number’s on the fridge.”

  Neal could cover it, but where did that end? He’d never been especially charitable. It would be odd to start now when he was neglecting his own family. The consulting firm that had employed him for the past decade had folded three months before, and since then he’d made no effort to fi
nd a real job. It was 2008, and hardly anyone was hiring. But even if they had been, he wouldn’t have looked. He’d come to hate that kind of work. The endless pressure to generate revenue and the constant jockeying within the firm had caused his blood pressure to soar and aggravated his eczema, angry patches spreading across his back and hands, resisting prescription creams and hypnotherapy. When the firm went bankrupt, he’d secretly celebrated.

  The boy touched the red Mama Jane’s delivery bag.

  “What’s your name?” Neal asked.

  “Caleb.”

  “I can’t give this to you. You know that, right? That’s not how it works. Mama Jane has to get paid. Otherwise there are no more pies.” It was a crock. Caleb looked like he knew it, too, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head. What was one pizza?

  Inside the house, a woman bent to gather some kind of cards and a PlayStation from the carpet. Younger than Neal’s wife, Tara, she wore loose jeans and a “Will Code for Beer” T-shirt. She was all angles, shoulder blades and knees jutting against fabric. Neal liked how little there was of her. He almost changed his mind about giving the boy the pizza.

  “You’re letting in bugs,” the woman said to Caleb.

  As Neal drove back to the shop, air-conditioning chilled his neck and ankles, bringing goose bumps to his skin. A lifetime supply of mint gum filled a 7-Eleven bag on the floor. His girls, Allie and Avery, sophomores at Long Island Prep, inhaled the stuff. Used pieces wrapped in foil sparkled beneath the seats, tumbled across the carpet when he took a sharp turn, flattened beneath his sneakers.

  That morning, he had withdrawn five thousand dollars from his and Tara’s account. Now he opened the glove box, glanced at the loose stack of hundreds, and thought again about escaping: renting a cabin in the Poconos, leaving his phone behind. Tara would be furious if she knew about the money. The thought made him smile.