After he closed the door on his last sympathetic guest, he tiredly walked to the bedroom ready
to peel off the black suit weighing on his shoulders. In the dim room, he rifled through the
dresser for his comfort pants. Slamming each drawer shut in defeat, he searched frantically
around the room for the one pair of pants he needed. Marching to the small excuse for a
laundry room, he flung open the door of the dryer to find a bundle of clean clothes which had
laid untouched for weeks. Rummaging through the clothes, he successfully pulled out the
pants. He let out a relieved sigh, pleased with this one small win. Turning to leave the room, his
foot caught the edge on the litter box, scattering its contents across the floor. He cursed to
himself, hurling pants into the hall as he dropped to his knees to clean up the mess. Lazily, he
threw the bulk of the mess into the box, not caring he was using his hands for the job. His head
snapped up when he heard a small “meow” in the doorway.
“I don’t like cats,” he sneered at the grey Persian. Its yellow eyes blinking once at him before
moving to wander away from the scene. He ambled to his feet to follow, furious that the cat
was walking away from him. “That is your mess in there, you clean it up!” He roared at the cat
while it continued to move down the hall. His hand fumbled across the table in the hall,
wrapping around the barely read novel Pride and Prejudice. He chucked the book directly at his
subject. The cat sprang in surprise at the assault and looked puzzledly at his owner. It groaned a
long “meow,” irritated by his owner’s sudden hostility.
“You were her fucking cat. Ten damn years I’ve had to put up with you, you were her
responsibility, she fed you, she groomed you, you were hers, never mine, I don’t know how she
convinced me to let her get a cat in the first place, you are so needy and annoying, and I won’t
have it! Get out of my house.”
He stormed toward the cat as it sat waiting in confusion. He scraped the cat into his arm,
shoved his feet into ragged slippers, and stomped into the street. The closing clouds overhead
made the early afternoon feel like night. When he finally reached his destination, the back alley
to a string of dungy restaurants, he tossed the cat into a pyramid of garbage bags. Without a
word, he turned, and made the 15-minute trek back home. Not once did he look over his
shoulder, and even if he did, he would have found nothing.
Hours later in the dark living room of his vacant three-bedroom house, he stared at the glass of
whiskey in his left hand. The three ice cubes he placed in the glass when he poured it had long
been absent from the cup. The whiskey, however, still hadn’t been touched. The ring on his
finger, that was pressed against the glass, was suddenly heavier. He tapped it in a slow rhythm
against the drink, the rain outside accompanying his song. If she was here, she would have
hummed. She may have even sung. His throat tightened at the thought as he turned his head to
stare at the empty chair beside his. Not once in the day’s earlier parade of mourning family and
friends had anyone dared to sit in her chair. No one risked adjusting the crumpled blanket that
hadn’t felt her heat in the two weeks since she had left her home to never return. He had
thought of bringing the blanket with him to the ICU but supposed it better to leave it at home
for when she was back.
He forced his eyes away from the blue chair, and after setting his cup down, pushed himself to
his feet. In the kitchen he cracked a can of tuna open and emptied it into the bowl on the floor.
He called out into the house, “Romeo” and waited for the scamper of paws to come around the
corner. “Romeo,” he called again, annoyed that it had taken more than one call to get the cat to
his supper. He began yelling “Ro—," but caught himself as he remembered where his cat was.
He flew out the door and into the street with the pouring rain, the shirt under his suit jacket
soaked within seconds. Sprinting to the back alley where he had left his cat, he rummaged
around the trash bags, calling out for Romeo. Tears mixing with the rain on his face, blurred his
vision as he searched for the cat hysterically. Sinking to his knees as he thought the last thing he
had left in his life was gone, he heard a small meow come from his right. Crawling over to the
boxes stacked beside the building, he lifted the flap to look inside and find two wide yellow
eyes staring at him. He cradled the shivering cat against his chest and while kissing it atop its
head, he whispered against the damp grey fur.
“It’s just you and I now buddy…”