Cat Rituals
by Alex Behr
- Please empty the litter box. He pees a lot. Play the game called “Find the prize” every day with the scooper thing. There are lots of prizes!
- Please put the litter bag out on the porch. Better yet, in the outdoor trash. If you put it in the kitchen trash, it will smell. Can you lift the lid and smell? Do you think it smells bad? Like, unusually? Did you notice weird smells on me? Like between my teeth, or behind my ear, or in my navel? Remember when you used to kiss it? Or is that inappropriate, now that we’re divorced? When you find me at baggage claim, do you forget when you smile automatically that we’re divorced? Our cat is on my thigh. Two paws on, two paws off. Remember after a trip there was a weird walnut on the rug, but it was a bird’s head?
- Please give him meds twice a day. Heart meds, one pill cut in half and crushed, twice a day. Put it on a spoonful of squishy meat. And thyroid meds, it’s liquid, twice a day. Wear the blue gloves when you give him the thyroid meds. Don’t get sick from the meds. It’s hard for you to remember medications. Like when you forgot to renew your heart meds and you ran out for five days straight? And who, indeed, was late for work getting them for you? And you texted, “Thanks.”
- Please pet him as much as you want. The abscess is healed. The vet cut it open. That was a lot of goo. Part of it was gray.
- Please don’t read my journals. They’re all over the place, like the porn in my friend’s house growing up. The dad stored his porn by the cookbooks and boxes of Ritz crackers, or by the salad tongs and the Quaker Oats. Jugs? Hustler? Barely Legal? Let’s pretend. Let’s pretend we’re still married and all the bad stuff never happened, like you never were hospitalized for wanting to kill yourself, but let’s pretend you got caught at the neighbor’s house, spying on them. Maybe that couple who used to watch gay porn with the curtains open, even though they looked like a regular hetero couple with a yellow Alfa Romeo. Let’s pretend they invite you in and seduce you, under the cathode glow, and you ask them to order bread rolls with marinara sauce from Hot Lips. When they moved out, they put a lot of diet books out on the street. Once they left, they didn’t care who knew they were ashamed of their weight. So, let’s pretend I didn’t wake up with cat hair in my mouth. Let’s pretend I was able to have a baby. And the baby had red hair. Red curly hair. And he was a musical prodigy. Someone you could love but envy. We wouldn’t have had to drag our actual son, the adopted one, to piano lessons. Once, he hid under the bed and we had to pull him out. I pulled him out. Did I? Is that memory real? I know he cried while playing scales. “This isn’t for me!” The red-headed one would want to practice scales for hours and would have gotten fat on praise from all the people who basked second-hand in his gifts. They would be genius adjacent. We would’ve spent many hours at recitals hating the other parents. And with the parents we did like, we’d have to downplay our son’s musical unique gifts.
- Please brush his hair, or, duh, his fur. Sometimes he seems human, or human adjacent. To have fur means he has a dependency on us, by which I mean me. To have hair means he’d eventually move out, unless he moved into the basement and couldn’t function. Which is no judgment. No judgment on you being in the basement for so long! Watching YouTube! It’s a fact: we’re all maladjusted, what with the microplastics in our brain, our gut biomes all messed up, and all our autoimmune disorders. We wait for the phone to ring. It doesn’t. We wait for the doorbell to ring. It’s silent. We take down the “No Solicitors” sign so at least someone will ring the doorbell. And by we, I mean I. Do you remember holding my stomach when I had cramps? Do you remember when I had a miscarriage? I couldn’t stop crying on the rug. And you told me to get over the psychodrama? Does that mean you are autistic? The emotions were too much? And I knew there was death in me. The doctors told us as they transferred the malformed cells into my uterus. People care for you. In that sense, your hair should be called fur. Our very only son asked for red dots for Christmas. Red dots sound fun, like Rudolph’s nose. A clown nose. A candy. But they’re for his guns. The better to see you with, my dear. Remember when he was little? He said, “I don’t care about people. I care about having fun.” Do you remember how mad I’d get when you’d sit with him on the couch and nothing got done? He said, “Pirates always give their moms hugs.” Do you remember how mad I’d get when you’d read and read to him then I’d have to get him to sleep, but I was exhausted? Where did that anger go? I thought it had coated the windows. Made the silverfish plump yet quick. Blew out the lights. Crushed my will to flirt. But here’s the truth: The anger got poured into one glass. Then another. The glasses emptied into me. Night after night. And the glasses were stacked in one dishwasher then another. Dishwashers down the block to the playground.
- Please run the dishwasher. Make sure to keep the cookie trays underneath. The dishwasher leaks, which I know makes you nervous. I don’t bake cookies. And I don’t cook frozen chicken nuggets. Everyone I’d feed cookies and nuggets to are gone. I heat soup in a pot.
- Please don’t leave an almost empty peanut butter jar. It will make me sad. It will make me think you don’t know me.
- Please fold the blankets when you leave. You can stack them on the couch. It’s okay to leave before I get back. Just make sure to check off the meds on the dry-erase board. I’m still not drinking. And I miss it. I even miss you.
Alex Behr is the author of the forthcoming story collection Animal Kingdom (7.13 Books), which contains “Cat Rituals.” Her other books are Planet Grim (7.13 Books) and Grief Stick (Picture Frame Press). She lives in Portland, Oregon, and plays bass guitar and piano. Read previous Sunday Stories by Behr here and here.