Your daughter’s cat is an indoor cat, but he wants to be outdoors. And so gradually, in supervised stages over the course of several weeks, she allows him outdoors. Or as she calls it, she sends him to “kitty college”. And eventually, he goes in and out as he pleases. And even though you’re uneasy about this, it seems to work fine.
At least it was working fine until he didn’t come home last night. Which is weird, and awakens a foreboding in you. And you’re aware that it’s going to freeze tonight. So you call the Vet to confirm your suspicion that the chip implanted within your cat does not in fact have a GPS in it. (For what it costs, it really should have a GPS, a bat signal, and a telepathic mind harness). And you have your wife send a picture of the cat to your neighborhood email distribution list. (Jesus, we only have one picture of the cat?? Beck used my phone to take thirty pictures of the toilet for crying out loud!)
And one neighbor emails that she thinks she saw him walking around inside the zoo. But it’s closed now. Another neighbor calls to say she just heard a cat that sounded like it was in distress on the such-and-such block of so-and-so street, but she doesn’t know what it looked like.
And the kids haven’t noticed his absence. Yet. But it’s just a matter of time.
And so you sneak the cat carrier and a bag of cat food into your car. And you drive around the neighborhood, shaking the bag of cat food out the window like its a Salvation Army bell. And you shout “kit kit kit!” into the silent night a thousand times, until you know that saying it even one more time will summon Candyman, or Beetlejuice, or your ninth grade English teacher Mrs Kutsko.
And you drive down all the likely streets. And then several unlikely ones. And then back down the likely streets. And plenty of cats notice you, and dogs too, and drivers, and people pushing their trash cans out to the curbs. And they all think you’re an asshole.
But none of them are Cromwell.
Two joggers run by, and one of the women says “why do people drive so damn slow?”. And she doesn’t realize your windows are down in this cold, and that you can hear her, and so she almost falls over when you answer “maybe because they’re looking for their cat!!”
And that encounter is probably the signal that you need to compose yourself and/or throw in the towel. So you park facing the deserted playground, and stare at the eerie pieces of playground equipment as they cast shadows in the moonlight.
And the temperature is dropping. And you don’t know what else to do. Or what you’re going to say to your daughter. Or how you’re going to protect your kids from this tragedy.
And of course, you can’t.
And you reflect on how unprepared and inadequate you sometimes still feel as the steward of these little lives. And you try to summon words to answer questions you hope they won’t yet ask. And you put the car into drive, and meander home.
And this one is going to sting.