Cherished (14 page)

Winesburg and I lived in Saigon for almost a year, until the war escalated and dependants had to be evacuated. Though I had come over on a tourist visa and paid my own way, I qualified as a dependant, and one morning a very young officer, his uniform crisp as toast, was sent to the house on Hung Tap Tu to notify me of the evacuation plans. Apparently it was a very big deal — the generals' and admirals' wives were being evacuated, and General Westmoreland would be at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in person to say good-bye.

“What about my cat?” I asked.

“Your cat, ma'am?”

“I have a cat. She has to be evacuated too.”

“Ma'am, we have no arrangements for cats to be evacuated from Vietnam.”

“Then I can't possibly leave.”

He struggled for composure. “You must leave.” He had dropped the brisk military tone and was pleading. “This is an evacuation. You can't stay. It's a
war
.”

“Then somebody's got to resolve my cat issue.”

“The navy will look into it,” he said and fled.

We'd be going home via Hawaii — which posed another problem. Even if I could get Winesburg on the evacuation flight, she wouldn't be able to land and change planes with me in Honolulu because of the animal quarantine restrictions that were then in effect. Eventually, at my expense, arrangements were made to evacuate Winesburg home to New York in the other direction — on Air France via Paris.

W
INESBURG SURVIVED VIETNAM
and the evacuation and went on to live in all the apartments and houses of my first marriage. She sat on every table and desk I wrote on, slept in every bed, was jealous when my babies were born, and suffered the addition of other cats and Newfoundlands to the family with initial outrage and claw swipes. But she was always First Cat. The cat with the longest history, the most personality, the hottest temper, and also the most beautiful. By the time we moved into her last house, she had mellowed. She was deaf by then, and every morning she would slowly make her way to the pool to sit gazing at reflections in the water. Watching her, I'd think what a long journey we'd had from
our New York apartments and the house on Hung Tap Tu to Palos Verdes, California.

Winesburg died on September 26, 1977, at 4:30 in the afternoon. She was nineteen years old. Her kidneys were failing, and she couldn't stand or drink water. I prayed that she'd die at home, but she began to suffer, and late in the afternoon I rushed her to the vet. He said her heart was going. He shaved a patch of fur on her front leg. I held her and he slipped the needle in. And she was gone.

I didn't know how hard it would be after. How final and silent. How gone she would be. I felt as if a family member had died — but this was a family member who had known me much longer than my husband and children had known me. The link to my past was gone. I felt as if she took those years with her. Half my life in fact.

I went to bed and cried for three days. I saw her everywhere — in shadows, in dark sweaters tossed at random, in glimpses of our other animals. Finally I got up and went on with my life, but I continued to mourn her for a long time, feeling very much alone and even embarrassed at the depth of my grief. This was before support groups were thought of for dealing with the deaths of pets, before sympathy cards that acknowledged the loss of an animal, a time when well-meaning friends suggested that I get another black cat right away.

As I write about her today, I dig out old journals to find her stories. I email my ex-husband, who apparently has managed to wipe his memory clear of Winesburg. I call my friend Nicki, who had the apartment on the fourteenth floor, and she says, “That was the meanest cat I ever met, sneaky too. She ruined all my stockings. She was crazy.” Then I email my brother, who writes back, “She was vicious! Remember, once she even scratched Mom? She only liked you.”

I have absolutely no memory of Winesburg ever attacking my mother. She certainly wasn't a vicious cat; she was high-spirited. Perhaps not an easy cat, not cuddly and cozy, but memorable and beloved. And oh, how fiercely I loved her. Even after all these years I can still feel that love in my heart. But here's the thing about losing an animal that I have had to learn over and over again — when I let myself grieve I come to the end of it. And finally the tears open my heart to the animals who follow.

We'd been to shelters in Pasadena, Glendale, and Santa Monica all in one morning and had almost given up; in fact, Michael was heading to the parking lot when I made my final loop through the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter. Peering into the kennels, I leaned over and looked under one of the steel benches. There she was, lying on her back, legs splayed to the side and her ears flopped back against the cement floor, their pink interior soft and kissable. Her fur was long
and black with a body-wave fluffiness that rivaled anything L'Oréal could have produced. There was a birthmark on her tummy shaped exactly like Texas.

When I pointed to her, the volunteer tried to wake her, but she stretched her paws into the air, sighing into an even deeper sleep. So, putting his hands on either side of her body, he carefully slid her over to the metal mesh door. I leaned down and put my palm on Texas. Her head was still thrown back so that her teeth were showing. She had a darling overbite, just like my new groom's.

“Shepherd mix,” the volunteer told me. “Probably shepherd-collie.”

She was mostly black, but now I could see that in the center of her chest was white fur — as if she'd been dyed black and a dessert plate, perfectly round, had covered that particular spot. When she finally sat up, her ears looked like fuzzy tortilla chips with the top of the triangle folded down, and she had a narrow, pointed collie snout. Her eyelashes were elegant and long, giving her a look of sophistication beyond her years — or lack of years. The shelter estimated that she was only about three months old.

When I picked her up, the volunteer said, “That's gonna be a big dog. Look at those paws.”

“Don't tell my husband,” I pleaded, holding the puppy up to my nose and sniffing in her essence.

Michael and I had agreed on a small-to-medium dog because we lived in an apartment, but that treaty was about to change.

I carried the puppy to the front window and motioned for Michael, who had pulled the car around and was waiting for me to get in so we could move on to the next shelter. I
held her up for him to see. Pointing to the top of her head, I mouthed, “Yes! Yes! Yes?”

He laughed, turned the car off, and grabbed our checkbook out of the glove compartment.

Forty-five dollars to adopt and spay her.

She was ours. We named her Hallie.

I
T'S
M
ARCH NOW
, and sixteen years later you can probably still make out Texas, but Hallie doesn't like to be on her back anymore. After all, she's “one hundred and twelve years old in human years,” as our son, Wills, likes to point out. So I haven't seen Texas in a long time.

Her muzzle is still dark, with gray showing only under her chin, blending into the white-dessert-plate patch of fur on her chest. She's not oil-black anymore, but rather slate — her curls still swirling around her torso. Her eyes are cloudy, but alert. She can no longer hear.

We're saying our good-byes every day. Hallie has an inoperable brain tumor on the right side of her head. “Six months,” the vet told us more than eight months ago, and when, before Christmas, she began to fail, it looked like he just might be right. She wandered around in a confused state, not recognizing any of us — Wills, whom she'd practically delivered herself when I was thrown into labor early one May morning, or Michael or me. She was urinating on the carpets and hardwood floors without even realizing it.

But New Year's Eve 2009 came, and when she made it past midnight, I guessed that this meant something to her — something more significant than the people around her tossing wishes into the fire pit outside and watching the wind carry the embers to God or the universe or wherever wishes and prayers and hopes go. To Hallie, she'd made it one more year, and here was another one staring her down. She wouldn't waste time on wishing; she'd need to live — right then. She started on New Year's Day.

I woke to find her standing by our bed staring at me, her chin resting on the white down comforter. She hadn't done that in over five years. She was hungry. I rubbed the soft fur between her ears. She hobbled to the door and looked back as if to say, “You're supposed to follow me.” This was another “Hallie-ism” we hadn't seen in a very long time. I jumped up and followed her to the kitchen with Michael right behind me.

“Hallie's back,” I told Michael, watching the can of Wellness food twirling around on the can opener. The whirring sound alerted our two golden retrievers, and soon there were three dogs wiggling with anticipation right by the back door. I carried out their plates.

Leo Henry, our new puppy, was barely five months, and Buddy Rose was three years old. We'd gotten Buddy shortly after the death of our beloved golden retriever, Cowboy. She'd been a source of great healing for all of us, but especially my son, who had high-functioning autism and needed stability and, more important, a puppy in his life. We'd discovered this by accident shortly after Cowboy had arrived and Wills began to improve in ways we hadn't thought possible.

Hallie wasn't a child's dog, although she was fiercely protective of Wills. She preferred adults, who were more practical and less likely to surprise her. Generally, she liked to stay in the background and watch and listen. She had no interest in romping or playing. Cowboy, however, was game for anything silly, muddy, or childlike. She was Wills's companion, but Hallie was Big Sister, making sure that no one
came through our front gate or hurt him in any way.

On New Year's morning, Hallie watched the Rose Bowl Parade with us, sitting on the carpet with Buddy and Leo Henry. She wasn't wandering around the house, anxious and crying for no reason as she had during the last couple of years. When it came time to potty, she pulled herself up and made it to the backyard without assistance.

“Look at our Hallie,” I told Wills.

“It's like she's taken ‘Happy New Year' to a whole new level,” Michael said.

“She's happy,” Wills chimed in.

“She really
does
look happy,” I smiled. Hallie had been spending most of her days sleeping on a fluffy striped comforter that we'd draped over her round dog bed in our front room. It was good to have her awake and right in the middle of things.

I remembered something our friend Lynn had said the night before at our New Year's Eve party. Watching Hallie weaving in and out of people's legs, she observed, “You know, Hallie might not want to be petted or loved on, but she sure wants to be at the party.”

T
HIRTEEN YEARS AGO
, when Hallie was our only dog, she was still very much at the party, a wallflower to be sure, but always within sight. She loved being home, and saw the world mostly through the car window, preferring long rides sitting on my lap as I drove, her paws poised on my windowsill, eyes squinting into the wind.

When I became pregnant with Wills, I was so nauseous that I spent every morning and evening lying on the cool bathroom tiles close to the toilet. Hallie always lay down beside me, carefully placing her soft, black chin against my cheek. It was stifling hot, but she could sense that I needed her, and that's what she could give. We laid there, sometimes for hours, the side of my face sweaty and draped in fur.

When baby Wills finally came home from the hospital, Hallie was very confused by the new person in her pack. But once she realized he was here to stay, she went on high alert. Her job, she'd decided, was to protect both baby and mother.

While I sat in the white rocker nursing Wills, Hallie would sit on my feet facing out, keeping watch in all directions. No offer of food or rubber balls could budge her from her post. Same as the pregnancy, the nursing made me so hot, and with her heavy coat of hair draped on my feet, I felt like I might spontaneously combust. But it was such a tender gesture and a great comfort to have her there that I didn't have the heart to ask her to move.

Hallie was suspicious of all deliveries, including the daily visits from our poor mailman, Tony. When he entered our yard, she'd go wild, barking and racing back and forth in the front hallway. Tony would drop the mail through the slot in the front door and race back to the safety of the sidewalk. He was an ex-marine, but he'd also had the unfortunate experience of meeting Hallie in the yard one day when he'd stopped to say hello to Wills, who was sitting on a blanket next to me. Hallie was furious that this person was so close to
Wills, so she chased Tony across the grass, barking and nipping at the backs of his ankles. I was mortified, but also knew that no one would be robbing our house. No one could even get near it. Michael installed a mailbox outside our picket fence just for Tony.