illustration
ESSAY
ellen harris
“
Plunked from one crate to another, tabby boy and black girl are separated
from their sisters and mother. No one knows what happened to mom. Maybe
nothing. Maybe she’s climbing trees and killing bugs and birds and the flick
of her tail is the kind of satisfied that only comes with freedom. Or maybe
the people who feed her occasionally let her wander loose, flea-riddled and
pregnant for most of her life because spaying ain’t natural and cats shouldn’t
be cooped up – that ain’t no kind of life. Or maybe she’s cradled, lifeless in soft
grass.
Tabby boy and black girl huddle against a tube sock filled with brown
rice because brown was all I had. A minute in the microwave before leaving
the shelter, the rice sock makes the whole car smell of almonds, of bread. They
press the sock looking for nipples. They offer little grunts to their surrogate
sock mom, confused. Tabby boy and black girl can’t maintain their body heat.
At four days old, their eyes are closed and they need to eat every two hours.
Their grunts turn to cries for food for the long hour it takes to get home.
I drive my Jeep one-handed like a madwoman as I hold the crate with my
dominant hand. I coo to them, sing The Avett Brothers to them, turn the heat
on for them, meow to them, hoping the sound will make it easier for them to
accept me as their new mother.
I have never felt so responsible for life. It is October and kitten season
Even at two, i trust animals
more than i trust people
is winding down, but this is my first time volunteering. I don’t understand
the relentless waves of need pounding the door of the shelter, of all shelters.
I learn to worry about only tabby boy and black girl and the animal friends
already living with me.
***
Two-year-old me toddles down the street in our neighborhood after
a cat. Here kitty, here kitty, I say and my older brother is too afraid to break
the rules and go in the street after me. Even at two, I trust animals more than
I trust people. Even at two, I disregard everything and everyone around me for
animals. Animals don’t usually withdraw their love once you’ve earned it.
***
Tabby boy and black girl send the house into a tizzy. Border collie
paces, needs to check on them, to sniff, to clean, to nuzzle. His empathy is
larger than the Atlantic. The rest of the senior cats and dogs are afraid, hiding
under beds, or shaking the way all small dogs do. I didn’t know there was a
level of anxiety I had not yet reached. My heart is knotted tight like a sailor
had pulled it out of my chest and run threaded muscle into and over and over
itself until he deemed it unsolvable.
I boil bottles and syringes and the scissors to cut the x’s in the
nipples. I test the formula on my arm. It is warm but not scalding. Thin, but