A week had passed since her father died and I wasn’t sure I had seen Chloe cry. While her brother and I spilled our emotions all over the house, Chloe quietly rolled her eyes at us. At bedtime I started giving them extra-long snuggles.
“How’s it going, honey?” I asked, cautiously.
“Good,” she chirped in a high octave. Her hair feathered on the pillowcase.
Every evening, friends dropped off meals for us. It was almost always lasagna. I worked the ricotta around in my mouth, barely able to swallow it. My stomach was in knots. Chloe sat next to me, her fork like a snow shovel. She was taking enormous bites. She asked for another helping. I couldn’t imagine how her stomach could fit so much food. One night I heard rustling in the pantry and peeked in to find her dipping a spoon into the bag of brown sugar. Was she trying to fill a bottomless hole? I longed to pour my love into it, but it would never be enough.
The next day while the kids were at school, I went into Chloe’s room and sat in a patch of sunlight on her bed. I ran my hands along her fuzzy purple blanket and yearned for a way into my daughter’s psyche. There was a tangle of dirty laundry on the floor. On the top of the pile was a pair of white underwear, stained with blood. Had she gotten her first period and not told me? I was floored by her silence.
That evening, the kids and I went to Carol’s to say goodbye to Randy’s cat. Carol’s purpose in life was to be a cat rescuer. Her house was filled with a dozen strays. When Randy died, the police took his cat Hailey to the humane society and Carol went and fetched her, thinking we would want to keep her. She was so bullied by the feline gang at Carol’s that she hid in the bathroom and Carol decided to take her back to the Humane Society. My kids begged me to keep her, but I was determined not to inherit Randy’s cat, determined that he wouldn’t manipulate me from beyond the grave, and I was determined to win this power struggle. I know another mother might have kept her doing anything to alleviate her kids pain, but I can’t keep cleaning up after Randy, felt as though one more dependent would put me over the edge.
We sat on the cool white tiles in Carol’s bathroom. They were dusted with a layer of fine black fur. Hailey walked along the rim of the tub on her tiptoes, leaped down and rubbed up against Chloe’s knees. She let out a whisper of a meow. The kids both reached out to scratch under her chin. She blinked her yellow eyes slowly and snaked her small body this way and that. I wondered what it must have been like for her to spend twenty-four hours with Randy’s body.
“Why can’t we keep her, Mommy?” my son asked again.
“We just need to trust that the right person will come along and adopt her,” I said, refusing to cave.
“You’re so mean,” he replied, with watery eyes. My stomach twisted. Was I doing the right thing, putting my own needs first? Chloe was quiet. She kissed Hailey on the nose, and we got up to leave. On the drive home Rowan filled the car with his tears and I hated myself, but I still didn’t budge.
At bedtime I lay with Chloe, and she curled up against me. A baseboard heater rattled in the silence.
“First Daddy and now Hailey,” she said quietly into my hair. “I’m losing everyone and I have no control.”
I tried to hold the weight of her sorrow while I stroked her smooth hair. I convinced myself that keeping the cat wouldn’t really ease her pain. There was nothing I could say to rescue her. I just had to let her feel it.
“I never even got to say goodbye. I’m losing everyone and I have no control!” her voice was louder now.
At last, she began to sob, gripping the purple blanket. Tears for her father had finally arrived.