A few months later, we asked dad for a cat. We showed him some pictures we found from the shelter online and the tag said the cat was potty-trained. He said alright, and we thought maybe he didn't hear us right.
Dad loved the cat. He didn't want it but then we got it and he loved it. The cat loved dad, too. Followed him everywhere, slept on his neck, meowed when he got home. It was a tiny thing and looked small in his big arms, on his big gut. Dad treated it like his favorite. The cat always had ice in its water. For his birthday he'd cook him a salmon. At night, sometimes, he'd pour a bit of his beer on the ground so the cat could lick it up.
We never got to know the cat even though it was meant for us. Sometimes we'd try and play with it when dad wasn't home but it would just sit there and stare at us, or sleep. When we got older we just kept ignoring it. It was all dad ever lived for. On the weekends, if we wanted to see a movie or something, he said we could just watch it at home so the cat could be with him. I also think he didn’t like the price of beer at the movies, and the tickets also. Dad got a new job working from home, or maybe he went on disability. There were always boxes coming to the house for the cat. Toys, a toy box, a tree, a little bucket that connected to the window. Slowly the house became a big cat house and our spaces became dusty. The cat never went into our rooms. I got nervous to have friends over because I assumed it smelled like the cat, which is what dad started to smell like, too. He got rid of his office in the house and made it a big jungle gym with ropes and little shelves on the wall, kind of like an obstacle course. When I graduated I showed him a cat backpack with a little bubble on the back so the cat could see out and he told me his legs were too bad. On Mother’s Day he’d take the cat to the graveyard.
Eventually when we'd come back to visit the cat would look old. Dad was always the same and the cat was, too, except it was slower and slept more and sometimes he'd carry it to the litter box and wait until it was done. On Thanksgiving he stopped making turkeys.
I got my own cat and let it out into my backyard and when I invited dad over to see if his cat would want to play with mine, he said his cat had allergies. His cat also had a weight problem and I told him he should get another to help it lose weight, from all the chasing around, and he said he couldn't afford it. For Christmas he got us the same toys his cat had, brand new, and they just sat in the shed in the backyard as my cat chased birds.
One day I went over and the cat was on its own laying on the couch and my dad was in his room going through some old photos. Just cleaning things up, he told me. I told him Derek had a baseball game and he told me his allergies were too bad to go watch, that I could send him videos. I told him Jenny would be there with her kids, too, and that they bought a tent to block the sun. He said that was a waste of money.
Eventually my dad got older and the cat died. He left a nicotine pouch out on the table and the cat ate it and died. Wasn't long after that that my dad got a kitten, held it on his lap for the first three days, then died in the chair with the kitten on the lap. Kitten’s now mine.
[07/24/25]