Free Ham by Sam Harris

Farmer.”
    The actress who went insane. I couldn’t know how tragically fitting the name would be. We had her only for a day. Frances was a scrawny muslin-colored rescue with a dire but curable case of worms. I wanted to save her, and we were given a box of pills and instructions for her healing. We confined her to the laundry room and made a small bed of fluffy towels with kibble and water in reach before taking off for Musical Theatre Workshop at UCLA. When we returned, several hours and a medley from Guys and Dolls later, we found the pitiful pussy extended in a gruesome and heartbreaking frozen pose, covered in diarrhea, clenching the corner of a towel in her teeth, countable ribs barely rising. She was deeply comatose. We rushed her to the emergency vet. The doctor took one look at her and said, “What in God’s name did you do to this poor animal?!” We explained that we’d followed the prescription instructions. Frances was put on an IV but never regained consciousness.
    She was the Sunny von Bülow of felines and there was no choice but to pull the plug.
    â€œWhat did Frances do?” Cooper asked, eyes aglow.
    â€œNot much,” I said, and quickly moved on. “Then we got two more kitties. Their names were Shana and Esther.”
    â€œShana and Esther are funny names.” Cooper laughed.
    â€œShana means ‘pretty’ in Hebrew, which is practically Daddy’s second language, and Shana was sooo pretty.”
    â€œWhat does Esther mean?” asked Cooper, wide-eyed and hanging on every word.
    â€œWell, Esther is a Persian name from the Bible, who was originally called Hadassah. Hadassah means ‘myrtle’ in Hebrew, which is an equally funny but hideous name. The Book of Daniel has stories of Jews in exile being given names relating to Babylonian gods—for instance, Mordecai means ‘servant of Marduk,’ who was a Babylonian god. Esther came from the Proto-Semitic name ‘Morning Star,’ which comes from the Babylonian empire in 2000 BCE, not to be confused with the Chaldean empire or the Persian empire. Got it?”
    â€œGot it,” said Cooper. “Was Esther pretty too?”
    â€œNo, she was a dog. I mean she was a cat but she was a dog.”
    â€œWhich one was she, Daddy? A cat or a dog?”
    â€œShe was a cat . . . but she was a dog. Not pretty. And since Shana was so beautiful, Esther sometimes got a little pouty and whiny and self-pitying.”
    I couldn’t tell him the truth: that Esther had committed suicide. One day when Bruce and I were sunning on our foldout rubber-ribbed chaise lounges, lathed in baby oil—which is like a wish for cancer—in the driveway of our small house, known as Tara, Shana was strutting around with her nose and tail in the air, in applause of herself. Esther, on the other hand, was glowering in the garden, jealous, a woman biologically wronged. She emerged and crept solemnly to curbside. Bruce and I watched. She looked to the left. Then to the right. No traffic. She remained still and focused. In the distance, the rumble of a truck could be heard approaching. Esther sunk low onto her haunches, waited until the truck sped directly in front of Tara, and then bound into the street—a clear choice for all to see—me, Bruce, and, most important, Shana. The truck never slowed and Bruce and I ran to Esther’s body, which spasmed, springing and bouncing off the asphalt like a demon-possessed wind-up toy, finally landing with a splat.
    Shana took a few steps toward the street, at first, we thought, out of sisterly concern. But when she turned heel and trained her puckered ass in Esther’s direction, we realized it had been for confirmation. She wanted to make sure the whiny hag was dead.
    I couldn’t share this part with Cooper either. Suicide stories are never good just before bedtime.
    Shana remained with us until I woke one morning to find our landlady,