Free Cherished by Barbara Abercrombie

Roger said to use.” She measured out a heaping spoonful of sugar into her cup. “But power steering fluid works just as well. It’s very quick. They don’t suffer.”
    I felt my throat tighten up like a fist. My legs were as wobbly and uncertain as the calves down in the barn.
    â€œMom, I saw one breathing on the top, a calico one, not an ugly one, but a long-haired calico.”
    â€œThere were no calicos,” she said. “And you did not seeany kittens breathing.”
    â€œI did Mom, I definitely saw that one on top.”
    She slammed the garbage can lid down.
    â€œNone of those kittens were breathing, you understand?”
    I was strangely afraid of her. She knew how much I loved kittens. I tried to stop the image of her hands pushing those kittens into the white buckets. But I knew there was a calico. I knew that she killed them.
    W HEN I RETURNED HOME , Calico was curled up on my bed. I sat down beside her and ran my fingers through the thick white patch of fur on her chest. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. I would no longer confide in my mom, but I could talk to Calico. She listened to everything. She was like me. She could keep secrets.
    As the years passed, I’d tell her about the things I was afraid of and ashamed of — like getting drunk and high in eighth grade and lying to my dad about where I was going on the weekends. I also learned from Calico how to sneak back into the house late at night. I had watched her out in the field so many times that I knew exactly how to take those silent and slow, slow, stalking steps.
    Shortly after I graduated from high school, my father got into a huge financial mess and our yellow house had to be sold. Close to everything in our house was auctioned off on the front porch in four and a half hours. My dad explained to me that it might be best for Calico to stay with the house, where she had spent her whole life. She had become such a part ofthe house and the land there. The new owners of our house agreed to sign a “cat clause” stating that they would keep Calico as long as we wanted — that we could come get her anytime. But my brothers and my father and I scattered like wildflower seeds after we lost the house. I don’t think any of us really knew where we were headed. No one had a place suitable for Calico, who had slowed down considerably but still loved to hunt out in the field.
    I pushed the guilt of leaving Calico as far down as it would go.
    I had to believe that my dad was right, that she was meant to stay behind. How could I have left Calico? I now ask myself. I was eighteen and trying to figure out who I was. I somehow believed that, when I figured it all out, I would have the perfect place for Calico to live out her last days. A backyard with a field of tall grass, sunshine, and lizards.
    I was living in Los Angeles and going to UCLA when my dad called to let me know Calico had died. I was rushing off to a midterm in my art history class and couldn’t take the information in properly. I suppose I didn’t want to take in the news at all, because I went on for a few days not thinking about Calico. I woke up one morning four days later, and I could have sworn I was sleeping in the brass bed I had slept in while growing up. I reached up to twist one of the brass knobs that was always loose, and found nothing. Then I caught the scent of a rubbery beige flea collar and the smell of Calico’s black and tan fur. It was unmistakably Calico’s scent that filled the room. I missed her terribly.
    Until that moment, I had not cried over Calico. The loss had been lying dormant inside me. It was my pattern to go underground, where it is silent, and to keep my secrets and feelings safely tucked away. My best childhood friend has told me that I was always like a cat — the observer, the quiet thinker, the one who sits at the top of stairs and listens. But it was Calico who taught me to also be