Jennifer . . . well, not so much. She was twenty-three years old, still living with Mom in the house she had grown up in, and she was adamant that she would not move out of the old neighborhood. She refused to pack so much as a toothbrush; in the end, Lynda was forced to pay the movers to pack her daughter’s things.
Chloe and Cookie were worse. Especially Cookie, who was a master communicator. She used pushing, foot sitting, and tripping as a signaling system, and she seemed to have a different meow for every occasion. She had a meow that meant she was annoyed. A meow for when she was happy. A meow that meant
Leave me alone
. A meow that meant
Come here
. A meow that said
I’d like some, please
. A more forceful meow that said
I want
without the
please
. And, of course, a
gimme, gimme, gimme
meow for broccoli rabe. She even had a special high-pitched meow for when she really wanted Lynda’s attention, which sounded exactly like
Mom
. Lynda wasn’t so delusional to think her cat was really calling her mom. She assumed she was imagining that one. But whenever her friends heard Cookie whining for attention, their jaws dropped.
“Did she say mom?” they all asked.
“It sure sounded like it, didn’t it?” Lynda would say, flushing with pride.
Not this time, though. This time, as Lynda packed for the move, Cookie wasn’t pleading or questioning or kissing up with her “Mom” meows. This time, she was screaming at Lynda.
When moving day arrived, Cookie stopped screaming and disappeared. She had no intention, absolutely none, of leaving that town house. It took Lynda hours to wrangle both cats and shove them into their carrier. Cookie, in frustration, began to bang her head and rub her face on the bars of the carrier door. By the time they arrived in Floral Park, only twenty minutes away, Cookie’s nose pad was torn and covered with blood. Lynda could barely look at her. She felt so guilty.
When she opened the cage door, Cookie and Chloe didn’t even stop to acknowledge her. They ran straight upstairs and hid under the guest bed. Jennifer recovered quickly. Within two days, she met new friends and was right at home in Floral Park. It took Cookie and Chloe a while longer. Except for biological necessity, they refused to come out from under the bed. When Lynda tried to coax them out, Chloe retreated to a corner, and Cookie walked forward a few steps to complain. That was it. For three months.
And then, all was forgiven. Was it a few days after Cookie emerged from under the bed before the complaining stopped? Was it a few months? A year? I’m sure it took Cookie time to adjust, even after giving up her protest, but does it really matter how long? In the end, Cookie loved the new house as much as Lynda did. She loved it so much, in fact, that she couldn’t settle on a favorite spot. For a few weeks, it was the ottoman. She sprawled out there every night while Lynda watched television. Then it was the rocking chair. That lasted about six weeks. Then the top of the sofa, a dining room chair, the corner behind a piece of furniture, her little cat bed at the top of the stairs. Lynda was a quilter, and Cookie had several favorite spots in the new quilting room. For a summer, she fell in love with the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Lynda kept the shelf filled with quilts, which she made as presents for her friends and relatives. She made one for Cookie, too, of course. It had a floral pattern in the middle with alternating pictures of kittens and puppies around the edges. Cookie lay on a quilt almost every day, but she never lay on that one. Why dirty her special quilt, after all, when she could leave fur on something everyone else was going to sit on, too?
Eventually, the seasons changed. The leaves along Floral Avenue burst green, turned golden and red, then blew away in the winter wind. The horses raced around Belmont; the commuter train ran back and forth to the City. Jennifer spent more time with her friends and boyfriends until, eventually, she moved into a house three miles away. In her younger years, Lynda had thought about marrying again. She had male companions, but none of the relationships turned out to be what she wanted. She liked the romance, of course, but she never found anyone she wanted to share her life with.
“If a man came along now,” Lynda told me, “I’d probably tell him no, thanks.”
Younger women (and men) might look on that statement with skepticism—how can a single woman not want a man?—but I understand it perfectly. I’ve felt it for decades in my own life; I’ve just put it a little differently. “I only want a man,” I’ve always said, “if I can hang him in my closet, like an old suit I can pull out when I want to dance.” Give me the romance. Give me the fun and the dancing. Just don’t make me clean some guy’s whiskers out of my sink every day for the rest of my life. I’m perfectly happy, thank you very much, the way I am.
So I take Lynda’s contentment at face value, because I’ve experienced that contentment myself. And why wouldn’t she be happy? She was confident. She had a great kid. She was accomplished. She had friends and family and companionship from Cookie, who, through years of constant devotion, had come to know just about everything there was to know about her owner and friend. When Lynda was lonely, Cookie nuzzled her on the nose, kissed her on the lips, or sat in her lap. When Lynda was happy, they danced around the house. When she wanted to be alone (rarely), Cookie gave her space. When she was quilting, Cookie sat quietly beside her instead of batting at the thread (usually). It wasn’t just her moods; Cookie understood how Lynda was feeling. When Lynda wasn’t well, Cookie lay down on whatever part of Lynda’s body was hurting. If it was a stomach virus, she lay on Lynda’s stomach. If it was a knee ache, she lay on her knee. In her forties, Lynda began to suffer from spinal stenosis, a degeneration of vertebrae in her lower spine. Whenever the pain forced Lynda to lie down, Cookie crawled gingerly onto her back and flattened herself over the spot, a hot compress for the shooting pains.
Even when the problem was sleeplessness, Cookie responded. She sensed Lynda’s discomfort with the nighttime silence of Floral Park—not an easy thing to get used to after forty years in the noisy city—even before Lynda realized it. Every time Lynda stirred in her bed, Cookie leapt from her pillow to stand guard. If so much as a fly buzzed at the window, Cookie jumped to attention with her ears laid back against her head.
“Back to sleep, Cookie,” Lynda would say with a pet. Cookie would stare in the offending direction—usually the window—then walk around her pillow, curl into a ball, and fall instantly asleep. Lynda would lay awake, wondering,
How can this little kitten love me so much?
Unfortunately, while her discomfort with silence receded, the pain in her back grew worse. Lynda focused on her exercise and diet. She tried to work less, even though she loved her job. She visited physicians, searching for treatments, but her back continued to deteriorate. When she was in pain, Cookie did everything she could to comfort her. She nuzzled her hand, kissed her nose, and settled onto her back for as long as Lynda needed it. Those eight pounds on her spine, so soft and warm, were like a heat bottle on her sore nerves, but they couldn’t stop the slow creep of bone decay. If she didn’t have surgery, Lynda’s doctor finally told her, she was probably only a year from a wheelchair. A wheelchair! She was only forty-seven years old.
It was a difficult time, although Lynda tried not to show it. She kept her regular routine, entertaining friends, visiting family, and attending her weekly sewing club. She supported Jennifer when she needed her. She worked full-time at the catering business until the day before the surgery. But at night, she often lay awake and worried, even as Cookie jumped to attention at the slightest stirring and nuzzled her side as if to say,
Everything is fine, Mommy, everything is all right
.
Then one day, as she absentmindedly stroked Cookie and thought about the surgery, a clump of fur came away in her hand. Lynda stared down at it for a moment, confused. Then she rolled Cookie over and looked at her. The cat’s skin was patchy and inflamed, and she was practically hairless on her belly and the inside of her back legs. “Oh no, Cookie,” she said. “Oh no.” Cookie was fourteen years old, and Lynda had recently been forced to admit that her hearing was beginning to decline. Now the poor cat had developed a skin condition.
Alarmed, Lynda rushed Cookie to the veterinary office. They performed a battery of tests but found nothing wrong. Finally, the veterinarian unhooked his stethoscope and looked at Lynda.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“Are you sick?”
“No, but I’m having trouble with my back. I’m having major surgery in a few days.”
The doctor nodded. “How long have you known?”
“Six months.”
The doctor put away his instruments. “It’s not a physical problem,” he said. “It’s psychological. Cookie is so worried about you that she is pulling out her own hair to relieve the stress.”
Lynda looked at her kitten, at her sweet face and mangy belly and torn-up legs, and began to cry. Cookie had been a wounded animal in a cage. She had watched dozens of people walk past her every day. Out of all those people, Cookie had chosen Lynda. In an instant, it seemed, Cookie had dedicated her life to her. Lynda never understood the reason. What had she done to earn that trust? What had she done to deserve such a fierce and genuine love?
The surgery was over in a few hours, but the recuperation was long and slow. Cookie refused to leave Lynda’s bed. Not for a moment. One night, about a week after the surgery, Lynda became intensely ill. The house started spinning so badly that she felt sure she was dying. Terrified, she cried to her daughter for help. Cookie stared at Lynda, then looked at Jennifer, then stared at Lynda. She meowed a new meow—urgent and unsure. Instead of calling the hospital, Jennifer called her grandparents, who rushed over. But as Lynda’s mother approached the bed, Cookie jumped up and screamed at her. Lynda’s mother sat down on the bed; Cookie hissed and spat until she retreated, afraid Cookie would bite her. Cookie stood where Lynda’s mother had been sitting and spat and hissed even more. Her beloved Lynda was in trouble. Nobody was coming near her, Cookie had decided, nobody but her daughter and her cat.
It was only a case of severe vertigo, caused by the manipulation of Lynda’s spine during surgery, but it changed Lynda and Cookie’s relationship forever. I suppose change isn’t the right word, because I don’t think Cookie’s attitude changed that much. Revealed might be a better word, because for the first time, Lynda understood the depth of Cookie’s love. Yes, Cookie knew everything about her and did everything she could to make her happy. Yes, Cookie literally worried herself sick over her friend’s health. But that night, Lynda saw sacrifice. She saw that when it came to protecting her, Cookie didn’t worry about herself. She would suffer any harm to defend her friend.
After that night, Cookie’s love was insatiable. She lay beside her when Lynda was in bed; she sat beside her when Lynda sat up; she walked beside her when Lynda was finally able to stand. As part of the recuperation, Lynda sat in a hip chair, which was tall and straight like a baby’s high chair. Cookie learned to climb onto the back of the sofa, then onto the hip chair, then into Lynda’s lap. She would sit there all day. Reluctantly, Lynda would have to ask her mother or daughter to take Cookie away because the weight was too much for her recovering spine.
Even after her friend recovered, Cookie didn’t relax. Lynda could barely read a book because her cat insisted on sitting on top of it. She couldn’t open the door without Cookie running in front of her and trying to prevent her from leaving. Cookie never liked television. When Lynda had watched it before, Cookie wandered in and out of the room, sitting for a moment, then jumping up, agitated. Now she sat on the sofa with Lynda and watched. If Lynda wanted to lie down, she had to make room so Cookie could stretch out on top of her head. At exactly 10:00 P.M., Cookie would get up from the sofa, stand in front of the television, and meow.
The first night, Lynda was shocked. “Cookie,” she said, “what’s the matter with you?”
Cookie walked out of the room. Thinking something was wrong, Lynda followed. Cookie went straight to the bed. Lynda looked all over, but couldn’t find anything wrong. Eventually, she went back to the living room. Cookie came in screaming and led her back to the bed. It took Lynda a while to realize there wasn’t anything wrong. Cookie had simply decided it was time for the two of them to go to bed. From that night on, unless there was something special, bedtime in the Caira house was 10:00 P.M. Cookie insisted on it.
Not that there was much sleeping. Cookie was a bundle of nerves in the bed, climbing all over Lynda, playing with her feet, walking around on her pillow. She rubbed her nose on Lynda’s lips, her cheek, her nose, anywhere on her face she could reach. When Lynda turned off the light and closed her eyes, Cookie waited a minute and then ran a paw across her face. If Lynda didn’t respond, Cookie bent down and pried her eyelid back with her paw.
“Honey, I’m alive,” Lynda would tell her softly, closing her eyes.
A few minutes later, Cookie would rub her paw across Lynda’s face again. It happened every night, starting with the night after her vertigo. And it didn’t stop. Long after Lynda was well, Cookie continued to wake her every night to make sure she was alive. Lynda wasn’t annoyed. Instead, she was touched. She loved Cookie. She was dedicated to the little cat. But Cookie . . . Cookie’s whole life was defined by her devotion to Lynda. What a humbling and heartwarming experience, to be loved that way. Even if it was “just” the love of a cat.
But while Cookie was worried about Lynda’s imminent demise, Lynda was absolutely convinced that Cookie would live forever. She had lost her hearing—a test confirmed that—but otherwise she was as healthy and beautiful as ever into her eighteenth year. If she was slowing down a little, well, that was only natural. A clock could wind down forever, after all, without coming to a stop.