Member-only story
The Writer’s Cat
She was an older tabby with green eyes. The writer didn’t notice her gone…
The rain came down hard and the streets flooded on the evening Marilyn Monroe died. It was August of ’62 in Los Angeles, with people focused on their everyday problems that felt like a sort of death to them before they saw the morning paper. It’s only when actual death stares you in the face that you can have some perspective.
My mother and I were in the car with her friend, a chubby woman whose name I can’t remember and who was kind and respectful and laughed like her funny bone had been properly tickled. My mother had asked her to pull over in front of the newsstand on that Sunday morning and the headline announced the news that shocked the world. The rain was still coming down hard and my mothers shoes were soaked and I sat motionless in the back seat as they both began to sob.
I don’t remember us being dropped off, but suddenly we were walking down the driveway that glistened with the now drying rain. Then she opened the gate and we walked quickly up to the guest house in the back of the yard. The writer’s cat had been sequestered in the bushes next to the front door and slipped in beside us before I closed the door.
She was an older tabby with green eyes. The writer didn’t notice her gone while he was hunched over his typewriter and deep in thought for hours…
