Good Girl

I didn’t want to write this post.

In fact, I’ve been waiting the last few weeks, hoping, praying that I wouldn’t have to, wouldn’t feel that I must.

But no amount of walking the neighborhood, no matter how loudly I call her name or how many times I look at the door, scour the woods, despite the signs I tacked to telephone poles or the pictures I posted on Facebook, the chasing down of false leads or speaking to strangers, I have to finally admit: she’s gone.

My sweet, constant, loud, fuzzy sidekick has disappeared.

Yes, I know – she’s just a cat, a pet and not a child. That is a truth I wish I didn’t know as well as I do.

And yet…

I got my good girl the summer of another disappearance, the summer the one I had trusted with my heart broke covenant and walked away.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, the tiny kitten we invited into our home would become a timekeeper for whenever I thought back to that awful summer.

How old is she?

How long have I been alone?

Children aged and flew; I sold our too-big house, got a job, came to terms, felt the wounds slowly scab.

Through it all, at the end of the day, there was always one face waiting for me when I opened the door.

She moused the house and chased chipmunks in the yard. Hid under the bed when the grands came to visit, destroyed more couches than I care to admit, woke me up when I wanted to sleep. She insisted I brush her by falling underfoot, endured the scissors when her long fur clumped. Her favorite perch was atop the couch, eye-level with me as I watched or read, absent-mindedly scratching her ears as she purred. She was a sucker for an empty box.

She was a good girl.

I try not to think about the scratch marks I find on the porch stairs, the lone tuft of fur.

What took you? You must have been so scared.

I try not to look at her silly toys.

The treats she no longer needs.

Yes, I know.

I know she was just a pet.

But she was my pet, the one live thing that has kept company with me all these years.

She was a love. My good good girl.