Chasing Lasers

The cat will sit on my desk and help me write stories about love. About loss. About a cat who will claw up the furniture, but I won’t give a damn because she will make biscuits on my poofy belly and never suggest I work on strengthening my core. I know her, this orange kitten, the one I dream about. I belong to her as she belongs to me. It feels like love, but the kitten isn’t real. It’s been a few months since our old dog, Sugar, died. The kitten will purr away the ringing in my ears. The kitten will love me back.

The vet said Sugar crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Do humans cross there too? Do we remain who we were, with the same endearing traits? The same annoying habits? Become stardust? Do we know we’re dead? Wish we weren’t? Glad we are?

It’s 25 years since my daughter died. Will she see the kitten and be glad for me? Will the kitten know we’re being watched as we make our biscuits?

The kitten isn’t real. But how can I live without a kitten? How can I live without my daughter? Nine lives wouldn’t have been enough. Clawed up furniture won’t kill me or even make me cry.

Here kitty. Come, let’s make some biscuits. Let’s dig our claws into the soft nubby wool of the sofa. Shred it. Now try the linen on this chair. See how good it feels. Rip it. Bite it. Flex your little claws and grab another thread. Here, I’ll help you. Watch it all unravel.

We’ll grow old together. Cover the sofa with blankets. Haul the chair to the curb. What will any of that matter? Where will you go, I wonder, when you leave this earth. Fur heaven? Chasing lasers across the galaxy? Will you remember me? Will you make biscuits for another grieving mother or a sad child, a lonely dog longing for a companion? A dog who will love the feel of your tiny claws raking his fur? You don’t want to be an indoor cat. You have always been free. Claw the furniture, darling, but you must leave the birds alone.

My daughter wanted to be free.  Of rules and curfews. Of her own relentless expectations. Of me. I dreamed that she was alive. I lifted the veil and found her living nearby. All those years in the same town. I begged her to come home. She refused and closed the door.

We used to bake bread together. Six braid challahs with an egg wash. Always a piece separated. Tossed into the back of the oven, a nod to tradition not our own. An offering to sanctify the bread.  How do I sanctify her?

What will I offer the kitten? A screened porch from which to watch the birds. Will she love me back? Or want to be free. Of rules and curfews. Of relentless expectations. Of me.

Eileen Vorbach Collins

Eileen Vorbach Collins writes true stories she wishes were fiction and fairy tales she wishes were true. Her essays have received the Diana Woods Memorial Award for Creative Nonfiction, The Gabriele Rico Challenge Award, a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her essay collection, Love in the Archives, a Patchwork of True Stories About Suicide Loss, published in 2023, was a Foreword Indies Finalist and received a Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence and the Sarton Women’s Book Award for memoir.