Cherished Read Free Page B

remained a tom, aggressive, combative. When we played the catch-the-string game, I would suddenly find him halfway up my arm, his claws fastened to the sleeve of my shirt. He played rough and would quickly lay flat his ears and yowl threateningly. He was a biter. Given all that, and his dislike of our newborn, The General became a full-time outdoor cat.
    â€œA story always involves, in a dramatic way, the mystery of personality,” according to Flannery O’Connor.
    We moved from our small starter home when The General was about four years old. He had been curious about all the boxes and commotion of moving, but curious only in the offhand way of cats, sniffing a crate of books or climbing through the maze of a disassembled bed. I had devised a plan for how we would move him. He would be the last thing to go. When we had everything ready at the new place, I put him in a cardboard box. Except for his first ride to our house as a tiny kitten, he’d never been in a car before, because we had a vet who would actually make house calls (it was his marketing pitch). So, I got The General in the box and we went to the new house, some eight to ten miles away.
    â€œA poem is one of the few opportunities you have to say two things at once,” according to Robert Frost. “For me theinitial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew. No surprises for the poet, no surprises for the reader.”
    After three days, The General disappeared. Not even the old trick we had of shaking the treat box would bring him running. We shook the treat box all over our new neighborhood. We put up signs and offered a reward. We called “Gennnnneral” as we walked, like frightened soldiers calling for their leader. But to no avail.
    The next week the people we had sold our old house to called. “Didn’t you have a big orange cat?” the man wanted to know. “Yes,” I said.
    â€œWell, he’s here. He’s hanging around in the shrubs.” The General had not been able to see the route we took to the new house. He would have had to cross a sizable creek, railroad tracks, and a half-dozen busy roads to get home. How he did it I will never know. I retrieved him, and he decided that the new place was home.
    The General has pretty much stopped drinking. He’ll lap up a little milk if I put the bowl under his chin. The broken leg has developed an infection. When I took him in for the cast, the vet said that his kidneys were failing. He hasn’t moved off the blanket for two days, other than to try to pull clear of it to relieve himself. I know how this story is going to end. Pretty soon, I’ve got to decide when it will end. The General’s story will be concluded, but it won’t be finished. That may be the truest thing about a story. Even when it’s over, it’s not over.

3.
HOPE

Robin Romm
    L ast night I dreamed I placed a classified ad. “New home needed for our cattle dog, Mercy.” A kid came over sporting a backward baseball cap and baggy shorts, his body language spastic. “Totally!” he belted. “Totally! I love dogs! I’ll take her!” And before I could hand her over — the canine love of my life, her smell like bark-o-mulch and oil, her rounded forehead and puppy eyes — I woke up with a start.
    â€œThat is a horrible dream,” said my boyfriend, Don. He looked at me ruefully, judgmentally, as if I’d actually done it, given away the one being that reliably gave us joy.
    The dream could have been fueled by the conference I’d returned from the night before. My friend Jim lost his dog while he was there. His daughter had called him at six am, crying. “My dog died,” he kept saying. And people stopped briefly to tilt their heads and make sorry eyes. But nobody grabbed him in a feverish embrace or wept. I imagined losing our Mercy, and a cold pang went through me. “I’m so