ISLANDWhile she was certainly aware of the idea of a dirty protest, that’s nonetheless what Chelsea, my 17-year-old cat, performed on the last night of her life. She had never taken to our daughter, who was born nine months earlier, put by her usurper in the way of Big Brother contestants when a shiny newcomer arrives. Obviously, she wanted to make her feelings known. And she did so in the baby’s bedroom while we slept, with an emphatic deposit.
In the previous weeks, Chelsea had been a shadow of their former self. She had lost a lot of weight, her features had become pointed, her spine like a xylophone, her ribs like harp strings. She could no longer manage the stairs.
She had come into my life in the fall of 1989, when I was preparing to leave my childhood home. A family friend had given a kitten to my mother to fill the void of absence that I left after my departure, but I ended up taking her with me. I named her Chelsea after the Daryl Hannah character in the 1984 Mermaid-in-Manhattan movie Splash. I wish Google had been around then: When the movie appeared on television six months later, we discovered that the character’s name was Madison, not Chelsea. Too late.
The cat was my one constant through early adulthood. We moved from one bed to another together, and she got used to occasionally being bundled up in closets or on windowsills when landlords stopped by to make sure the rules were being followed, first and foremost: no pets allowed. We ate at the same table and she shared my single bed, taking her normal position on my chest with a patented paw on my chin. One girlfriend found this charming, another considered it “a bit much”. When a particularly lovely woman came back to mine for dinner one night, the cat was receptive to her in ways she hadn’t been to others, so I did the only thing I could possibly do: I married her. (The woman, not the cat.)
When we finally moved into a house with stairs, a garden and the luxury of space, Chelsea was deep in life and content to sit on one end of the ironing board we never put away, where she could look at us with imperial disdain. She was oblivious to the pregnancy, but stealthily retreated the moment the baby arrived, stalking me like a ghost.
When she got sick, the vet gave me the pep talk that vets give everyone at some point. We made one last trip to the surgery together. I stumbled back to the house that cold morning, piercingly alone, in a film of tears. At home, I smelled a very special scent familiar to all new parents and pet owners, and eventually found its source in the corner of my daughter’s room, curled up like a Mr. Whippy missing his cone.
My jaw dropped. What a strange thing to do – so hostile, yet so gloriously defiant. I marveled at the effort expended. She was a cat who had always known her own mind – is there any other kind? – and still communicated her feelings to me from beyond the grave.
She would prove to be a tough act to follow.