Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology Read online

  Also by Caroline Paul

  East Wind, Rain

  Fighting Fire

  Text copyright © 2013 by Caroline Paul

  Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Wendy MacNaughton

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  Published by Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, London, New Delhi and Sydney

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  eISBN US: 978-1-62040-530-7

  eISBN UK: 978-1-40884-596-7

  First U.S. Edition 2013

  This electronic edition published in April 2013

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is a true story. We didn’t record the precise dialogue and exact order of events at the time, but we have re-created this period of our lives to the best of our mortal ability. Please take into account, however: (1) painkillers, (2) elapsed time, (3) normal confusion for people our age.

  1.

  One day, I was in a plane crash.

  The plane, which I was piloting, was nothing more than sailcloth and aluminum tubing and a lawnmower engine. It was called an “experimental plane,” as if the flying part was just sort of a guess. Which it was, on this day anyway. On this day, it was an experiment that had failed.

  I crawled from the wreckage dazed and bloody. “Please don’t call 911,” I said to the first person who arrived. But there was no mistaking the dangling ankle, the misshapen wrist, the blood from my head now soaking my green flight suit, the confusion, and the bits of my experimental plane strewn behind me, like a riot in the last moments of a going-out-of-business sale.

  At the hospital, they said, “No internal bleeding or brain damage. Aren’t you the lucky girl?” Nurses circled with professional ardor, bearing whirring machines and frowns. Doctors poked and prodded. I was told I had a bad break of the tibia and the fibula.

  “The Tibia and the Fibula?!” I said, tasting the blood in my mouth, feeling the bruises on my arm, laughing through my morphine haze. When I explained that those were my cats, the staff just nodded, expressionless; to them, I was just another numbskull hallucinating on a gurney. But it was true. Two thirteen-year-old tabbies, affectionately nicknamed Tibby and Fibby, were now wondering where the heck I was and why I hadn’t come home.

  For the next few days, my girlfriend, Wendy, held my hand and assured me that everything was fine. The house was fine, she said. Tibby and Fibby were fine. You’re fine. She brought me ice and small cups of chocolate pudding, which sat uneaten. She slept in an uncomfortable chair until the nurses told her visiting hours were over, then returned the next day to do it again.

  We were in a new relationship, that phase of love that didn’t obey any known rules of physics. The past six months had been a stomach-dropping, world-tilting, rainbow-laden, cloud-gilded time, during which we had showed only our perfect selves. That was clearly over. I was overmedicated, wild-haired, unwashed, and fragile, with multiple oozing wounds. There was a bandage for the arm, stitches for the head, and emergency surgery for the left ankle. Wendy ran her hands over my blue paper gown and said I looked beautiful.

  The leg was fitted carefully back together. To keep it in place, there was metal scaffolding inside and out. The ankle had been in smithereens, the surgeon told us with an expression that suspiciously resembled glee.

  “It looked like those crushed potato chip pieces, the ones you have to tip the bag into your mouth to get to,” he said, and mimed the tipping of the bag in case I didn’t understand. He shrugged to indicate he couldn’t promise anything, despite the joists and girders below my hip. Then he ordered the staff to pump me with morphine. They watched my progress, and finally sent me home to San Francisco.

  Tibia and Fibula meowed happily when I arrived. They were undaunted by my ensuing stupor. In fact they were delighted; suddenly I had become a human who didn’t shout into a small rectangle of lights and plastic in her hand, peer at a computer, or get up and disappear from the vicinity, only to reappear through the front door hours later. Instead, I was completely available to them at all times. Amazed by their good luck, they took full feline advantage. They asked for ear scratches and chin rubs. They rubbed their whiskers along my face. They purred in response to my slurred, affectionate baby talk. But mostly they just settled in and went to sleep. Fibby snored into my neck. Tibby snored on the rug nearby. Meanwhile I lay awake, circling the deep dark hole of depression.

  Without my cats, I would have fallen right in.

  Wendy didn’t understand the Cat Thing. If Fibby jumped onto her lap, her hands shot skyward in an about-to-be-frisked posture. She patted Tibby on the head as if she was extinguishing a small fire. But she put on her game face when I cooed and babbled like an overwrought aphasic, and she tried to see what all the fuss was about.

  But let me introduce you. Here is Fibby, in a typical repose.

  See how she rules the world, even while asleep? She was the energetic and sociable one, always eager for human attention. Every lap was designed for her small, round belly, and every nose was a place to put her dainty paw. When my car pulled into the garage, she often leapt from wherever she was and trotted to the entrance, meowing her dismay. Where have you been, her meows seemed to say. And why have you been there so long? Then she would shutter her eyes slowly, wind herself around my legs, and forgive me.

  It was hard to believe that Tibby was her brother. He was so anxious and shy. It didn’t matter that he was a big cat with large, dark, almond-shaped eyes, so that when he looked at you it was like being stared at by an extraterrestrial. It didn’t matter that he had the lope of a tiger and a predator’s head, diamond-shaped like a rattler’s. In his mind he was a tiny cat, and he slunk around as if the world were going to step on him by mistake. He jumped at loud sounds and ran from strangers. He waited to eat until no one was around. In the backyard he hurried for cover, as if he were on the Serengeti Plain, not a small garden in San Francisco. It had always hurt and puzzled me that my

  love couldn’t help him overcome his deep anxieties, that I couldn’t reach the vestigial part of him that saw lions and rhinos under every drought-resistant native California plant. But at some point in our years together I had come to accept the simple truth: Tibby was a wimp.

  Now, strangely, I understood how Tibby felt. Everything about me was fearful and fragile—not only my ankle but something in my mind, which through

  the long summer days now entertained itself with lurid waking dreams, where planes hit the ground with a thud and blood poured onto a flight suit, over and over and over. It could have been the drugs, it could have been post-traumatic stress, or maybe it was simply that in the blink of a left wingtip I had lost that human delusion that the
universe was benign and that we were the center of its doting love. In short, I had realized that not everything works out just fine. Things can go to hell fast, and never return to normal.

  Weeks went by. Wendy was nursing me heroically, but I was not good company. I trailed a catheter bag and a foul smell. I was filled to the brim with painkillers and regret. I lay supine for hours at a time, watching my leg warily, certain it might do something against my will—perhaps jerk sideways, or head for the floor, or simply break into a million more pieces at the slightest breath of air. I was, in short, getting a little strange. Every day I expected Wendy to lean in, whisper that she’d had enough, and walk out the door. And who would have blamed her? We hadn’t been together long enough to justify this kind of burden.

  I was confident only of Tibia and Fibula. We’d been together thirteen years, the longest relationships of my adult life. Everything else may have shifted, I thought, as I stared at the ceiling, but the kitties had not, and this was the thing I clung to. Fibby still trotted around the house as if she owned it, and Tibby still lurked in the corners, ready to be petted, but only if Fibby allowed. Tibby and Fibby reminded me that there had been life before angst and injury, and so there would be life after.

  But then, a month into my recovery, still bed-bound, depressed, immobile, addled by too much Vicodin, and anesthetized by too much TV, something else happened.

  Tibby disappeared.

  2.

  When your cat goes missing, you panic. You imagine catnappers, vivisectionists. You have visions of the hole he is trapped in, the wounds that are keeping him from crawling home.

  You cry.

  Because I was so helpless, friends rallied quickly. They flyered the neighborhood and knocked on doors. Into every mailbox went the plaintive entreatyLOST CAT, PLEASE CALL, OWNER’S HEART IS BROKEN! Tibby’s large, wet extraterrestrial eyes stared from telephone poles and lampposts and trees. Ten days passed. Nothing.

  What could have happened? There had been a cat door in my home for thirteen years, through which Tibby and Fibby had come and gone without harm. A narrow street ran down the front of the house, but I had never seen my cats there, and why would they be? Their cat door opened to my backyard and from there the backyards of every house on the block. This long, wide row of fecund foliage offered all a kitty could want—fences and trees to climb, soil in which to roll and snuffle, rodents to catch, grass to eat.

  The Indoor-Cats-Only Contingent was now quietly triumphant. They had always scolded that kitties must be kept inside for their own safety. In return,

  I’d scoffed. Sure, everyone would live longer locked in a house, I told them, but we wouldn’t be happy or healthy. This was the ongoing debate, each side prancing in their corners, jaws jutted, tones righteous. Now Tibby was gone. If an indoor-only-cat owner had arrived then to shake her bony finger at me, I would still think her misguided. But I nevertheless would have collapsed in tears at her feet.

  Desperate, I consulted a psychic. This psychic did not look the way I thought a psychic would. She did not wear large rings or squint into a crystal ball. She sported a stylish haircut and yoga clothes and checked e-mail, which is where I sent her the details of Tibby’s disappearance. She responded that she would need a little time to tune in, and so I waited, and soon enough she e-mailed again. Tibby’s okay, she wrote, not hurt, and he’ll be home by five A.M. on Thursday. This all came through very clearly, she said, and I was not to worry too much about him. In addition, he was being lovingly cared for by nearby children.

  Children! I thought. He’s petrified of children! But I took a deep breath and waited. I admired a psychic who predicted exact dates and times; she seemed so certain. But Thursday came and went. No Tibby. He did not return on the weekend, or the next Monday.

  Wendy walked the neighborhood again. She showed photos of Tibby to everyone she saw. People shook their heads with sympathy, said they hadn’t seen him, but told her that there was a feral cat colony nearby. Could he be there? I was skeptical. I couldn’t imagine Tibby with the rough-and-tumble feline crowd, drinking box wine in corners and throwing gang signs with their paws. Impossible. Wendy wandered the feral cat colony anyway, calling for Tibby, to no avail. Finally, I put my hands together and asked what God thought. I also asked Allah, Buddha, the Divine Earth Mother, and the Great Vibrant Cosmic Energy. I didn’t believe in any of these Things, but I was desperate. “God, Allah, Buddha, Divine Earth Mother, Great Vibrant Cosmic Energy: Where is Tibby? Is he safe?”

  There was nothing but silence.

  3.

  The animal shelter looked like a prison. It had long concrete hallways and heavy doors that rang out when shut. A perky volunteer showed me around. My crutches sounded like hammers thudding on the floor.

  The volunteer took me to the cat rooms, which were lined with cages, and stepped back as I peered into each one.

  “Tibby?” I whispered. The adult cats were crouched in the back and looked at me without moving. The kittens came forward, but they had drooping tails and mystified eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said to each one. “I wish I could take you home.”

  I returned to the pound every three days, and every three days it was the same. A volunteer would appear with sympathetic smiles and a bouncy voice.

  “I lost my kitty,” I would whimper. “He’s large, shy, with wet, extraterrestrial eyes. He disappeared fif-

  teen . . . twenty-one . . . thirty-three days ago.”

  “Oh, cats,” the perky volunteers would respond knowingly. They would tell me hopeful stories. Everyone had hopeful stories. There were cats who had been gone for days, weeks, months before returning home. There were cats who had been found three thousand miles away, two years later. I listened with the fervor of the newly evangelized. Clearly the volunteers had some magic that I had lost or never had, an emotional sturdiness behind their bright smiles. How else could they stand all this kitty misery?

  “You get used to it,” one said.

  “It’s not so bad,” said another.

  They wore orange smocks and blue paper shoes on their feet. They cleaned cages and spoke into walkie-talkies and held sticks with feathers at the end so the cats could play. I began to love them for their small, patient smiles, their blue-papered feet, their soft hearts with tough outer crusts. So I listened raptly to their tales of kitty intrepidness. Then I went home and cried.

  I e-mailed the psychic again. He’s still fine, she responded. He’ll return with the waning moon. Again I clung to her optimism, the wisdom of her third eye, her good haircut. But the waning moon came and went, and still no Tibby.

  And slowly, I knew: A cat like Tibby couldn’t survive in the urban jungle. He was too shy, too skittish, with no street smarts, and zero capacity to kick ass. I had to face it; if he hadn’t come home, there could be only one reason. Something terrible had happened.

  Then, five weeks after he’d disappeared, Tibby returned.

  4.

  Tibby waltzed into the bedroom late one night. He greeted us with his Pavarotti meow. We sat bolt upright, awakened from sleep. He crawled under a chair.

  “Tibby!” I said.

  “Tibby!” Wendy said.

  Fibby just stared, unsurprised.

  “Meow,” said Tibby.

  I spent the next few days cuddling Tibby and feeling, well, a little indignant. Where had he gone, I wondered, and why had he left? And what was wrong with him now? He was approaching his food bowl with indifference, exhaling a kitty sigh, then walking away.

  “He’s not eating!” I wailed to Wendy. “He’s sick! From being away from home! For so long!”

  But when I took him to the vet, he was declared a half pound heavier. He had a silky coat, said the vet, and a youthful spring in his step.

  “That’s great,” I responded, piqued.

  When the relief that my cat was safe began to fade, and the joy of his prone, snoring form—sprawled like an athlete after a celebratory night of boozing—started to wear thin, I was left wi
th darker emotions. Confusion. Jealousy. Betrayal. I thought I’d known my cat of thirteen years. But that cat had been anxious and shy. This cat was a swashbuckling adventurer back from the high seas. What siren call could have lured him away? Was he still going to this gilded place, with its overflowing food bowls and endless treats?

  As I spoke (read: ranted), Wendy considered the perfect storm in front of her, of medication, of depression, and of cabin fever, all making landfall on the couch, and nodded with what she hoped registered as sympathy and shared indignation. But the thought bubble that hovered above her head was clear. What’s the Big Deal? the neon letters shouted. He’s a CAT.

  He was home, she was thinking. Wasn’t that good enough?

  Well, actually, no.

  Wendy abandoned sympathy and tried advice. Perhaps I should lock the cat door for a while so Tibby couldn’t wander. I told her I had tried that once, years before. I’d shut him in for a night, and then had lain awake for hours, listening to a loud insistent thudding, which I couldn’t identify at first but then realized was Tibby throwing himself against

  the door like a poltergeist. I wasn’t going to untrain an old cat, I said. Not now. Besides, I told her, that wasn’t the point.

  Then for goodness sake tell me, what is the point? screeched the thought bubble, loud enough for my subconscious to hear.

  “I can’t explain it,” I said, my tone haughty, “to someone who hasn’t really owned cats.”

  Where do our pets go and what do they do, when we’re not around? And why? Aren’t we enough for our furry companions? For animal lovers, these are the ultimate questions. And so began a quest familiar to anyone who has realized that the man in their life is not who he seems: the quest to find out where Tibby had been for those five weeks.