Dewey's Nine Lives

About a week later, Marshmallow killed a duck. He caught it on the golf course, snapped its neck, and laid it on our front step like a chef presenting his prize soufflé. I didn’t mind. I had such a blind spot for Marshmallow, I would have let him get away with . . . well, with murder. Of a duck.

My Barbie-loving older sister wasn’t as understanding. “Oh my god,” she yelled when she saw the carcass. “There’s a dead duck at the front door! Oh my god, there’s blood on the fence! Dad. Dad! Dad!! DAD!!! There’s a dead . . . duck . . . at . . . the . . . door!”

Needless to say, high-fashion, beautiful, girly-girl sister didn’t understand mangy, murdering Marshmallow’s unique charm. Like my mom, she wasn’t an animal lover, and she preferred dressing up to hunting worms and playing in the leaves. But I have to give her credit: She wasn’t a fan of my cat, but she more than tolerated him. She even appreciated him at times. She saw our connection, and although she didn’t want or need that herself, she was happy for me. She knew Marshmallow was my best friend.

“Hey, Kristie,” she’d say. “Your cat is at the window again. I can hear him meowing. Are you sure he’s not hungry?”

It wasn’t until the seventh grade that the fighting started. And I mean serious fighting. Every day, Kellie and I would scream at each other as loud as we could, with all the windows open so the neighbors could hear. We would literally beat each other with curling irons and hair dryers. We’d have scorch marks on our foreheads and bruises on our arms. Afterward, we’d stand side by side at the mirror, trying to fix ourselves, and she’d say out the side of her mouth, “You’re so ugly.”

“No, you’re so ugly,” I’d say. Having gotten over my speech problem, I could spit every letter at her. “You’re the ugly one. Not me.”

“No I’m not. And you know it.”

Meow, Marshmallow would say, scratching at the screen to be let into my bedroom. It’s been twenty-five years, but I still get emotional when I see that old screen in my childhood room. That screen, with Marshmallow’s claw marks still visible, is a memorial to my youth.

Meow. Me-owww.

“I know, she’s an idiot.”

Meow meow.

“You’re right. I look fine.”

Mee-ow, Marshmallow would say, crawling onto my lap. I don’t know if your cat does this, but every time he purred, Marshmallow kneaded with his claws, like he was nursing. It was painful, but it also felt good.

“I know, you’re right, nobody deserved to be spoken to that way.”

Meow, meow. Meow.

“I know, Marshmallow. I hear it, too. They should just get divorced and get it over with.”

I suppose it seems odd, talking to my cat that way. No, confiding in my cat that way. Needing my cat that way. Finding comfort in his meows. But Marshmallow was my primary defender, you know? He told me I looked good. He agreed when I said everything was fine.

Even if I was the tallest girl in the sixth grade.

Even if, in seventh grade, a group of older girls stole the new jeans I was so proud of out of my locker. Along with my underwear. And my shoes.

Even if, every time they passed me in the hall, those same girls slammed me against the wall and told me not to even look at some boy they liked. Until my older sister cornered them in the mall, that is, and told them whatever pain they caused me, she would give them double in high school.

She may have beaten me with a curling iron. She may have yelled and cursed me. But my big sister loved me. Even I knew that, even at the time. Those fights were our way of dealing with our fears and frustrations. They were our way of talking about the fact that all Mom seemed to do was yell, and all Dad seemed to do was drink. Starting at ten or eleven years old, I often stayed up past midnight, doing my homework on the living room sofa and waiting for my father to come home drunk. My mother handled it with anger. I was the caregiver. Kellie . . . she took it out on her little sister. But she was there for me, too. Not like Marshmallow, of course. But she was there.

“You really think that cat talks to you, don’t you?” my dad asked me once.

“He does, Dad,” I said. “I can hear the way he meows. He talks to me.”

And he’s the only one.