Love Saves the Day

I keep waiting for Laura to talk more about Sarah, like she did on Mother’s Day. I thought maybe Laura would remember the June day that was so special to Sarah, and come upstairs like I did to look through the Sarah-boxes for Sarah’s wedding-dress pillow. But Josh is the only one other than me who spends any time in my room, and he only comes in to look through Sarah’s black disks for music to play and then put back before Laura gets home from work. I thought maybe he would play one of Sarah’s two special songs, but he hasn’t so far.

I wish I could figure out how to get Laura to talk about Sarah again. Sometimes when I look at her I get confused and think I’m looking at Sarah. It’s what Sarah used to call “a trick of the light” that makes some passing expression on Laura’s face, or the angle from which I see the curl of her eyelashes, so perfect and convincing in its Sarah-ness. But I don’t know if that’s because Laura really looks so much like Sarah, or if it’s because I’m starting to forget what Sarah really looked like. I catch myself watching Laura the way I used to watch Sarah—her hair changing colors in the sunlight, her chin that trembles just a little right before she starts laughing at something I’ve done, her long fingers (that feel nice in my fur sometimes) when she throws me a bottle cap or plastic straw to play with. I’ve noticed that Laura has more of my scent mixed in with her own, which is even more confusing—because it’s Sarah who’s supposed to smell like me and be my Most Important Person.

Sometimes I catch myself without any pain in my chest at all from Sarah’s not being here. I have to remind myself to feel it—even though it hurts—because ideas don’t mean anything if you don’t also feel them with your body. What if I were to forget about Sarah altogether? Already there’s so much I can’t remember. I can remember the first time Laura ever touched me, and when she first gave me the dress with the Sarah-smell for me to sleep on, and even the first time I met her when I was a kitten. I know I had lots of firsts with Sarah, too, but she’s been gone for such a long, long time. Sometimes I can remember things about her so clearly, it’s like I just saw her yesterday. Other times, no matter how hard I close my eyes and try to think, I can’t remember anything at all. I remember the idea of Sarah, and all her warmth and gentleness and beautiful singing music, but the memory of the idea doesn’t bring any specific feeling with it to my chest or belly.

I wish I could ask Laura how much she remembers about Sarah. Does she remember the way Sarah smells? I can, but maybe that’s only because the things in the Sarah-boxes still smell like her. They won’t smell like her forever, though, and what will I do then? Every day their Sarah-smell is getting fainter.

I’ve noticed Laura holding the picture of Sarah that used to live with us in our old apartment, and that now lives in the living room here. She’ll stare at it for a while before putting it down, and her expression is almost questioning, as if there’s something she’d like to know that she thinks she can figure out if only she looks at that picture long enough. If she hears Josh coming into the room, she quickly puts the photo back down and walks a few steps away from it. Is Laura, too, having a hard time remembering little things about Sarah, now that she’s been gone for so long?

It was so hard when Sarah went away! But now that I’m losing even my memories of her, it feels like she’s going away all over again. Laura’s probably the only one who can help me with this. But Laura never talks about Sarah at all.

Two days a week, Josh takes a train up to Washington Heights, where his sister lives, so he can take care of the littermates. He always smells like them when he comes home—like fruit-juice Popsicles and potato chips and too-sweet chewing gum. He also has the good smell of outside air, the way Sarah used to when she came home from one of the long walks around Lower East Side she liked to take in nice weather. Even when Josh left the apartment every day to go to his office, he didn’t smell as much like outside as he does now.

Josh likes to take the littermates on what he calls “field trips.” At first I was a little jealous, because I know how much I would love to play in a field. I’ve never seen one in real life, but I’ve seen them on TV. They’re big stretches of grass and trees, and even though I can’t smell all the wonderful smells I’m sure are there, I can tell just by looking at the TV pictures that there would be no end of things to do or chase or pounce on.