by Lorrie Moore
"You're fine. I'm fine. Everybody's fine," said Aileen. She tried to find his hand under the covers, then just gave up. "You're someplace else," he said. "Where are you?"
the birds had become emboldened, slowly reclaiming the yard, filling up the branches, cheeping hungrily in the mornings from the sills and eaves. "What is that shrieking?" Aileen asked. The leaves had fallen, but now jays, ravens, and house finches darkened the trees—some of them flying south, some of them staying on, pecking the hardening ground for seeds. Squirrels moved in poking through the old apples that had dropped from the flowering crab. A possum made a home for himself under the porch, thumping and chewing. Raccoons had discovered Sofie's little gym set, and one morning Aileen looked out and saw two of them swinging on the swings. She'd wanted animal life? Here was animal life!
"Not this," she said. "None of this would be happening if Bert were still here." Bert had patrolled the place. Bert had kept things in line.
"Are you talking to me?" asked Jack.
"I guess not," she said.
"What?"
"I think we need to douse this place in repellent."
"You mean, like, bug spray?"
"Bug spray, Bugs Bunny," chanted Sofie. "Bug spray, Bugs Bunny."
"I don't know what I mean," said Aileen.
at her feminist film-critique group, they were still discussing Cat Man, a movie done entirely in flashback from the moment a man jumps off the ledge of an apartment building. Instead of being divided into acts or chapters, the movie was divided into floor numbers, in descending order. At the end of the movie, the handsome remembering man lands on his feet.
Oh, Bert!
One of the women in Aileen's group—Lila Conch—was angry at the movie. "I just hated the way anytime a woman character said anything of substance, she also happened to be half-naked."
Aileen sighed. "Actually, I found those parts the most true to life," she said. "They were the parts I liked best."
The group glared at her. "Aileen," said Lila, recrossing her legs. "Go to the kitchen for us, dear, and set up the brownies and tea."
"Seriously?" asked Aileen.
"Uh—yes," said Lila.
thanksgiving came and went in a mechanical way. Aileen and Jack, with Sofie, went out to a restaurant and ordered different things, as if the three of them were strangers asserting their ornery tastes. Then they drove home. Only Sofie, who had ordered the child's Stuffed Squash, was somehow pleased, sitting in the car seat in back and singing a Thanksgiving song she'd learned at day care. "'Oh, a turkey's not a pig, you doink/He doesn't says oink/He says gobble, gobble, gobble! " Their last truly good holiday had been Halloween, when Bert was still alive and they had dressed him up as Jack. They'd then dressed Jack as Bert, Aileen as Sofie, and Sofie as Aileen. "Now, I'm you, Mommy," Sofie had said when Aileen had tied one of her kitchen aprons around her and pressed lipstick onto her mouth. Jack came up and rubbed his Magic Marker whiskers against Aileen, who giggled in her large pink footie pajamas. The only one who wasn't having that much fun was Bert himself, sporting one of Jack's ties, and pawing at it to get it off. When he didn't succeed, he gamely dragged the tie around for a while, trying to ignore it. Then, cross and humiliated, he waddled over to the corner near the piano and lay there, annoyed. Remembering this, a week later—when Bert was dying in an oxygen tent at the vet's, heart failing, fluid around his lungs (though his ears still pricked up when Aileen came to visit him; she wore her usual perfume so he would know her smell, and hand-fed him cat snacks when no one else could get him to eat)—Aileen had felt overwhelmed with sorrow and regret.
"I think you should see someone," said Jack.
"Are we talking a psychiatrist or an affair?"
"An affair, of course." Jack scowled. "An affair'?"
"I don't know." Aileen shrugged. The whiskey she'd been drinking lately had caused her joints to swell, so that now when she lifted her shoulders, they just kind of stayed like that, stiffly, up around her ears.
Jack rubbed her upper arm, as if he either loved her or was wiping something off on her sleeve. Which could it be? "Life is a long journey across a wide country," he said. "Sometimes the weather's good. Sometimes it's bad. Sometimes it's so bad, your car goes off the road."
"Really."
"Just go talk to someone," he said. "Our health plan will cover part."
"Okay," she said. "Okay. Just—no more metaphors."
She got recommendations, made lists and appointments, conducted interviews.
"I have a death-of-a-pet situation," she said. "How long does it take for you to do those?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"How long will it take you to get me over the death of my cat, and how much do you charge for it?"
Each of the psychiatrists, in turn, with their slightly different outfits, and slightly different potted plants, looked shocked.
"Look," Aileen said. "Forget Prozac. Forget Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory. Forget Jeffrey Masson—or is it Jackie Mason? The only thing that's going to revolutionize this profession is Bidding the Job!"
"I'm afraid we don't work that way," she was told again and again—until finally, at last, she found someone who did.
"I specialize in Christmas," said the psychotherapist, a man named Sidney Poe, who wore an argyle sweater vest, a crisp bow tie, shiny black oxfords, and no socks. "Christmas specials. You feel better by Christmas, or your last session's free."
"I like the sound of that," said Aileen. It was already December first. "I like the sound of that a lot."
"Good," he said, giving her a smile that, she had to admit, looked crooked and unsound. "Now, what are we dealing with here, a cat or a dog?"
"A cat," she said.
"Whoa-boy." He wrote something down, muttered, looked dismayed.
"Can I ask you a question first?" asked Aileen.
"Certainly," he said.
"Do you offer Christmas specials because of the high suicide rates around Christmas?"
"'The high suicide rates around Christmas,'" he repeated in an amused and condescending way. "It's a myth, the high suicide rates around Christmas. It's the homicide rate that's high. Holiday homicide. All that time the family suddenly gets to spend together, and then bam, that eggnog."
She went to Sidney Poe on Thursdays—"Advent Thursdays," she called them. She sat before him with a designer box of Kleenex on her lap, recalling Bert's finer qualities and golden moments, his great sense of humor and witty high jinks. "He used to try to talk on the phone, when I was on the phone. And once, when I was looking for my keys, I said aloud, 'Where're my keys?' and he came running into the room, thinking I'd said, Where's my kitty?"
Only once did she actually have to slap Sidney awake—lightly. Mostly, she could just clap her hands once and call his name—Sid!—and he would jerk upright in his psychiatrist's chair, staring wide.
"In the intensive care unit at the animal hospital," Aileen continued, "I saw a cat who'd been shot in the spine with a BB. I saw dogs recovering from jaw surgery. I saw a retriever who'd had a hip replacement come out into the lobby dragging a little cart behind him. He was so happy to see his owner. He dragged himself toward her and she knelt down and spread her arms wide to greet him. She sang out to him and cried. It was the animal version of Porgy and Bess." She paused for a minute. "It made me wonder what was going on in this country. It made me think we should ask ourselves, What in hell's going on?"
"I'm afraid we're over our time," said Sidney.
The next week, she went to the mall first. She wandered in and out of the stores with their thick tinsel and treacly Muzak Christmas carols. Everywhere she went, there were little cat Christmas books, cat Christmas cards, cat Christmas wrapping paper. She hated these cats. There were boring, dopey, caricatured, interchangeable—not a patch on Bert.
"I had great hopes for Bert," she said later to Sidney. "They gave him all the procedures, all the medications—but the drugs knocked his kidneys out. When the doctor
suggested putting him to sleep, I said, 'Isn't there anything else we can do?' and you know what the doctor said? He said, 'Yes. An autopsy.' A thousand dollars later and he says, 'Yes. An autopsy.'"
"Eeeeyew," said Sid.
"A cashectomy," said Aileen. "They gave poor Bert a cashectomy!" And here she began to cry, thinking of the sweet, dire look on Bert's face in the oxygen tent, the bandaged tube in his paw, the wet fog in his eyes. It was not an animal's way to die like that, but she had subjected him to the full medical treatment, signed him up for all that metallic and fluorescent voodoo, not knowing what else to do.
"Tell me about Sofie."
Aileen sighed. Sofie was adorable. Sofie was terrific. "She's fine. She's great." Except Sofie was getting little notes sent home with her from day care. 'Today, Sofie gave the teacher the finger—except it was her index finger.' Or 'Today, Sofie drew a mustache on her face.' Or 'Today, Sofie demanded to be called Walter.'
"Really."
"Our last really good holiday was Halloween. I took her trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, and she was so cute. It was only by the end of the night that she began to catch on to the whole concept of it. Most of the time, she was so excited, she'd ring the bell, and when someone came to the door, she'd thrust out her bag and say, 'Look! I've got treats for you!'"
Aileen had stood waiting, down off the porches, on the sidewalk, in her big pink footie pajamas. She'd let Sofie do the talking. "I'm my mommy and my mommy's me," Sofie explained.
"I see," said the neighbors. And then they'd call and wave from the doorway. "Hello, Aileen! How are you doing?"
"We've got to focus on Christmas here," said Sidney.
"Yes," said Aileen despairingly. "We've only got one more week."
On the Thursday before Christmas, she felt flooded with memories: the field mice, the day trips, the long naps together. "He had limited notes to communicate his needs," she said. "He had his 'food' mew, and I'd follow him to his dish. He had his 'out' mew, and I'd follow him to the door. He had his 'brush' mew, and I'd go with him to the cupboard where his brush was kept. And then he had his existential mew, where I'd follow him vaguely around the house as he wandered in and out of rooms, not knowing exactly what or why."
Sidney's eyes began to well. "I can see why you miss him," he said.
"You can?"
"Of course! But that's all I can leave you with."
"The Christmas special's up?"
"I'm afraid so," he said, standing. He reached to shake her hand. "Call me after the holiday and let me know how you feel."
"All right," she said sadly. "I will."
She went home, poured herself a drink, stood by the mantel. She picked up the pink-posied tin and shook it, afraid she might hear the muffled banging of bones, but she heard nothing. "Are you sure it's even him?" Jack asked. "With animals, they probably do mass incinerations. One scoop for cats, two for dogs."
"Please," she said. At least she had not buried Bert in the local pet cemetery, with its intricate gravestones and maudlin inscriptions—Beloved Rexie: I'll be joining you soon. Or, In memory of Muffin, who taught me to love.
"I got the very last Christmas tree," said Jack. "It was leaning against the shed wall, with a broken high heel, and a cigarette dangling from its mouth. I thought I'd bring it home and feed it soup."
At least she had sought something more tasteful than the cemetery, sought the appropriate occasion to return him to earth and sky, get him down off the fireplace and out of the house in a meaningful way, though she'd yet to find the right day. She had let him stay on the mantel and had mourned him deeply—it was only proper. You couldn't pretend you had lost nothing. A good cat had died—you had to begin there, not let your blood freeze over. If your heart turned away at this, it would turn away at something greater, then more and more until your heart stayed averted, immobile, your imagination redistributed away from the world and back only toward the bad maps of yourself, the sour pools of your own pulse, your own tiny, mean, and pointless wants. Stop here! Begin here! Begin with Bert! Here's to Bert!
early Christmas morning, she woke Sofie and dressed her warmly in her snowsuit. There was a light snow on the ground and a wind blew powdery gusts around the yard. "We're going to say goodbye to Bert," said Aileen.
"Oh, Bert!" said Sofie, and she began to cry.
"No, it'll be a happy thing!" said Aileen, feeling the pink-posied tin in her jacket pocket. "He wants to go out. Do you remember how he used to want to go out? How he would mee-ow at the door and then we would let him go?"
"Mee-ow, mee-ow," said Sofie.
"Right," said Aileen. "So that's what we're going to do now."
"Will he be with Santa Glaus?"
"Yes! He'll be with Santa Claus!"
They stepped outside, down off the porch steps. Aileen pried open the tin. Inside, there was a small plastic bag and she tore that open. Inside was Bert: a pebbly ash like the sand and ground shells of a beach. Summer in December! What was Christmas if not a giant mixed metaphor? What was it about if not the mystery of interspecies love—God's for man! Love had sought a chasm to leap across and landed itself right here: the Holy Ghost among the barn animals, the teacher's pet sent to be adored and then to die. Aileen and Sofie each seized a fistful of Bert and ran around the yard, letting wind take the ash and scatter it. Chickadees flew from the trees. Frightened squirrels headed for the yard next door. In freeing Bert, perhaps they would become him a little: banish the interlopers, police the borders, then go back inside and play with the decorations, claw at the gift wrap, eat the big headless bird.
"Merry Christmas to Bert!" Sofie shouted. The tin was now empty.
"Yes, Merry Christmas to Bert!" said Aileen. She shoved the tin back into her pocket. Then she and Sofie raced back into the house, to get warm.
Jack was in the kitchen, standing by the stove, still in his pajamas. He was pouring orange juice and heating buns.
"Daddy, Merry Christmas to Bert!" Sofie popped open the snaps of her snowsuit.
"Yes," said Jack, turning. "Merry Christmas to Bert!" He handed Sofie some juice, then Aileen. But before she drank hers, Aileen waited for him to say something else. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. He raised his glass. His large quizzical smile said, This is a very weird family. But instead, he exclaimed, "Merry Christmas to everyone in the whole wide world!" and let it go at that.
* * *
Beautiful Grade
it's a chilly night, bitter inside and out. After a grisly month-long court proceeding, Bill's good friend Albert has become single again—and characteristically curatorial: Albert has invited his friends over to his sublet to celebrate New Year's Eve and watch his nuptial and postnuptial videos, which Albert has hauled down from the bookcase and proffered with ironic wonder and glee. At each of his three weddings, Albert's elderly mother had videotaped the ceremony, and at the crucial moment in the vows, each time, Albert's face turns impishly from his bride, looks straight into his mother's camera, and says, "I do. I swear I do." The divorce proceedings, by contrast, are mute, herky-jerky, and badly lit ("A clerk," says Albert): there are wan smiles, business suits, the waving of a pen.
At the end, Albert's guests clap. Bill puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles shrilly (not every man can do this; Bill himself didn't learn until college, though already that was thirty years ago; three decades of ear-piercing whistling—youth shall not always be wasted on the young). Albert nods, snaps the tapes back into their plastic cases, turns on the lights, and sighs.
"No more weddings," Albert announces. "No more divorces. No more wasting time. From here on in, I'm just going to go out there, find a woman I really don't like very much, and give her a house."
Bill, divorced only once, is here tonight with Debbie, a woman who is too young for him: at least that is what he knows is said, though the next time it is said to his face, Bill will shout, "I beg your pardon!" Maybe not shout. Maybe squeak. Squeak with a dash of begging. Then he'll just hurl himse
lf to the ground and plead for a quick stoning. For now, this second, however, he will pretend to a braver, more evolved heart, explaining to anyone who might ask how much easier it would be to venture out still with his ex-wife, someone his own age, but no, not Bill, not big brave Bill: Bill has entered something complex, spiritually biracial, politically tricky, and, truth be told, physically demanding. Youth will not be wasted on the young.
Who the hell is that?
She looks fourteen!
You can't be serious!
Bill has had to drink more than usual. He has had to admit to himself that on his own, without any wine, he doesn't have a shred of the courage necessary for this romance.
("Not to pry, Bill, or ply you with feminist considerations, but, excuse me—you're dating a twenty-five-year-old?"
"Twenty-four," he says. "But you were close!")
His women friends have yelled at him—or sort of yelled. It's really been more of a cross between sighing and giggling. "Don't be cruel," Bill has had to say.
Albert has been kinder, more delicate, in tone if not in substance. "Some people might consider your involvement with this girl a misuse of your charm," he said slowly.
"But I've worked hard for this charm," said Bill. "Believe me, I started from scratch. Can't I do with it what I want?"
Albert sized up Bill's weight loss and slight tan, the sprinkle of freckles like berry seeds across Bill's arms, the summer whites worn way past Labor Day in the law school's cavernous, crowded lecture halls, and he said, "Well then, some people might think it a mishandling of your position." He paused, put his arm around Bill. "But hey, I think it has made you look very—tennisy."
Bill shoved his hands in his pockets. "You mean the whole kindness of strangers thing?"
Albert took his arm back. "What are you talking about?" he asked, and then his face fell in a kind of melting, concerned way. "Oh, you poor thing," he said. "You poor, poor thing."