I wasn’t initially alarmed that first morning when Homer, rather than muscling past the other cats to get to his food bowl the way he usually did, approached the bowl halfheartedly and sniffed at it a few times before ambling off. It wasn’t his typical behavior, but more than a decade of being a “cat mom” had taught me not to be an alarmist about such things. It might be that he was tired of that specific flavor. While Homer had never been a finicky cat, he was getting on in years (it was so hard to believe he was eleven already!), and I knew it wasn’t unheard of for a cat to become finickier as he grew older. Or maybe he simply wasn’t hungry. Where was the law that said a cat had to eat the exact same amount of the exact same food at the exact same time every day? I made a mental note to put down a different flavor in a few hours when I gave them their midday feeding, then went about reviewing proposals and price quotes from lighting designers for the wedding.
When I put down food again a little after one o’clock, this time making sure I selected a different variety from what I had given them that morning, Homer once again refused to eat. He walked into the room somewhat sluggishly, sniffed the food as he had that morning, and made digging motions around the bowl, the way he did when burying something in the litter box.
I wondered if there might be something wrong with the food. Not too long ago, there had been a major scare among pet owners when a substance toxic to cats and dogs made its way into several popular brands. It hadn’t affected us directly—Vashti’s allergies and colitis having long since required me to buy specialty brands—but who was to say that this batch of food hadn’t been tainted with salmonella or E. coli? Homer’s sense of smell was so much more acute than the other two’s, and the way he was acting seemed to indicate that something didn’t smell right to him. Perhaps he’d detected a hazard that wasn’t apparent to Scarlett and Vashti.
I took all three ceramic bowls away (over Vashti’s ardent squeaks of protest), emptied them out, scrubbed them vigorously, and ran them through the dishwasher twice. While they were cleaning, I dashed out to the pet store two blocks away and selected several cans of Newman’s Own organic cat food. It was pricier than I would have liked (Hey, it’s for charity! I told myself), but I couldn’t remember any negative stories or health scares associated with the Newman’s Own line.
The food was new and the bowls were as sterile as they were ever going to be. To be completely safe, however, I pulled out three small dishes from the set Laurence and I used ourselves, arranged the Newman’s Own food on them, and put everything down for the cats.
This time, Homer didn’t even bother going into the room where the food was. He sat on his haunches in the middle of the hall as the other two cats charged past him, and then, after a minute or two of apparent deliberation, shuffled like an old man in the opposite direction to curl up in a patch of sunlight on the living room rug, carefully wrapping his front paws around his face.
I was still determined not to panic, but by now I was definitely concerned. I realized that I hadn’t seen Homer scamper around playfully once all day. The only things he’d done since that morning were wander up and down the hall a couple of times and sleep. His lack of energy could be explained by the fact that he hadn’t eaten—I wasn’t very high-energy myself when forced to skip meals—but that, of course, begged the question: Why wasn’t he eating?
As a last resort, I ran out once more—this time to the bodega across the street—and purchased a box of dry food. Maybe, enthusiastic as he’d always been about it, Homer had developed a sudden revulsion to moist food altogether. I was the kind of person who could eat the same thing for breakfast every day for two years straight, and then one morning feel as if I couldn’t eat that breakfast again, ever, even if it meant I wouldn’t eat anything at all. It seemed entirely reasonable that Homer might be experiencing a similar feeling. Since Homer hadn’t eaten all day, I bought a box of Kitten Chow, thinking it might go down easier than one of the adult formulas.
I locked Scarlett and Vashti in the far bedroom, so Homer could eat in peace. Then I poured some of the dry food onto a small plate, sat next to Homer on the rug, and stroked his back. “Come on, kitty,” I coaxed, “make your mother happy and eat a little something.”
Rising unsteadily to his feet, Homer lowered his head and began to nibble at the dry food. He didn’t eat with much enthusiasm, but he did eat. It was only as I watched him swallow his first tiny mouthful and go for a second one that I knew how worried I had been. If Homer truly couldn’t stand moist food anymore, and Vashti was unable to eat any dry food, then feeding times were about to become a nightmare of complications in our home. Nevertheless, I was so thrilled to see Homer eat that this scenario struck me as more comic than cumbersome. Cats! I thought. Leave it to a cat to assume my life revolves around his food preferences. I was laughing as I said to Homer, in a mock-scolding voice, “Silly cat! You had me so scared!” I gave him a small bowl of water and, after he’d lapped at it for a moment, I took the food and water away. I didn’t want him to pile too much into an empty stomach and wind up vomiting.
After I covered up the food and water and stowed them in the refrigerator, I released the other two cats and settled on the couch. Homer crept after me, moving his joints in a slow and deliberate fashion, and halfheartedly rubbed the top of his head against my chin before curling up in my lap. He purred, but his purr was feeble. “Poor thing,” I said to Laurence, when he got home that night. “His tummy’s been upset all day.”
Homer didn’t move much the rest of the night, but whenever he seemed even half awake, I rushed to the refrigerator to pull out the bowls of water and dry food. He didn’t eat or drink with as much relish as I would have liked, but he consumed enough to alleviate the worst of my fears. It seemed that whatever had been troubling him was already working itself out of his system.
“You’re so good with him,” Laurence said. His expression was uncharacteristically soft. It was the same look he occasionally wore if, for example, we went to visit friends who’d just had a baby and I held the newborn in my arms. Laurence would lean in to kiss my cheek as I cradled the infant and murmur, You look good like that.
“I love him,” I told Laurence. “If I’m good with him, it’s because I love him.”
I went to sleep before Laurence did that night and asked him to keep an eye on Homer. When Laurence came to bed a few hours later, I sat up groggily and asked how Homer was doing. “I gave him a little more of the dry food when the other two weren’t looking,” Laurence said. “He seemed fine. I think he’s sleeping in one of the closets now.”
Sleeping in a closet? Homer never slept in closets. Scarlett and Vashti sometimes liked to burrow deep into a closet and doze where nobody could find them, but Homer always wanted to sleep in the vicinity of at least one other person or cat. I felt a small pang of alarm as Laurence relayed this information, but Homer’d had a rough day. If he wanted to be alone for a while, that was understandable.
The following morning, Homer wouldn’t eat anything at all—not even the dry food he’d eaten the night before. After Vashti and Scarlett had eaten, Homer left his small cave in the closet just long enough to stumble into the far bedroom. I didn’t like the way he was walking. His steps were hesitant, and he bumped his head repeatedly into walls and furniture. I had never seen Homer like this before. He walked as if …
As if he were blind, I thought grimly.
Homer staggered in this befuddled fashion into the bedroom, climbed slowly up the side of the bed, and balled himself up on one of the pillows. I sat down next to him and stroked his back. Homer had always—always—acknowledged my touch, had purred or leaned into my hand or raised his head so I could scratch beneath his chin. Now, though, he didn’t stir. He didn’t so much as twitch a muscle.