I moved toward the kitchen entrance that faced the hallway and tossed the collar high in the air. It landed at the far end of the hall, and Homer was after it like a shot.
“I absolutely will,” I assured her. “And thank you so much for calling. Truly.”
Clayton continued to stare at me accusingly as I hung up the phone. “Let Homer have it,” I bent down to tell him as I stroked his back. “He’s very, very sick.”
It didn’t sound entirely persuasive to my own ears, and Clayton certainly wasn’t buying it. He continued to hop after me, squeaking in protest at the injustice of it all, as I walked back into the kitchen. It was only after I’d bribed him with a small handful of Greenies that he finally relented.
Let me add here that I didn’t think then—and don’t think now—that the doctors were wrong in their diagnosis of Homer. I never believed that they’d overestimated the severity of Homer’s condition in a fit of hubris or blind rush to judgment, that they didn’t have an accurate scientific grasp of what they were looking at, or that they’d carelessly managed to mix up Homer’s lab results with some other poor cat’s.
I did ask to have Homer’s blood retested by a different lab, only because the numbers (liver values fifteen hundred percent higher than normal!) seemed so outrageous that it felt irresponsible not to give them a second look. When I proposed the retest, my vet agreed immediately. I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen anything like this, is what she said at the time. It really shouldn’t be possible.
But even if the numbers hadn’t been confirmed by the second lab (which they were), and even if this hadn’t been the trusted veterinary clinic that had provided informed, compassionate care for all five of my cats over the past ten years (which it was), it still would have been clear that something wasn’t entirely right with Homer. Exhibit A was his yellow—or, at least, yellowing—gums and ears, irrefutable indicators of liver disease. Exhibit B was the thing that had brought us rushing pell-mell to the animal hospital in the first place: the fact that Homer had fainted. He’d actually fainted away, fallen down unconscious, right in front of me. There was simply no way to explain away a thing like that as “normal” or unremarkable. Something had caused it—and if it had brought down a cat of Homer’s stamina (the magnitude of which we were coming to appreciate more each day), that something had to be fairly significant.
Numbers are math, and math is certainty. Homer’s numbers were what they were; there was no getting around it. And yet, wasn’t the world filled with examples of numbers being imprecise, when the very best minds using the most technologically advanced predictive tools still hadn’t managed to foresee the right outcome? How to explain those seven thousand untrained rebels defeating a battle-tested army of fifty thousand? How to explain oil that was enough to burn for only one day but nonetheless burned for eight? How to explain the very idea of Christmas miracles, which had persisted for more than a thousand years? What was a “miracle” anyway, if not an instance in which science and logic said one thing, but life ended up saying something else?
I light the Hanukkah candles every year and recite the ritual blessing over them, but I’ll admit that I’ve never been much for genuine prayer. Nevertheless, that year I sent out a thought each night as Laurence and I lit the menorah—a silent supplication to whoever or whatever might be listening. Let Homer be as the Hanukkah flame and burn eight times longer than he’s supposed to, I pleaded. And if that’s too much to ask, then let him still be here on Christmas. Give me one more Christmas and New Year’s with Homer, and I’ll be satisfied.
We made much of Homer that holiday season. As Homer’s appetite continued to go up instead of down, Laurence was tireless in his quest to find new and intriguing things to bring home for Homer’s daily meals. And it seemed as if I couldn’t hold or cuddle Homer enough—couldn’t dig out enough toys to throw for him or find too many hours in the day to play another spirited round of Attack Mom’s Fingers Under The Bedsheet.
I’d held off on stringing the holiday lights around our apartment, unable to shake the (admittedly irrational) idea that if I stopped the outward signs of the holidays’ approach, I could also stop time itself and keep Homer with me longer. But when the eight nights of Hanukkah plus two additional days had come and gone—when Homer’s two-week deadline and bottle of medication had both run out—with Homer showing no signs of flagging in strength or spirit, I finally decided to untangle the holiday lights from their dusty repose in the corner of a closet. This was my first, cautious step toward moving the clock forward again. With or without my superstitions, Homer didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Homer, as he did every year, engaged in his cherished ritual of snarling himself in the string of lights thoroughly, until it was impossible for me to continue hanging them up without first dislodging him. But instead of my usual impatient cry of, Homer, enough already! I told him, “Just be careful, Homer-Bear. You’re a good boy.”
I couldn’t keep the crack out of my voice. The unmistakable sorrow in my tone—which was most decidedly not a regular part of our holiday tradition—couldn’t have stopped Homer more abruptly in his tracks than if I’d yelled at him harshly and chased him from the room. He’d been rolling around on the floor but swiftly sat upright, ears at attention as his head moved in the sweeping, sonar-dish motion that meant he was trying to understand something he couldn’t see yet still knew was happening around him.
Wait a second, he seemed to be saying. What’s going on? Why aren’t you getting mad at me like you normally do?
It wasn’t as if Homer could look at the calendar and note that the lights were going up later than usual, or overhear conversations I had with his doctor and understand what we were talking about. But, still . . . he knew that something was different this year.
We spent a quiet Christmas Eve at home with Chinese takeout from the place across the street. Little more than glorified fast food, this particular restaurant was never my own first choice. But Homer—always an eager eater, if not a discerning one—practically did backflips for their five-dollar chicken breast.
(I mean that literally, by the way. Smelling the chicken, sealed in its container, the moment Laurence stepped off the elevator—through our closed apartment door and all the way down the hall—Homer was leaping so ecstatically by the time Laurence finally walked in that he knocked askew two paintings hanging a full five feet off the ground. Our downstairs neighbor called to complain about the noise.)
Scrapping among the discarded wrappings from the after-dinner gifts Laurence and I exchanged, Clayton and Homer engaged in a fast and furious round of tug-of-war over a snippet of ribbon, while Fanny—who, as the only cat in the house with four legs and two eyes, might actually have won if she’d decided to play—opted instead to throttle one of her new toy mice into submission.
I knew it was absurd—that I was descending into full-on “helicopter parent” obsessiveness—but I started to go over to Homer and Clayton, to interfere in their game on Homer’s behalf. With time running so short for him, I wanted Homer to have whatever he wanted, even if all he wanted was a lousy piece of used holiday ribbon.
“Don’t.” Laurence put a hand on my arm to hold me back. “After fifteen years, don’t start treating him like he’s ‘special’ now.”