Hatcher

The cat on my lap is grey, with a frank, white face, and he doesn’t seem to mind his blindness at all. Certainly, he has no idea how close to an end his blindness brought him. That, and the move to the new house.

His name is Hatcher, and why we settled on that title I’ll never know. Twelve years with our friend, and neither Ellen nor I were able to remember how the name came about. It is my contention that it had something to do with a mystery show on television at the time, but Ellen thinks the Arnold couple’s child had named all the kittens before they started doling them out to friends and neighbours like us. She said he came to us as Hatcher, and surely, whatever the case, that’s what he remained, forevermore – Hatcher.

Because of that same child – a young man by now – they had not “put down” the one blind kitten in the litter. The child, his own name forgotten here in the years since the Arnolds moved to Milwaukee, had protested all too loudly and vehemently at any such thought.

So, Hatcher it’s been all these years, and he answers to it all right, ears immediately a twitch and face turning in open inquiry at any mention of his name, even in sotto voce voice, as lately we were forced to adopt. It was his future, as well as ours, that was under discussion. The pending move was serious business, and we argued over it long and earnestly – not really quarreling, but gnawing at it, again and again.

The trouble was, with the children grown and gone, the sensible choice was to sell the big house and move into something smaller, enough just for us and perhaps the occasional guest in the spare bedroom, and that’s all. Despite its set of stairs, a duplex garden apartment, euphemistically called a town house in these parts, was the obvious ticket. Rather than “apartment living,” it appeared to be a house, it did have two floors and that set of stairs – they were the selling point.

But now we had to consider Hatcher, undeniably old and greying like ourselves, but in his case also blind. Was it fair to him? Not simply the move, for personal finances dictated that choice for us . . . no, not the move itself, but the fact that he would be bumping about a new house, for him an alien territory full of confusion, even danger, for he is blind, and he is old, and how would he ever adapt all over again?

It troubled us both to picture him turning a corner and bumping smack into a dresser, a wall, or a closed closet door. With the furniture all rearranged in new quarters, the jumps he had spent a lifetime learning, his precision uncanny, no longer would be the same. And the stairs – how long before he would learn exactly where they began? It hurts us both deeply to imagine the poor fellow, if we were fumbling at the outside lock on the door, to come running in his usual style of greeting – only to tumble down an unfamiliar set of stairs.

“It just wouldn’t be fair to him,” Ellen had grieved, and I with her. It wouldn’t, no. You can’t ask an old dog to learn new tricks – not when he’s a cat, already blind, somewhat infirm, and plunked down in an environment totally foreign to him. It just wouldn’t be fair to him, all right. Those dreaded words . . . but we spoke them. Yes, “putting him down” would be only humane.

It was a temptation to say, well, this is going to hurt us as much as him – more so in fact, because he’ll never know, and we will. And we surely would have . . . he was like a fourth child, as integral to our lives and earthly existence as any other member of the family we counted as ours. Only this was one child that never would grow up, marry, find a job, and move away. This was one child that was ours ’till death us do part. Only now it was our choice to take that step, that parting step, in all “fairness” to him, to Hatcher.

Well, said the others, children among them, their pragmatism surprisingly cruel, do it – and get another cat after the move. You’ll come to love it, too. Get a kitten, why don’t you? And watch it grow up and become a part of your new life together – like Hatcher did, once.

Sure. Just go out and find another Hatcher, right? Find another cat with the odd habit of waking you by a tongue that rasps on your nose, another that licks his canned cat food daintily, like a child on his best behaviour with an ice cream cone, then drags a chunk out of his dish and simply eats it off the floor. Sure . . . just go find another one inordinately graceful in every move, yet hilariously absurd – and unconsciously vulnerable – in his sleeping postures on side or back, endless in their variety.

And all those years in the big house, where he grew up – sure-footed and certain about his surroundings at every moment, despite his lack of sight. Sure. After his initial bumps and jolts as a kitten, all we had to do as compensation was to show him – show and tell – whenever we moved or added to the furnishings in any way, even if it was a minor piece of bric-a-brac on some table.

All we had to do, and usually it was Ellen with the time and patience, was to take him to the spot and “walk him,” a hand, a light hand, on the scruff of his neck, through, around, over, past . . . whatever, until he had learned the drill. Once he knew it, he never forgot. Not once after all those lessons did he ever knock over a single item, miss a flying leap, or walk into a jutting corner line – not that we ever saw, anyway.

He became even more of a “child,” I guess, because his had to be a world without fellow animal. We couldn’t, we didn’t dare, let him out of the house – too dangerous for him, and no place to be his own, out of our sight. So, he knew only us, the family . . . in the end, Ellen and me. So far as he knew, he was the same, human, practically.

His compensation was uncanny, really, and our visitors over the years, could never get over it when we thought to mention, as often we did not, that Hatcher was a blind cat. But then, that’s cats, uncanny, all right.

It was with many thoughts of sadness that we sold the big house, and large and looming among them was Hatcher, his days numbered as we packed up and sold off unneeded furniture, his world shrinking day by day too, for we shut off one room after another as the packing progressed, until in the end he shared with us only our bedroom, bath, and parts of the first floor such as kitchen, dining alcove, and hallways. He was, that last week, as uneasy and jumpy as either one of us.

The humane and fair thing, probably, right then, would have been to go ahead and get it over with, right? But, for one thing, neither of us could bear the thought. “Next week,” I told Ellen, “the day before the movers come.” And she nodded in agreement, pain in her eyes.

But the best laid plans . . . well, the day before the movers, that was the day she woke up early, still black in the morning, with the most severe pain she had ever felt. It doubled her over, and we both thought sure it was her heart.

But no, it was “only” gallstones, they told us at the hospital. Still, they had to come out, then and there, gallbladder and all, move or no move. And the whole business did come out. Laid her up for a week, although the surgery itself went fine.

Ellen of course missed the move, and just as well under the circumstances. But I didn’t and neither, it turned out, did Hatcher.

Between the hospital visits and conferences with the doctors, completing the packing and supervising the move, I just didn’t have much choice; I just didn’t have a moment, and . . . and I had to be almost cruel, pragmatic, and a bit hard-hearted at the least. All I could do at the end of that day was to remove Hatcher from the closed bathroom in the old house, litter pan and all, rush over to the new house, and plunk the poor fellow down in the upstairs bath there, before I hurried back to the hospital to visit with Ellen that evening. Foolishly, I suppose, I left the light on for the fellow, thinking it would help him “see” in his new surroundings.

Couldn’t face the new place alone that night, everything in boxes and so still, so I stayed in a motel near the hospital.

The next day, the doctor told me the surgery had been successful, and Ellen would be going home soon . . . only, only, they had noticed something else now, and probably it was best not to mention it right away, not now. Let her get over the surgery first.

I stayed in that motel a week, the whole week, waiting for her “to come home” with me, rather than face the place any sooner, by myself. Poor Hatcher bottled up remained in that bathroom the whole time too, although I dropped in on him every day, fed him and changed the pan from time to time, and even stroked and held him at moments. Still, in my grief already for Ellen, I didn’t really give him the attention he deserved.

Hatcher seemed to be surviving all right in the meantime, and I simply put off . . . put off the day, when I would “humanely” take him to the vet for the last time. For now, I figured, he was all right where he was. A bit confusing and lonely, yes, but no great harm – no matter what the house. He wasn’t going to break a leg in there.

Ellen never mentioned him as she was recuperating at the hospital, and I suppose she thought he was gone already; she didn’t want to think about it, about him – about Hatcher. Nor, with his time simply postponed, did I.

That last night, unthinkingly I guess, I must have left the bathroom door ajar or something, and there was Hatcher bounding down the stairs from some comfy perch somewhere – our bed, probably – bounding, sure-footed as . . . well, a cat.

And as we settled Ellen in for her recuperation at home, he was everywhere, both delighted to see us and busy, obviously exploring, too. We never saw him any happier, really, any more “at home.”

Towards the end, I’m quite sure, he was her chief comfort, other than the people in her life who were dear. In the end, because of her condition, only Hatcher could sleep with her in the same bed.

And now it’s he and I, and he’s my chief, my only comfort day by day and night, my only tie in this new home to her, to what had been and might still have been again – Hatcher. The cat on my lap. And to think, I can’t even remember how he came by his name Hatcher.