Bob killed the cat on a Tuesday, following a fairly routine day at the office. Signing off on work permits, meetings, phone calls—a brief reprieve over mediocre tacos with Lydia and Sheila B, the office girls—more calls and work on a wayward spreadsheet. The cat’s demise wasn’t murder, as such, but it wasn’t not murder either. More of a game, shall we say, a case of if I keep the car moving slowly, the damn cat will surely get up and run out of the way. The cat didn’t, and felt to Bob, through rubber and metal and shuddering engine, as if it were a squelchy bump. The good news was that it occurred on the driveway of the modest townhome he shared with his wife Dee and their fourteen year old son Luther, so he didn’t have to continue driving the back wheel over it. The bad news was that now he had a dead cat leaking under his car.
“What’s for dinner?” Bob closed the front door behind him and put his briefcase under the hall console, as he did each evening.
No answer.
“Dee? Luther?”
No answer.
After twenty minutes spent peeling a warm orange tabby body off the driveway, wrapping it in a bag, disposing of it in his trash (he considered the recycling with a wry smile, that would serve them right, with their incessant tickets for the wrong types of plastic) and hosing down the fluids so they ran off his property, Bob returned to the house.
He took out his cell phone and typed a message to Dee.
- Where are you?
He didn’t hit send. He wasn’t going to let himself look so desperate.
By eight o’clock, he was irate. This was not okay.
Half an hour later, Dee and Luther appeared, full of chatter about a baseball game. Bob remembered at that point: Luther’s league semi final.
“Ah yes,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t get there. I was stuck with a work thing.”
“It’s okay Dad, it was a tough loss.”
“We did pick up dinner as a treat though,” said Dee.
“Oh no,” said Luther, his eyes on his phone. “I need to eat quickly, Lea’s cat’s missing. She needs me to help look.”
Bob’s back stiffened.
“Where does this Lea live?”
Luther and Dee both looked at Bob.
“Lea… Joe and Gill’s daughter, behind us?” Dee shook her head slowly, waiting for the recognition to strike her husband.
“I can’t keep up with all these names.” Bob pulled out his chair and sat. “What’s for dinner?”
“Tacos.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Bob stood up and went out to the driveway. Dee and Luther watched from the front door, mouths agape, as he entered the side shed and emerged moments later with a bucket, a bottle of car shampoo, and a thick yellow sponge.
“Bob, your dinner’ll spoil,” Dee said.
From behind the wooden fence at the back of the garden, calls of, “Tiggy,” and “Tigger kitty,” and “Here, Tig,” rose like smoke.
Turning on the squeaky faucet on the side of the house, Bob leaned towards the bucket so all he could hear was the rushing water.
Originally from England, Jo Varnish now lives outside New York City. She is the creative nonfiction editor at X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine and creative nonfiction contributing editor at Barren Magazine. Her short stories and creative nonfiction have recently appeared in PANK, Hobart, Jellyfish Review, Pithead Chapel, JMWW Journal, and others. Jo has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best Small Fiction, and is working on her PhD. She can be found on twitter @jovarnish1.