Dumb animal

I've just finished clearing away the dinner plates, and my dad has the kettle on to boil. It's the end of our weekly dinner together - he cooks, I clear. My stepmother is peering into the conservatory, and she says something about the cat. It's still not eating much, I think I hear.

Is she sick? I ask. For about a week, my stepmother says. Then, over her shoulder to my dad, were you not going to take her today? Traffic, he says, I wasn't home in time.

I go over to stand beside her. I can see part of the cat, a black furry rump in a cardboard box, through the glass dividing doors. While the others continue their conversation I press down on the handle and let myself in.

I'm still a few paces away when I stop. I don't need to go any closer, but after a moment I do, lowering myself to a crouch beside the box. I couldn't tell you exactly what it is, but it's there. In the angle of the head, or a paw.

I go back inside to the kitchen, and sit at the countertop where my dad is wiping down a cutting board. I pick my words with care, lay them out on the tabletop in a neat row.

I think, if you don't take her to the vet, she will die.

He looks in the cat's direction, silent for a moment. Eventually he pulls out a directory and begins to flick through it. I keep my palms flat on the countertop, for balance, because there is a tight little band squeezing me inside. A week, I think.

When I am sure he will call one of the numbers, I go back to sit with her. I stroke her head while she makings little clicking sounds with each breath, her ribcage jerking in stopstarts, abruptly. Her eyes are partway closed, and I don't think, looking into them, that there is much cat left in there.

My dad brings another box, and together we tip her into it. She struggles frantically, and far too briefly, when the flaps are closed over.

She mustn't be too sick, my dad comments. I wonder, for an instant, how we are related, and hate myself for thinking it. The box is quiet.

I gather my things and set out for the bus-stop home. He passes me in the car, with his cardboard-boxed cargo. I'm not sure whether she will return. I'm not sure whether I want her to.

I watch the car tail-lights disappear, and suddenly I want to take her with me, home, where she will have people to care for her. I realise, in the cold of the bus-shelter, that later in life I will be one of those people who take in the strays and the sick animals, until my house is filled with them. And I know that I will never be able to save all the dying cats, or animals, or people there are out there.

But it seems absurdly important that today I save just this one.