To Thine Own Self Be Truth

It was the holidays. I had arrived in Ohio from my home in California in time for my brother’s birthday, which was three days before Christmas. I had done this every year for the past forty years since I’d left Ohio. Our small family of five, including my sister-in-law, were sitting in my parent’s living room with glasses of wine before dinner. We had pulled up chairs to be closer to my parent’s stuffed chairs, roughly forming a circle as we caught-up on our lives. 

Rarely would our family bring up uncomfortable events from the past or for that matter any uncomfortable personal issues. Our family was really good at petting the elephant. For the short time I was in town, beyond catch-up, we stayed on funny remembrances, teasing, current events and the enjoyment of being together for the holidays. The event that happened over fifty years ago had never been mentioned till this night. 

How this event entered the conversation, I don’t know. Was there more wine being drunk this night? Maybe, now that I wasn’t drinking, there was a lot more wine for everyone else. Though, I had always been careful to hide my drinking from them. I was still on a high enough floor to be able to control my drinking with them. Gratefully I never had to hit the bottom floor. Recently, I had joined a twelve step group for alcohol which had led me to try clearing my brain of things that tended to surface without welcome. The things I could let slide off when my brain became slick with alcohol. Now without alcohol, my brain had become an ugly version of my catch all drawer at home. The drawer was filled with a collection of things I just couldn't let go of, like my favorite drawing pencils waiting to be picked back up again someday. The toe nails found in the carpet from my dear cat. There was the handle I broke off my favorite mug while drinking, and men's business cards from long gone romantic escapades. There were the receipts from liquor stores saved because each was going to be my souvenir of the last alcohol, I thought, I would ever buy. Things that didn’t really hold enriching memories, but reminders, non the less, of my real life. The life beyond the big smile I preferred to show, joined with the, “I’m fine!” The veneer I wanted that meant, “I'm OK, don’t worry about me, I can manage myself.”

As we sat together that night, I remember adding to whatever the thread of conversation was. It just seemed to spill out, “Ya know, I’ve always felt bad about not being able to hold onto the cat that woman gave us. Remember, the one from the big brick house on Franklin Street?” Faced with stares, I recounted the event.

A woman my parents knew needed a home for her cat. She was a big beautiful grey brown and black longhair, maybe part Maine Coon. I was probably seven or eight. My brother was a year and a half older. I was sitting in the front passenger seat of our car and my Dad carefully placed the cat in my lap. I held on tight to her for the short drive home. One arm scooped around her chest and the other over her back just as I was told to do so she couldn’t get loose. Once we had parked in our driveway, my Dad opened my door. Immediately the cat burst from my arms! In those seconds while I tried to hold on to her, she dug a three inch long, deep bleeding scratch into the palm of my left hand. A painful reminder of what had happened and my dereliction of duty. 

We tried leaving food out. We searched and called for her, but we never found her. There were only a few houses interspersed around us, but for the most part, we were surrounded by woods. I told myself she must have found a home with one of our neighbors. I never mentioned anything about my sadness and guilt and neither did anyone else. I had let my family down and especially failed that big beautiful cat.

There, that one sad event was out in the open. I was still faced with stares but at least the hidden shame and regret I had harbored all these years could breath and I could move on. From the corner of my eye I noticed my brother’s head had jutted forward, jaw leading the way, his lower lip was now pressing up tight against his upper lip forging an arch. A crease had formed between his eyebrows in earnest. He stared at me in rare silence until in a burst of confusion he stated, “I was holding the cat. It jumped out of my arms.” I stared back at my brother. Now my head was protruding far beyond my body, not certain I had heard him clearly. In unerring certainty he said, “When I got out of the car, I couldn’t hold onto her and she clawed the palm of my hand trying to get away. I’ve always felt bad that she was gone and it was my fault.” 

We looked at each other hoping the other would confess to a mixed up memory and we’d all laugh. Then my father’s brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed. He sternly looked at my brother then at me and declared, “I was holding the cat. She jumped out of my arms. I’ve always regretted losing her.” 

We were all silent. Each of us looking from one to the other, internally scrutinizing our memories, carefully unfolding and smoothing every wadded up old frame of our mental pictures, trying to verify who’s memory was real. As we each internally sorted through what we had held as true for over fifty years my Mom moved to the edge of her chair. She leaned forward. Her hands were gripping the arms of her chair. Looking at each of us in utter bafflement she skeptically demanded, “What cat?”