A New Year’s Liar

Here’s the thing about New Year’s — it’s the day of the year that’s filled with the most lies. I suppose I should apologize to those few people who don’t fall into the category of New Year’s Liars, the ones who actually do go to the gym and save money and eat better and spend more time with their kids. Travel more, or whatever. There are those people who follow through with their New Year’s resolutions, and to them I’m sorry. But to everybody else, to most people, I’m not sorry. I’m just being honest. Because the kind of lies people make when they write or speak or slur their New Year’s resolutions are the worst kind of all. They are the lies people tell to themselves.

***

I didn’t always hate New Year’s. There was a time when I believed all the lies and would even tell some myself. I’ll clean my room more this year. I’ll join the soccer team. I’ll call grandma every weekend. If you’re honest with yourself, you know a month in, or a week, or maybe even the very moment you utter your resolution that it’s a lie. It’s discovering that other people are lying that took me a while. 

It had taken me twelve years to realize Mom had been lying.

***

The cat showed up on New Year’s Eve. I was sitting on the couch, watching TV and I’d just discovered that some people call New Year’s Eve “Old Year’s Day” when the cries started. I looked out the window, which was clouded from the cold. I rubbed my fist in a circle to clear the glass and saw her sitting square in the center of the yard. She was skinny, but that seemed to have no effect on her vocal cords. The cat was freaking loud.

“Shhh!” I banged on the window. It didn’t scare her at all. She just turned her ears back as if I’d offended her. Then she went right on back to mewing. I turned up the TV.

***

Listen, I know people love cats. They’ve basically taken over the internet, and billions of people use that. But the cats around here run wild, and they use my yard as their litter box. The yard is the one thing that’s mine. Mom seeps throughout the house, or at least, her momness does. She’s in the kitchen on every empty shelf. She’s in the tub when her bleached hair clogs the drain and I have to fish it out with one of those bendy snake things. She’s even in my closet, when my clothes are all over the floor because she couldn’t find anything in her closet.

But the yard? The yard is mine. And I’m sorry, but the cats just can’t have it.

***

I know at this point you’re probably wondering what happened when I was twelve that finally made me realize my mom was a liar. The thing you have to understand about my mom is that she doesn’t know she’s a liar, so it took me a while to figure it out. But the New Year’s resolutions are what gave it away. I think if she’d just told her lies randomly, not on the same day every year, I wouldn’t have figured it out. Or at least not until much later.

It had been the fourth year in a row that I could remember her saying the same resolution. The same exact resolution. This year I will find some real work. Some steady work. It was the only time she even alluded to the fact that what she usually did for money wasn’t a real job. And every year like clockwork — maybe three, four weeks into the new year — she’d go right back to gambling and calling it her work. I’d ask for new shoes for school, and she’d say, Not now, Bea, work hasn’t been good lately. Or I’d ask her if she would chaperone the field trip to the park where they reenact the olden times, and she’d say, I have work, Bea. I can’t just take off like the other moms.

It was just after I’d turned twelve and New Year’s came around that she’d said it again: This year I will find some real work. Some steady work.

Liar, I’d said back. As you can imagine, what came after that wasn’t so pretty, but at least I finally knew the truth. And then I began to see them everywhere — the lies people tell on New Year’s. It was then that I also noticed not only do people lie about their resolutions, but sometimes, many times even, they act against them. Mrs. Hill at school got fatter, not skinnier. Miss Brady, the ninth-grade English teacher, said that she was going to read more. She came in after the holiday break with some thick book called Anna Karenina. It sat on her desk for the rest of the year. At one point, the bookmark moved backward.

As for Mom, she wasn’t any different. Things got worse with her, too.

***

The New Year’s when the cat showed up, Mom long since knew not to bother me with her lies anymore. She didn’t even spend the holiday at home. Which was all the better, because if she heard me banging on the window she’d have screamed like a banshee. But this cat, she was stubborn and she just kept getting louder. I couldn’t take it anymore. I finally shoved my feet into my slippers, put on the way-too-big coat I’d thrifted at the Goodwill in town, and set out to scare her off. 

The air was cold and dry, and the wind whipped my bangs into my mouth. I figured the cat would run as soon as I came out, but she still sat there, shivering and staring at me. I could see her shoulder blades and hips through her fur. It was black and white with orange patches, blowing in all the wrong directions with the wind. 

“Go away.” I told her. She didn’t. She only ran up to my legs and cried louder, darting in between them before running out in front of me. “Get out of here. I don't want you pooping in my grass.” The grass that was dead and crunchy with frost.

She cried again, but it didn’t sound like meow, it sounded like reow, reoooow. Desperate and low. She looped between my legs again, then ran behind a bush that was pushed up against the fence separating our yard from the old woman’s next door. Good, I thought. I turned to go back inside, but she darted out again, this time sticking out her paw to grab at my shin. 

“Hey!” I grasped at my leg, but I didn’t feel any pain. She hadn’t used her claws. “What is it, cat? What do you want?” I looked down at her big green eyes. She ran back over to the bush, then popped her head out as if to check that I was following.

So I did. I crouched down, a little nervous she would decide at that very moment to attack me. But she didn’t. She was too busy looking over her litter of kittens.

***

If Mom knew that I’d brought a litter of kittens inside and let their ragged mother slip in the door behind me, she’d probably freak. And here’s the thing, I may not have liked cats, but I wasn’t completely devoid of empathy. These kittens were newborns. Their eyes weren’t even open. And the mother was clearly starving, plus it was freezing outside. So it was for those reasons that I made a little nest in the one corner of my room I knew Mom was least likely to invade: my school desk. It sat in the corner, against the opposite wall of my closet, and the mother cat seemed to like that the nest was under something. I gave them my fuzzy blanket with the blue polka dots, and she arranged the kittens how she liked by picking them up by the neck. Or by the scruff, as Google told me. I looked it up because I thought she was so hungry she might have been trying to eat them.

My next trip was to the refrigerator, but all we had was half a jar of mayonnaise, some dying celery, Mom’s leftover coffee, and that was pretty much it. There were frozen pizza bagels in the freezer, which I’d been basically surviving on the last few days. But none of it would do. I had to feed the mother so she could produce enough milk for the kittens.

***

That first night I had set up a makeshift litter box with a plastic bin and some newspapers. I had no idea if the cat would know to use it, but it was all I could do since everything was closed for the holiday. Once New Year’s Eve drifted into New Year’s Day and Mom still hadn’t come home, I knew I’d have to leave the house. Not just to get cat food but to get something other than those goddamn freezer-burned pizza bagels. Mom would be pissed when she saw the credit card bill at the end of the month, but whatever.

***

The first few nights I was equally worried that the kittens would die and that mom would find out I was stowing the cats in my room. But she must have made her New Year’s lie to herself again because for that first week, she was out of the house. Looking for actual jobs, I assumed. Cashier positions, bartending — whatever it was didn’t matter. It wouldn’t last. But by the time she got home each night, I made sure to be in my room already.

She hadn’t bothered me, and she hadn’t found out about the kittens. Also, the mother cat, who I’d begun to call Cora, did figure out that the plastic bin was for her bathroom needs. She was pretty smart, that one.

***

I may have skipped the first few days back at school after the New Year. The first week, really. It’s just that I started to become really concerned about those damn cats. One of the kittens didn’t seem to be gaining any weight, even though I’d gotten a sample of kitten formula at the pet store. I’d been feeding him extra with a syringe. I was a little scared to try it at first, because I wasn’t sure if Cora would attack me for picking up her baby. But Cora seemed tired and merely glanced at me when I lifted the small kitten from the nest.

When I finally went back to school, the guidance counselor called me into her office.

“Where have you been since New Year’s, Bea?” she asked. Mrs. Feldstein was her name. She was okay.

I cleared my throat. “Wasn’t feeling great.”

Mrs. Feldstein stared at me. A minute or so passed, and I was starting to feel pretty awkward with her looking at me like that. But I wasn’t going to say anything.

“I hope I’m not overstepping, Bea, but you look a little thinner than you did before break.” I didn’t answer. She continued after a minute anyway. “You know, that happens sometimes when students who rely on the meal plans at school reach summer or winter break.” I shrugged a shoulder. “What with no more daily lunches, I mean.”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Feldstein.”

She nodded, breaking her stare. “Sure, of course. I’ll just tell you this. I know you turned sixteen over break. You can work now.”

***

I had a job by the end of the week. At the pet store, actually. I figured I could get some deals on the cat supplies and learn a thing or two about how to care for the kittens. My coworker, Alice, she must’ve been in her forties, and she knew more about cats than probably the entire internet. She couldn't believe none of the kittens had died, so I felt pretty good about that. Maybe Cora and her little babies had beaten the odds.

When I got my first paycheck, it felt like my heart fell through my stomach. I worked after school each day for four hours, and I earned eight dollars an hour. The thing was, I never thought to calculate the kind of money I would make. I earned $160 per week. That was before taxes, but they paid me every other week, so by the time that came around, I made almost 300 bucks per paycheck. It was like hitting the lottery.

The only problem was that Mom had access to my bank account.

***

Thank god for Mrs. Feldstein, that’s all I can say. She was the one who told me I should take my checks to the bank to cash them out. Imagine my face when I walked out of there with nearly $300 in cash. The first thing I did was go to the Walmart across the parking lot. I stocked up on cat food and bought myself about four tons of beef jerky and granola bars. Things I knew would last a while and I could keep in my room.

The next thing I did was make a slice in the carpet in the corner of my bedroom, behind the mirror leaning against the wall. I slipped my savings into there.

***

I should’ve bought a lock for my bedroom door. I knew that, so far, Mom hadn’t found the cats while I was at work out of dumb luck. She finally found out about them the day she got fired from her newest job as the lady who sweeps the hair in a beauty salon. I don’t know how you get fired from that. She must not have been showing up, which is pretty typical. Anyway, I was at school when they sent her home. She must have either smelled the litter box or heard them crying.

“Where you been these past few weeks?” She asked when I got home from school. I needed to change into my uniform before heading to work. She was on the couch with her feet up.

“Out.”

She nodded. “What’s with the cats?”

My breath stopped. My heart began to pound against my ribs. I dropped my bag and ran to my bedroom. The door was open. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find. But they were there, in their nest. I rushed to my knees in front of them and counted the babies. They were all there, plus Cora, who was splayed out like a crescent moon around them, looking up at me as her chest rose and fell with rumbling purrs.

I breathed out, long and deep, not sure what it meant that Mom had left them undisturbed.

***

As more weeks passed, I found that I really liked being at work. It gave me something to do, an excuse to be out of the house. Plus, I was actually pretty good with the birds they kept at the store. I wanted to bring one home, but I figured Cora would turn it into lunch.

The days came and went, and I collected more money. I started buying fresh food, like eggs and yogurt, which of course I had to put in the fridge. I never confessed to Mom that I’d gotten a job — I was too afraid she’d try to coax the money from me or hunt down my stash and then gamble it all away. But she’d seen the food in the fridge. She must’ve known I was paying for it somehow, especially since her credit card bills never changed beyond that one purchase I’d made at New Year’s.

One day I found her making scrambled eggs. She scooped them on a plate and silently slid them over to me with a small nod.

***

It turned out that there were changes that year. That was the year Mom stopped looking at me like a kid and the year I stopped acting like one. It was the year I’d gotten a job, the year I no longer needed to rely on Mom. It was the year I started to feed and clothe myself. 

And it was all because of Cora. Cora and her little babies. By the time the next New Year’s had rolled around, all the kittens had survived and grown enough to be adopted. Mrs. Feldstein took one. I swayed some friends at school to convince their parents to take a few. My coworker, Alice, kept three. And me? I kept my Cora. 

On New Year’s Day, thick snowflakes fell into the yard, making everything silent in that way that snow does. As if it’s blanketing everything. Mom was in the kitchen making eggs again. She had actually stayed home the night before and we even watched the ball drop together on TV. In the year that would follow, she wouldn't make any significant changes. She’d get jobs and lose them, get money and gamble it off. But at least she hadn’t presented some grand New Year’s resolution about it all. At least she hadn’t lied.

As for me, I did make a resolution. The first one in five years. I promised Cora I would do my best to continue taking care of her. It wouldn't be anything new. It would be a continuation of everything I’d built up over the past year. But it was enough, because promising to take care of Cora meant promising to take care of myself, too. And I wasn’t about to become a New Year’s Liar.