When You Give Your Heart to a Cat

Our cat is on steroids.

Every night my husband scoops up the cat, whose name is Herc, and holds him so he can’t scratch. I pry open Herc’s mouth to stick the pill as far down his throat as possible before he wrestles free to clamp on to my finger. Then, I hold his jaw shut until he starts licking his lips. This is supposed to be the sign that he has swallowed the pill.

He fakes. We often find the pill on the floor several feet from where we thought he swallowed it. He is cagey and nonchalant about this, never giving off a hint of his trickery. But we shouldn’t be surprised. He is on steroids, after all.

We ask the vet how long Herc can take steroids. “His whole life,” she answers. Well, how long is that? Could he take steroids for ten years? She shrugs.

I’d Google it but I don’t want to see the answer. AI is so advanced now, it would show a dozen photos of advanced steroid use in cats, offer alternatives for cat burial and sign me up for grief counseling. Vets don’t prescribe steroids for hangnails.

Oh well. For the time being, we are old people living in a cat bubble with two dogs. The cat sleeps on our bed and, in the morning, walks up to my pillow so when I open my eyes, I see his tiny mouth and his whiskers. This morning, I smelled fish on his breath, so certain as if he’d just caught a perch somewhere and devoured it whole.

I have learned over the years that love is a dangerous thing. Cats, dogs, people.

Tonight, we will give Herc the pill he spat out last night. The beat goes on.