Drinking from the Trough Read online

  The pathology resident knew little about the case and fumbled through it, so the pathology professors asked me to present the case. I became the pathologist. Grossly (meaning visibly to the naked eye without a microscope), Franny’s lungs looked normal. The only organ abnormality was that Franny had a smaller than average liver. It was an incidental finding. The results from the microscope slides of her lungs gave no further insight into the course of her disease. There was nothing to show why she had become so ill.

  No one who makes the decision to say goodbye to an animal friend should be made to feel that the decision was wrong. Franny probably could have gone on, but we felt that she had had enough. Grieving for a pet is often just as difficult as grieving for a human. Earl and I grieved for a long time, even though we knew we’d done the right thing.

  Franny’s death was of value to the students and faculty who learned from her unusual course of illness, its treatment, the preparation for her death, her euthanasia, the necropsy, and the use of her body for learning structures and procedures. We felt fortunate to have had so much fun with her in all the things we did together. Most importantly, there was a peaceful end of life for the beautiful little mare who had no chrome.

  4

  Calproonio

  I never thought I would have a pet who lived for half my life.

  Pruney was born in my sister Natalie’s bedroom in the spring of my senior year in high school. She wasn’t my first cat, and she wasn’t my cat at all in the beginning.

  Natalie was the first of us to have a kitten. She was home from third grade, recovering from an asthma attack, when she and Mom discovered that a stray had delivered her litter in the window well. The kittens were old enough to be weaned, but the grate over the well had prevented the stray from carrying them out.

  I arrived home from school—I was in fifth grade—and was confronted with Natalie’s prize.

  Natalie, the youngest (who always got what she wanted), had a kitten. Margo, the oldest, already had a guinea pig; she wasn’t interested in kittens (though I must mention that Margo grew up to found Friends of Alley Cats of Tucson, known as FACT).

  Why didn’t I have a kitten? I wanted to know. I had seen the kittens, and I’d fallen in love with the white one that had gray spots. How could Mom not know that?

  Mom didn’t have an answer, but she didn’t have a kitten either; the people from the animal shelter had already retrieved the others.

  But persistence (and a certain amount of moping) works, even for a middle child, and not long before sixth grade began, I got my first kitten. Unfortunately, shortly after that, Natalie had a series of asthma attacks, and Mom gave both our cats away to Orphans of the Storm Animal Shelter.

  We weren’t cat-less for long: despite Nat’s asthma (which didn’t seem that much worse when cats were around), by the end of summer, I had Smokey and Natalie had Dusty, gray tabby littermates. Dusty eventually died of a urinary blockage, and Lynny became Natalie’s new cat. Mom never considered spaying Lynny—not many people thought about fixing their dogs and cats in those days—and by the time we reached high school, Lynny had had several litters. The kittens stayed until they were weaned, then went to other homes or to the shelter.

  The summer before my senior year, Smokey developed a urinary blockage and had surgery, but the surgery was unsuccessful. We had to send him to the Rainbow Bridge, that mysterious multicolored bridge connecting Heaven and Earth, where our precious pets wait for us after they die. I knew I’d be leaving home for college in a year, so it didn’t make sense to adopt another cat. That didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted!

  On April 8, when I got home from a student–faculty basketball game, Natalie was stretched out on her bed, watching Lynny deliver her latest litter. Periodically, Natalie would lift her head, peer blearily at Lynny, and say, “Look! There’s another one!”

  I thought Nat was just sleepy; later, I realized that my little sister, ever the wild child, was thoroughly stoned.

  Natalie wanted an all-black cat, and that night, Lynny delivered one. That’s the kitten Natalie kept. As she grew, we discovered she wasn’t solid black; she turned out to be a black tabby.

  Natalie was studying Julius Caesar in her sophomore literature class, so she named the new kitten Calpurnia, after Caesar’s last wife. When Jody, the little girl who lived across the street from us, tried to pronounce “Calpurnia,” it came out “Calproonio,” and from then on, the little cat was called Calproonio, Pruney for short.

  Pruney was an amazingly mellow cat. I’ve always suspected that Natalie puffed a little marijuana smoke into young Pruney’s mouth and wondered if that was why Pruney was so docile.

  Natalie took Pruney everywhere, cradling her in her arms, and Pruney never objected. She purred constantly. And unlike any other cat I’ve ever had, she would walk with us around the neighborhood, off leash, like a well-behaved dog. Natalie even taught her to come into the house from outside when she whistled for her.

  I went off to college, and not long after, Natalie decided she’d had enough of high school. She dropped out during the final semester and moved in with her boyfriend. Pruney stayed behind with Mom.

  Mom was not happy with this arrangement. Pruney was a sweet, well-trained cat, but for reasons that have never been clear, she became the bane of Mom’s existence.

  Some of it, I’m certain, was due to Pruney’s fertility. She had several litters before Mom had her spayed. I’m sure another big reason was Pruney’s hunting prowess. She was a ferocious hunter and left a daily “gift,” usually a dead chipmunk or bird, by the back door. Once, when I was home on break, she managed to take down an adult squirrel—astonishing for a petite eight-pound cat.

  When cats eat their prey, they begin at the head and work downward. Pruney didn’t get far with the squirrel; she left most of it in the garage. I shoveled the remains into the trash can before Mom saw it.

  Mom completely lost it when Pruney left a half-eaten adult rabbit in the driveway. Bunnies are like candy to cats. Mom stormed into the house, shrieking, “That goddamn cat caught a rabbit! Half of it is in the driveway. Its intestines are hanging out, and there is shit coming out of them! You are going to clean up that mess!”

  I started to snicker halfway through her tirade, and the angrier she got, the harder I laughed. And the harder I laughed, the angrier she got. I finally managed to promise to take care of poor Mr. Bunny, and I disposed of the unfortunate rabbit.

  When I graduated from college, Natalie still hadn’t started college, though she had passed her GED. She was broke and had no graduation gift for me. She asked me what I wanted. I pointed to Pruney.

  “Fine, you can have her,” Natalie said.

  “A proper present should be gift-wrapped,” I teased, not believing she’d really give up her precious Pruney.

  She reappeared a few minutes later with Pruney, who now had a big bow wrapped around her neck. A card proclaiming “Congratulations!” was attached to the bow.

  And so Pruney became my cat.

  I’d moved back home after graduating from college. I spent my first year teaching, then earned my master’s degree at Northwestern the next year.

  Then Mom’s brother, Tom, died. Tom was the reason I’d moved to Colorado for college, the reason my sisters and I had fallen in love with horses and the beautiful and wild western states. He’d left his house and most of his belongings to Mom, and she needed someone to take care of his house.

  I was ready to move west again, so I happily returned to Colorado, leaving Pruney alone with Mom. Mom wasn’t thrilled, but it seemed like a reasonable tradeoff at the time.

  A year later, when I visited during the winter holidays, Mom declared that she wanted Pruney gone. “You are going to take that goddamn cat to Colorado with you!” No excuses, no discussion, no delays.

  Pruney had always felt like my confidante and best buddy, and I really had missed her. I coaxed her into her cat carrier, loaded cat and carrier into my VW, and headed west.

>   Pruney hated being confined in the carrier. She yowled, screeched, and clawed nonstop. Twenty miles later, I detoured into the O’Hare Oasis Travel Plaza so I could pop a tranquilizer into her mouth.

  It did nothing for her.

  I covered the carrier with my good wool coat, partly to muffle the noise but mostly hoping that the darkness would help her relax and maybe she’d fall asleep.

  She shredded the lining of my beautiful coat.

  We weren’t even halfway to the Mississippi River; we still had eight hundred miles to go.

  I’d had enough. I turned around and took her back to Mom’s.

  I walked into Mom’s house exhausted and flaming mad. Natalie heard what had happened and laughed herself into an asthma attack. But Mom agreed to keep Pruney for the time being. I left her behind, along with my ruined coat, and chugged west again.

  A year later, knowing that I needed to bring Pruney back with me, I flew to Illinois for my winter break visit. I again loaded Pruney into her cat carrier, but this time, she flew with me, safely ensconced under the airplane seat in front of me. My ruined coat was in a suitcase in the plane’s cargo hold.

  Pruney was fine. I took the tranquilizer.

  My longtime friend Nancy flew with me; she’d changed her return flight to Denver so she could accompany Pruney and me. I suspect a little cash changed hands between Mom and Nancy so I wouldn’t have to travel alone with the cat. Or to make sure that the cat actually made it to Colorado this time.

  We settled into Uncle Tom’s old house on Mountain Avenue as if we’d lived there our whole lives. Pruney loved to sit in my lap and cuddle, and she purred all the time. She was the perfect cat, and we both knew it.

  Earl agreed; he was in love with Pruney from day one.

  Earl and I had met when I was a student teacher in my senior year of college and he was a first year student at the CSU vet school. We’d remained friends during my sojourn in Illinois, and when I’d moved back to Fort Collins permanently, we’d begun dating. We were serious about each other, but when Earl proposed that year, I turned him down. I loved him, but I knew we weren’t ready.

  Two years later, Mom died unexpectedly. After doing all the things necessary after a death in the family, I returned to my Colorado home and wept for days. Pruney never left my side.

  Life began to settle back into place. I finished out the school year, still mourning Mom but comforted by Pruney. She kept watch as I sorted through boxes of Precision Radio electronics and other paraphernalia that Tom had amassed during his life, things that Mom and I had always planned to sort through together but never did.

  On July 30, 1979, just four months after Mom’s death, heavy storm clouds crowded the afternoon sky. Pruney had wandered off on her own. Fat raindrops began to fall. Within seconds, the rain turned to leaf-ripping, roof-smashing hail. I called for Pruney, but there was no response. I whistled our special “emergency” whistle, which usually brought her running. Still no response.

  There wasn’t anything else I could do; staying outside was dangerous. I retreated into the house and hoped for the best.

  After almost an hour, the storm finally eased. I stepped outside to assess the damage. Hailstones the size of softballs covered my yard. One had punctured the metal roof of my carport. Later, I would learn that my neighborhood had been the epicenter of the storm. Over two thousand houses were damaged; twenty-five people were injured, and one, a babe in arms carried by a frantic mother trying to reach shelter, had been killed.

  Where was Pruney?

  Finally, she limped to the door. I crouched down and carefully pulled her into my lap, heaving a sigh of relief. She was bruised and battered, but nothing was broken. We were okay.

  Life once again settled into place—a very busy place. Earl had opened up the fascinating world of veterinary medicine to me, and I’d decided to apply to vet school. In addition to teaching elementary school physical education, I was taking classes required for vet school admission. We still made time for horseback riding—some couples go to dinner and a movie on their dates; Earl and I rode Franny and Marcie.

  About two years after the hailstorm, I arrived home from school to discover an enormous bouquet of deep red roses on my dining room table. A note from Earl, hand-lettered in all upper case, leaned against the vase. It said,

  MARY: WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED

  IN GETTING MARRIED?

  LOVE,

  EARL

  I laughed out loud. The note was so true to Earl. It had been five years since he’d asked the first time, and by now, I knew we were both mature enough to handle the demands of married life.

  But I had an important question to ask first.

  I called him at his clinic. “Before I answer, I must know: will you adopt Pruney?”

  Without hesitation, he said, “Yes.” I had been reasonably certain he would, but if his answer had been no, it would have been a deal-breaker.

  “Well, okay, then yes, I’m interested in getting married.”

  Despite our traditional courtship (unlike many of our contemporaries, we’d never moved in together), I didn’t want an engagement ring. Wearing any kind of ring is not a good idea when you’re teaching physical education, and rings get lost in the most unusual places in animals.

  I knew that Earl, who was extremely shy, didn’t want a traditional wedding. I was sure my father would just gripe about the cost of a wedding, and I didn’t want a fancy wedding without my mother. We weren’t sure exactly how or when we’d actually tie the knot, but we were officially engaged.

  The following year, we were getting ready for our third spring break trip to Hawaii. We were scheduled to leave on March 13.

  On Thursday morning, March 11, Earl called me and asked, “Do you want to get married today?”

  I thought about it for a moment. I did want to get married, but not on the anniversary of my mother’s death, which was Friday, March 12. We’d be en route to Hawaii on Saturday. So today had to be the day.

  “Today would be perfect,” I said.

  I called my principal and said I was sick with a headache and wouldn’t be in. He admonished me about being sick so close to spring break. I apologized but didn’t change my story.

  Earl and I paid the seven dollars for our marriage license at city hall. Our friends Nancy and David, plus Earl’s mom, Beverley, and his Uncle Jim, who had just been released from the hospital, joined us at the judge’s chambers upstairs. I wore corduroy slacks and a Harris Tweed blazer. Earl wore khaki slacks, a clean shirt, a tie, and a blazer. Beverley brought a rose for me to hold while the judge did his thing. We signed the certificate, slipped the judge a twenty, and were now officially married. After a fake rice toss (we didn’t have any actual rice), we had a delightful lunch at a nice restaurant, then Earl went to work, and I went to my regular biology lab class at CSU.

  I know it all sounds anticlimactic, but it truly was the perfect wedding.

  We’d planned on moving into the old family farmhouse once we married, but after being used as a rental property for more than a decade, the house wasn’t in the best of shape. We’d spent the last year working on renovations.

  I didn’t move in until two months after we returned from Hawaii. That was partly because of my pre-vet classes on top of my teaching job—I really didn’t have time to pack everything up immediately—but also because I refused to move in until the bathroom was finished.

  I helped Pruney get acclimated to her new digs by taking her on a leash to the ash tree to claw. After about a month, she was free to roam about the property. She’d always been a mostly outdoor cat who came in at night, and she had no problems with the busy street that ran alongside our property.

  Pruney didn’t have any problems getting used to Keli, our first puppy, either. Their relationship was more peaceful coexistence than best buddies, facilitated by Pruney’s excellent jumping ability. If she didn’t feel like being in Keli’s territory (the kitchen or family room), she simply leapt over the baby gate
and sauntered away.

  She became my practice cat when I entered vet school. Learning how to physically examine any animal takes practice, and cats can be especially challenging. They usually have the upper hand; they bite and claw more than other mammals, and some cat bites can result in an infection within two hours. That’s why the vet techs always wear gloves when they hold the cat being examined and why most vets will have at least one and often two vet techs assisting when they examine a cat.

  Pruney helped me study too, curling up in my lap as I sat at the family room table, poring through books and lecture notes. Her purring and warm presence helped me relax; we soothed each other.

  Pruney was thirteen years old when I entered vet school. My hope was that she’d live at least until I graduated. My junior year, when she was fifteen, she was diagnosed with chronic renal failure. During my final two years at vet school, I’d bring her into the school clinic for blood work, putting her in a cage in the wards and bringing her out for rounds. She’d walk on the table and visit my classmates, as mellow and sweet as always.

  Despite refusing to eat the special diet prescribed for cats with chronic renal failure, she survived for another two years. We both made it through vet school.

  She was seventeen; I was thirty-four.

  Half of my life. All of my heart.

  5

  Paw Prints in the Snow

  I stared at the letter.

  I’d known there was a chance I wouldn’t get in. I’d been prepared to feel disappointed if they rejected me, maybe even a little angry. But I didn’t.

  I felt—

  Relief.

  Relief bordering on joy.

  I know that sounds peculiar, considering how hard I’d worked to qualify for vet school. The five years it had taken me to complete the pre-vet science courses with decent grades had been brutal. I’d sandwiched the classes in between and around my job teaching elementary school physical education. Evenings, weekends, and every summer for the past five years had been filled with classes, coursework, homework, studying, and more studying.