MEOW
Their youngest child had moved out the month previous, knocking our parents squarely into the category of empty nesters. I made plans to visit, curious about their adjustment to everyday life after nearly a quarter century with at least one offspring under their roof.
It was summertime in Portland, smack in the two-week span each year when air conditioning might have made sense. But they rejected this modern convenience, instead perfecting a daylong clockwork ritual — drawing and raising curtains, opening and closing windows and doors, hurriedly shuffling box fans from the sunny to the shady side of the house — and could now perform each step without conscious thought. The results spoke for themselves: a pleasant breeze wafted through what otherwise would have been an unbearable furnace.
While my mother fawned all over her firstborn, preparing my favorite meal and dessert in an obvious attempt to bribe me home more often, my father bashfully crowed about his new TV channels, the ESPN block in particular. I shook my head resignedly; growing up, cable broadcasting had been forbidden in our home as wantonly extravagant, but
the week their last kid moved away, the television
menu exploded.
When dinner concluded, I helped clear the table, put away leftovers, and load the dishwasher, trying to surreptitiously glean clues about what came next. Our parents were creatures of habit, but as long as I’d known them, they’d always had a kid at home to entertain or chase or chauffeur around. As their retirement years approached, I had no conceivable notion of what might constitute leisure activities for them.
Without a word, they adjourned to the living room. The heavy front door stood ajar, inviting a cool gust to drift in through the mesh. I grinned with nostalgia at the lower eighteen inches of the screen door — white plastic
graffitied by hundreds of sneaker marks where it’d been pushed or propped open as two decades’ worth of athletic gear, school projects, and laundry baskets from college dorm rooms had been ferried through. Memories came flooding back.
Picking up a thick novel with her bookmark planted halfway through, Mom clicked on a lamp and plopped down contentedly in her recliner. Dad grabbed the sports section and settled at the far end of the couch. This must be their new après-dinner routine! Silently sharing each other’s company, slipping into their own worlds. I could take the hint. Selecting a book with an interesting title from the redwood shelves, I dropped into a rocking chair. A comfortable hush spread over the house and its inhabitants.
“Meow!” From the front porch came the plaintive yowl of one of our legion of neighborhood felines. My heartstrings twitched. Our family had never been permitted pets larger than goldfish, due almost exclusively to my mother’s intense dislike of animals. That didn’t stop the rest of us from adoring them, however, and every pet for blocks knew if they trotted over to the house on the corner, the kindly man and energetic kids who lived there would play with them till the streetlights came on. Apparently, word had not yet spread through the local animal kingdom that the younger generation had all finally moved away.
“Meow!” Another plea for attention from the visitor on the porch. My eyes swung reflexively in that direction. I chuckled with self-reproach, knowing a horse could be lying down behind those eighteen inches of opaqueness and I’d be none the wiser.
“Meow!” This time the sound emanated not from outside, but from the bearded man on the couch. My father had always possessed an enigmatic sense of humor, but even for him this was unusual. Still, his mimicry made me laugh. His wife looked up from her book, a curious expression on her face.
“I wonder which one that is?” Dad mused aloud. I shrugged.
Mom’s face collapsed immediately into deep confusion. Her gaze shot from husband to eldest son and back again. “You wonder ... which one what is?” she asked pointedly after a moment.
My father and I glanced at one another in justifiable puzzlement over her inquiry. “Which ... cat ... that is on the porch,” I replied, gesturing casually at the screen door.
“The one Dad just meowed back to.”
It was as if we could actually see the machinery inside her skull, gears grinding and smoking. Then, with a frenzy I’d never before witnessed, she rocked back and roared with laughter.
The look Dad and I shared morphed quickly from bewilderment to profound concern. Clearly, the inevitable moment we’d long feared had arrived at last; the woman we loved dearly had cracked in two.
Expectantly, we waited for her to emerge from her laughter tunnel. Instead, she seemed to be drilling deeper into the earth, headed perilously for the core. Slumped on the carpet, struggling to draw breath, the noises escaping from her now sounded distressingly feral.
There was nothing to do but sit tight and wait for the hysterics to subside. We turned back to our reading material, peripherally monitoring her vitals, gently shaking our heads at the apparent psychotic break unfurling itself on the living room floor.
The interminable interlude finally drew to a close and she climbed, still trembling, back into her chair. Our eyes remained cautiously riveted on her. The relaxed, live-and-let-live philosophy that served our parents so well as the bedrock, foundation, and cornerstone of their sturdy, stable marriage had obviously transformed into an echo chamber of late, where neither partner was willing to question the onset of bizarre behavior or explain uncomfortable sideways glances out of respect for a cherished, agreeable status quo. But this was the moment of truth, the unavoidable crux of history.
Pawing lakes of salt water from her eyes, my mother served gently by reporting her recent observations, inviting her husband to return a lob. Like a rigorously intensifying tennis match, they quickly began trading shots frenetically — recapping overlooked or misinterpreted minutiae from the last several weeks, which based on their vacuum-sealed points of view, either made total sense or loomed far beyond the bounds of absurdity. As fragments accumulated, pounds per square inch of suppressed hilarity built again — previously inconsequential details congealing together to create a coherent tale. All at once, the contextual floodgates swung open. The result was a deluge ...
For the past month, they confirmed, ever since my sister had moved away, this tranquil post-supper tableau had become their custom. Each evening, the Rockwellian scene in the living room was interrupted by some anonymous cat announcing its presence on the doorstep, mere inches below their line of sight. And every time, it seemed, my father responded by meowing back, then continuing to read as though nothing at all had transpired.
Here was the detail upon which the entire plot hinged: his dear, hearing-impaired wife never heard the cat.
“Oh my God!” she howled. “I’m so relieved! I was certain my husband of twenty-five years had suddenly developed a love for after-dinner meowing!” She burst into sidesplitting laughter yet again.
Flabbergasted, Dad and I stared at her. “He’s been doing this every night for a month?” I demanded, awestruck. “Why the hell didn’t you ask him why he was meowing?”
“Well,” she replied, tears of mirth still cascading down her cheeks, “he's a good husband, a great provider, he doesn’t beat me up ... I figure, if the man wants to meow, let him meow!” | RF
A LIFE-LONG OREGONIAN OF IRISH AMERICAN STOCK, RICKY FAY HAS HEARD AND SEEN OTHERS CLAIM TO WEAR THEIR HEARTS ON THEIR SLEEVES. THE ONLY PLACE HE HAS EVER TRULY FELT UNDERSTOOD IS ON THE PAGE OR SCREEN.