I’m reading on the couch when I notice my cat walking purposefully towards me, eyes intent. She crouches for a moment, her eyes scanning my lap for a possible purchase. With a quick leap she’s in my lap, sharp claws slightly digging as she stakes her claim. Submitting to the inevitable, I stroke her arching back repeatedly from the neck to the base of her tale. I grip the base of her spine, the hollow of her narrow pelvis with my fingers. I feel the light solidness of the bone and fight the urge to crush it with my hand. I let go and she turns, dipping her head towards me. As I rub my thumb along the side of her jaw I feel her skull pushing softly against the loose flesh. This makes me think of home.

          One year a disease took hold among them. The warning signs had been subtle, but they were there. I remember seeing the sickness first in the glazed eyes of an eight-week-old kitten. Less than a week later she was having trouble walking, and then she couldn’t even stand, her shaking legs unsteady beneath her. One day before school I went out to pour kibble into the pan and saw her lying in the grass just outside the shed. I walked over to pet her. I remember noticing her mouth was wide open, that I’d never seen a cat sleep like that. I had stroked her cold, stiff body twice before I knew that she was dead. My sister had named her Chloe.

         After that day more and more got sick. We had five or six cats who’d had kittens that summer, and the young seemed the most susceptible to it. First a wet crustiness would coat their eyes and mucus would leak from their tiny hard noses. They would stop eating, gazing apathetically past the food. Their movements were more delicate, more careful and soft than their healthy brothers and sisters. Their bodies became emaciated rapidly, their ribs small ridges under their thin coats. Eventually they would cough and sniffle constantly, and breathing would get harder. The sickness aged them. Their chances of surviving it dwindled as winter drew nearer.

         Every day when I got off the bus I would run out to the barn and be fearful of what I would find. Sometimes I would see them lying on their sides panting. Soft painful mews escaping from their thin bodies as they breathed. Other times I would walk into the shed and find them already dead, their mouths open and eyes closed in a last silent cry.

          I would often wake up in the mornings, stumbling sleepily down the stairs to find the kitchen empty and quiet, the coffee pot dry. I’d grab whatever cereal we had and always spill milk on the counter from trying to hold the heavy carton. Sometimes while I was pouring I’d look out the window to see my dad walking around the barn, his eyes focused and his face hard. He’d be carrying a shovel, holding it away from his body. I would walk over to the window to see if I could recognize which kitten it was by the markings before it was buried forever.

          My mother told us it was distemper. I asked her if we could get a vet to come and cure them so no more would get sick. She said no, it was in the ground, we’d have to get rid of them all and have no cats for years before it would clear up. She never went into the barn. I wondered if she was afraid she’d get it, too.

          Sometimes I would try to help. I’d find one gasping its last struggling breaths, white puffs in the night air, and cradle it in my arms. I commandeered the medicine dropper from the kitchen drawer and forced them to drink. My hopes would curdle when the water slipped along the outside of the mouth, sliding over the fur under the chin. When they were that bad they couldn’t even see me anymore, no matter how hard I tried to keep their eyes open.

           When a cat would get pregnant, we were all excited. We would watch her carefully as her belly grew more each week. During this time they seemed to move around us warily, afraid to get to close. We would only know of the new life by the mother’s absence. I would search the barn all morning, prying into the dark musty corners until I heard a small hungry baby or saw the glow of the mother’s large orbs in the dark. Almost as soon as we discovered her nest the mother would search for a new one. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t want us to know.

           Once a mother cat, Emma, left her two kittens to starve. My brother and I picked their warm struggling bodies and shoved them at her side, trying to reconcile their family. But Emma would have none of it. She would hiss and bristle when they came near. It was as if she couldn’t recognize they were hers anymore. Desperate, I attempted to raise them myself. I set them up in our garage in a warm box and fed them formula I had to beg my mom to buy. Because they didn’t know me yet I had to force their mouths open and drop the liquid down their throats. Their eyes didn’t open for several weeks. When I first saw those flashing blue irises they seemed to reflect only disappointment and need.

            When the sickness got to them I started sleeping in the garage to be with them through the night. Their mews became hoarse and less urgent, they stopped eating. Their movements were slow and painful, their eyes barely stayed open. In a last desperate attempt I carried Emma to their box to see if she would take pity on her lost children. But her eyes wouldn’t see. A few nights later the grey one lay dead on its side, the next morning the black had joined it. I held the box to my chest wondering how their lives had slipped between my fingers, thinking that if I’d really believed they’d live I would have given them names.

             When I was very young I was in the front yard when I heard a strange sound. I looked all around but couldn’t see where it came from. Shrill cries carried by the spring wind. Finally I turned and saw a tiny black body moving in the driveway. I ran closer, afraid of what it could be. It was a small new-born kitten, tiny paws slipping on the sharp gravel. He made a sound that surprised me, it was louder than his body. His tiny pink mouth opened wider and wider, crying more and more urgently. The sound made me want to run away. But I stood there, unmoving, watching him struggle and shake. It took me a long time to realize he was blind.

           I once dreamed that the tractors tilled the fields surrounding our house and all the cats we’d buried over the years would come to the surface of the soil. Their decaying bodies stumbling forward, they closed in on us. Their eyes were sealed shut, dirt and flesh fell from their sides. You made us sick! It was you! You’re the disease! But I woke up, not remembering any of it.

            Today I ran my fingers through my cat’s sleek fur, shining with health. Her mouth was closed in a content smile, her head tucked into the corner of my arm. I know that when I go home I will walk to the edge of our property where the grass meets the corn. I will gaze out over the barren landscape of empty husks and think about the small curved bodies beneath my feet, sleeping. Their mouths have fallen open in their last breath.