u s e y o u r h a n d s

For ten minutes after her alarm rang, Lee visualized her day. It was a rehearsal of sorts, how to deal with that meeting, the drive to work, food to make, outfits to wear. Even activities she had done every day for years, like making the morning coffee, Lee examined yet again. She felt that this helped her actualize her goals and avoid potential pitfalls. Lee made sure she did this, even — perhaps especially — on her most hectic days. Reflecting at a day’s end, Lee judged whether or not she had strayed markedly from how she’d imagined they day. And more often than not, she had not.

But today was the most dramatically different. In fact, after today, she never rehearsed again.

She never imagined that just after she got out of bed, that she’d stumble across the cat’s body. Lee scooped it up and rushed to the vet’s where she was told the cat’s neck was broken. Later, she remembered a thud in the night and wondered if that was when it happened, but still couldn’t figure out how.

On her quick drive to work, after leaving the vet to cremate the cat, she hurriedly swung into a Dunkin’ Donuts for her morning coffee. Lee had grown accustomed to her own brew, and had forgotten just how positively delicious Dunkin’ Donuts coffee could be.

She concentrated on that thud in the middle of the night and the cat’s broken neck. Lee visualized the room where she’d found the cat dead and thought about the ledge. The cat often slept on a plant ledge eight feet up. It must have fallen, she decided, chasing a mouse he would never catch.

That afternoon, she picked up the cat at the vet’s. Lee didn’t know what to do with the flowered tin they gave her. She ended up setting in on a doily-topped table in the living room, as if it were filled with candy and not ashes. She flipped on the television and saw that How to Marry a Millionaire was on AMC. This was Lee’s favorite movie and for a few moments, she felt grateful to be home to watch it. And then the tears came.

Her husband crawled in bed next to her. He curled his body to Lee’s form and drew her close to his body, his cheek on hers. Peter had expressed little fondness for their cat, she felt his tears slip down her face to the pillow below. She stroked his arm, baffled at this unexpected emotion.

Lee didn’t compare anything at the end of that day. It just was, and now it was over.