still

As his breath grew calm, before it stilled completely, I felt his weight on my lap, as if what he’d carried these past weeks was now mine: not heavy, but not light either.

::

I spent the hour before sitting with him. He purred for the first fifteen minutes and I recorded it, as I had dozens of times before, and took photos of us both that I won’t look at again for a while. And then he stopped and I asked: are you done purring? Are you all out of purr?

We always communicated in looks, because words are just sounds, but for the next half an hour I told him what I remembered of our eighteen years together to remind myself.

And when I was done talking I laid my head gently across his thinned-out body and he purred again until the car came.

::

He went quickly. He was ready, and I’d known he was ready since the weekend, probably before. Looks, not words. I had never planned for it to be with my hands around him, right on his side, left cradling his head, but that’s how it was.

::

The house is empty. The only ghost is me. I don’t belong here any more.