I’m amazed that I made it this long without seeing it. It’s been more than a year now since he lost the leg, 13 months to be exact, and just this week I saw him miss it. Try to use it. Realize it isn’t there.

Just as he has since he moved in, he waited for me outside the shower. Like any other day. His right ear tilted to the side, as if he had heard something. The beagle downstairs, perhaps. Or maybe the ear itched, was a nuisance, was getting in the way. And so he did what they do when their ears tickle: he went to scratch it. Only his leg was unavailable, wasn’t responding despite his repeated demands. His striped face contorted, tilting the way it does when he seems to wonder the “why” about most anything. Why you’re sitting there with a perfectly full tin of tuna and you haven’t dished out any to the family. Why you’re making that wet whistling noise that drives them crazy. Why that ear itches and no matter the honest to goodness intent, it just won’t stop. At the very same moment that he turned his head, what little leg muscle was left on his right side began twitching, a rhythmic and valiant effort to no avail.

He looked at me like he knew. I’m scratching the itch, mama, but for some reason, it just won’t stop. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. Right out of my chest onto the floor, where the paramedics would find me comatose in a pool of my own tears and cheap conditioner.

They’re more resilient than we are, of course. Not finding the leg, he used his front paw to relieve the itch instead. It was a less effective remedy, to be sure, with its reduced power and lack of marsupial design. But it worked just the same. And he left me standing there with my heart in my hand, dripping wet and catching my breath like a fool. Because there were clearly more important things for that cat to ponder, like why Cricket likes to smack him in the head while he’s trying to sleep, and why their lunatic of a human still hasn’t shared that precious tuna.