Cat in Mouth

Since the divorce my daughter comes home everyday with a cat in her mouth.

“This has to stop,” I say, and slap the cat from her mouth.

We have twenty eight cats now.

We live in a small apartment.

The phone rings.

It’s my daughter’s teacher. She’s concerned. Katherine spent all of recess today chasing a stray cat around the playground.

“Let me guess,” I say. “She put it in her mouth.”

“That’s exactly what she did,” her teacher says.

I look at the large tabby eating and then at my daughter who is standing next to me, starring up at me.

“I’ve realized,” I say, looking away from my daughter and holding the phone close to my mouth, “it’s a problem that started since me and my husband got a divorce.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know.”

I hang up on the teacher.

I tell my daughter I think she has a problem.

“Because I keep brining cats home?” she says.

“Because you keep putting them in your mouth and brining them home.”

Before bed that night I ask Katherine to put a cat in her mouth. I’m curious to see how she does it. I tell her I won’t get mad. I promise, I say. Then I watch Katherine crouch down and begin petting a white cat with a black tail. The cat rubs up against her knees and purrs. Katherine opens her mouth, and right on the spine of the cat, bites down. She stands up with the cat in her mouth—its head drooping at one side, its tail falling down against her stomach.

The cat purrs.

“Go ahead,” I say. “Walk around a little.”

She walks from the living room and back to the kitchen. The cat is almost half the size of Katherine. The cat’s fluffy fur covers most of her face. Katherine mumbles something which makes a strange vibrating sound against the cat who looks back at her squinting its eyes.

“Okay, that’s enough,” I say, and the cat falls from her mouth.

* * *

Four days later Katherine starts complaining that her jaw hurts. I have her open her mouth and notice her gums are bleeding. A few teeth are loose as well. When I run my fingers across her jawbone it feels soft, like melting chocolate inside the wrapper. I tell her she should stop putting cats in her mouth. With tears in her little eyes she says she tries but she can’t stop.

I don’t sleep that night.

I dream of animal fur stuffing my mouth shut.

Next week I decide to take Katherine out of school and I lose my mind. We decide to stay in the bedroom together. Katherine stops eating a few days later but still tries to put cats in her mouth. She keeps losing blood and her skin is pale.

I count thirty-two cats in our apartment.

Katherine tells me the only thing that makes her happy is putting cats in her mouth and I tell her it’s my fault because I got a divorce and I’m a bad mother.

That night Katherine opens her mouth for a final time. I think of putting a cat in there.

Instead I open her mouth wide and jump through the ring of fire that is my daughter’s lips.