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Trash Kitten

Writer's picture: JP RelphJP Relph

The kitchen’s so quiet, I hear the melancholy beat of my heart. I miss the raucous laughter that once accompanied breakfast. Ginny bursting in, slippers falling off, copper hair like autumn twigs. Squeals of delight at the misshapen pancakes Aiden flipped; she loved the burnt edges. Caramelised, he’d say. Ginny’s like Aiden’s mother, Hanna: curious, quirky, certain of magic. Shrouded now in grey, cobwebby sadness.


I sit down to drink tea, stay lost in misty memories. When Ginny was wrapped and backpack-strapped off to school, Aiden would fold his arms around me while I gathered energy. His shaved cheek against mine, smoky with the clary sage and bergamot soap Hanna made him. His voice husky from laughing, we made one crazy baby, my love and I’d lean into his embrace, be swallowed by it for long, perfect moments. Maybe we should do it again.


Our calico cat, Moth, jumps onto the table, sensing my pensive mood. She misses the laughter too, the buzz that filled the house like fat bees. I know she’s been to check on Ginny; the top of her head smells of toothpaste. As I stroke her, her big, sad eyes tell me nothing’s changed. Neither of us can get through that shroud of grief.


I put cereal on the table, a jug of cold milk, a glass of apple juice. Moth moves to her chair and I kiss her minty head. We’ll see Ginny through another silent meal, wrap and backpack-strap her for school. We’ll tell ourselves she still loves us, needs us. That she just hasn’t the words at the moment. That her pain, her anger, is like a clot blocking any laughter. She needs time.


The ghost of Aiden’s arms has left my body. Even his favourite shirt, which I wear baggy over leggings, is losing the warmth of clary sage and bergamot. Moth rubs her face on it. We all need time.


#


It's after ten, the kitchen cold and dark; I navigate with practised ease, fill a glass at the sink. Sleep is elsewhere again, taunting but never lingering. I’m about to sit when the cat door clatters and Moth barrels into the room in shades of grey. At the same time – and I would return to this strange coincidence over and over – Ginny arrives barefoot, holding her water cup. I switch a light on; Ginny grumbles, squints.


Moth leaps onto the table and we see something in her mouth. She never hunts anything but leaves and the occasional spider; this thing is big, dirty grey and smells of dusty soil.

“Oh god, no girl.” I reach but Moth drops her gift. She’s purring.


Ginny steps close, Moth headbutting her under the chin. The grey lump uncurls, stretches. I jerk back - if it’s a rat, I’ll be knocking my elderly neighbour, Ben, to save me. Ginny presses against the table. My fingers graze her pyjama top. I want to stop her. I don’t want to upset her. A state I’ve lived in for weeks. Constant longing. Constant fear.


Moth’s “prey” sits on its plump haunches. Eyes like glossy purple-black berries against slices of dark fur, grubby-white eyebrows. A ringed tail enwrapping its feet.


“Oh, hi baby,” My heart skips into my throat at the lightness of Ginny’s voice. The sweetness I’ve missed. Moth’s purr thunders.


-o-o-o-

A week after the funeral we had too many dying flowers. Too many uneaten traybakes crowding the refrigerator. The house full, yet empty of anything but sorrow. Breakfast was me and the cat, Ginny taking toast to her room. The silence a torture, I’d sit alone at the table, close my eyes to recall Ginny and Aiden’s morning routine. I can’t remember who started it.


Aiden presenting Ginny with a short stack. Syrup on her chin, she’d announce without looking up,

“Daddy, I love you, kinda.”


Aiden, washing up, would grin, reply, “More than kittens?”


Ginny smiling around her full mouth. “Yep.”


“More than daisy-flowers?”


A laugh wobbling her voice. “Yep.”


Then Aiden turning to her, faux-serious, “More than pancakes?”


Ginny furrowing her brow, tilting her head, a dramatic pause, then, “Ask me again tomorrow.”

It was a simple thing, their thing. Aiden’s replies would change – kittens or bunnies or hair bows or glass frogs, because Ginny loved many things – but her answers stayed consistent. Then tomorrow came and everything was different. Broken.


#


Hanna came daily with herbal teas. I don’t need calming I snapped at her. She held my face in her hands and I looked over her shoulder, at her silver chandelier earrings spinning like water. Anywhere but her eyes. They were his eyes.


I’m not trying to calm you, Marissa, she said, I’m trying to keep you here. For Ginny.


She’d coax Ginny from her bedroom to go wildflower picking. Ginny’s sadness remained in the house, salting everything grainy to touch. I’d fold into Aiden’s favourite leather chair, breathe his fading scents, sip the dank, herbal tea. I’m here, Hanna, trying to convince myself. Moth would join me and we’d catnap until voices in the kitchen stirred us and I’d find scruffy bouquets in my lap. We’re all still here, I’d stroke the delicate petals, Moth’s face, just not together.


-o-o-o-


The baby raccoon reaches for Ginny with little fingers splayed. I don’t move, don’t speak. Reluctant to disturb this moment – Ginny so close, I smell the warmth of her bed-hair. I hold the moment like it’s made of glass. The raccoon grabs Ginny’s thumb. Both of them squeal with joy.


“It’s a Trash Cat, Mom.” Ginny’s voice is sleep-edged excitement. Her eyes meet mine and she smiles. She smiles. “No, a Trash Kitten! Moth brought it so we can care for it. Can we?”


I don’t hesitate a moment.


-o-o-o-


Aiden once told Ginny raccoons are like cats: wily, cheeky, smart as anything. That when he was a kid, a family of raccoons lived under his house, venturing out after dark to raid the trashcans. They had a sweet tooth and loved to find beer dregs in bottles.


Ginny struggled with R-words then, opted to call the fantastical creatures her father conjured Trash Cats. That made Aiden laugh and they’d spent an afternoon watching raccoon videos, Moth flicking her patchwork tail against the phone screen.


Aiden was always best at explaining things to Ginny, in a way that made her feel grown up. He’d have explained death to her better than I did. Stumbling and falling around the words, my voice dark and wet. Moth pacing and crying. I wanted to tear Hanna’s hand from my shoulder, run from the house. I wanted to lie on the rain-soaked grass outside, scream into the soil beneath. Instead, I held my child with leaden arms and swallowed the pain until I was bloated and numb.


-o-o-o-


Ginny cleans the trash kitten with an old flannel; he grabs and sucks it—a quick Google search tells us it’s a boy —making Ginny giggle. I make scrambled eggs at midnight. Ginny sets up a plastic storage box with Moth’s unused blankets. While the eggs cool, I pour warmed milk into a saucer.


“Maybe we need a bottle?” Ginny says, sending me into panic. All her baby stuff packed away. A stack of dusty boxes behind Aiden’s new ones.


“There’s a dropper in the medicine cabinet.” I turn for the bathroom only to hear more giggles erupt. The chilly yellow walls soak it in, glow. The raccoon is scooping up milk with both hands. The kitchen table is spattered. Ginny is spattered; pearls of milk hang in her hair. The raccoon is drenched. Moth casually licks castoff from her leg. It’s chaos. Glorious, messy, perfect chaos.

Ginny swipes milk from her nose. “Give Trash Kitten the eggies!”


#


When Ginny is drooping with exhaustion and the worst milk and egg mess is cleaned, I follow her to her bedroom. The box is on the floor, a den of blankets ready. Trash Kitten curls into the soft fleece instantly, pulling it across his fresh-washed face.


“Don’t let the bedbugs bite, baby,” Ginny says, letting me tuck her in.


I sit a while, watching her sleep, watching the raccoon sleep. Like a beautiful dream, I don’t want it to end. Then Moth comes, chases me to my bed where she tunnels under the comforter to sleep against my belly. I drift away imagining Aiden smiling at a raccoon sleeping in Ginny’s room.


In the morning, Trash Kitten is missing from the box. Panic flares in me; Ginny will be heartbroken. Moth jumps on the bed, chirruping and I see the baby, fur sleep-fluffed, replacing Ginny’s favourite stuffy in the crook of her elbow. Holding her pyjama top with his hand. Looking up at me, eyes glinting and I whisper thank you, go to start breakfast. Maybe we’ll have pancakes, a growing trash kitten will love those. I reach for the milk and eggs. Stop. I can’t. It’s not our thing. There are English muffins in the breadbox.


#


Over time, Trash Kitten morphs to Trash Kitty then T-Kitty and T-Kit as pet names do. Then one day, Hanna brings us a teakettle for the stove, tea should never be microwaved, Marissa. Its rotund with a strident whistle that makes Moth sneer. Ginny says the kettle is like the raccoon – fat and noisy, and so he gets a name that sticks.


-o-o-o-


That last awful morning before a raccoon entered our lives, after I stomped on the eggshells of Ginny’s pain by offering pancakes after her cereal, I stripped out of Aiden’s shirt and sat in the shower as it grew tepid, then cold. Moth started wailing outside the bathroom, drew me out. She climbed into bed with me, rumbling warmth against the cavern of my chest.


“She’s getting further away, Mothy.”


Moth butted her head under my chin, I kissed the silken-soft place behind her ears.


“We can’t lose her too. We need time.”


I dampened Moth’s fur with more tears until her deep purr and blinking green-gold eyes shushed me. I had no idea that after dark, she’d slink out the cat door, wander further than usual, searching for something. Something to bring us time. Bring us together.


-o-o-o-


Every night, Teakettle falls asleep in his blanket nest, wakes in Ginny’s bed. Black nose twitching, hands playing with her hair. Breakfast’s a cacophony of noise and movement. Moth and Teakettle playing chase around table legs. Ginny laughing, lifting her feet as they tornado past. Then the raccoon’s on the table, fingers and face in everything—Ginny’s cereal, the melting butter on toast, the grape jelly. We take photos of him shiny with syrup, munching a fat strawberry, playing with Moth’s tail.


When Ginny reluctantly leaves for school, I clean up. Take the scrubbed trash kitten to the sofa in the den where he naps with Moth. He’s part of our routine now, our family. He’s part of our healing.


#


Sunday morning, we sleep in. I forgo Hanna’s teas for coffee, brew it dark. Moth’s enwrapping my legs, warm from the sun puddle she follows around the house. I scritch her lower back so her tail coils like a candy cane.


Ginny bursts in, slippers falling off, copper hair like autumn twigs.


“I’m starving.”


Bed-creased and beautiful, Teakettle inside her bathrobe, all sparkling eyes. I’m guessing he’s hungry too.


“Toast and jelly coming up.”


Ginny arranges Teakettle in the high chair we found at a yard sale. He wriggles with pre-food excitement. Moth jumps on her chair, yawning extravagantly. Ginny strokes them both.


“Can we have pancakes, Mom?” her voice is softened by the hugeness of the request.


I take a deep breath, “Sure thing. Teakettle will go nuts for those.”


I keep the pancakes on the griddle a little long. Plate a short stack doused in syrup. Cut two more into bite size pieces with mushed banana.


“Caramelised!” Ginny grins. My heart whirligigs.


Teakettle does indeed go nuts. Ginny laughs. Moth nibbles a sticky slice. I sip coffee, look out on the garden, enjoying the happy sounds. Hear Ginny clear her throat.


“Mommy, I love you, kinda.”


Teakettle slurping, oblivious. Moth’s green-gold eyes meet mine, blink, blink. I turn back to the window, my voice husky.


“More than puppies?”


I hear the smile. “Yeah.”


“More than magic toadstools?”


“Yeah.”


I turn to Ginny eating, faux-oblivious, and ask, “More than pancakes?”


Time stops. Time reverses. Time spins and takes us places we never knew we needed to go. I lift Teakettle from the high chair, press him to where my heart dances around its scars. Silent tears slip free – that’s ok now, I reckon. It’s all about time.


Teakettle grabs my tears with banana-sticky paws, I kiss his warm head. Walk over and kiss Ginny’s head too. Her laugh soaks the yellow room in sunshine.


“Ask me again tomorrow.”


Moth basks in it, eyes closing. Ginny takes Teakettle from me and into the den to watch cartoons. Her smile lingers like syrup. I decide cleaning can wait, pick up Moth, her whiskers gloss-beaded. She curls under my chin and we go join the others.


We’re here, Hanna. I whisper. Moth purrs. We’re here together.



 



JP Relph

Cumbrian writer JP Relph is mostly hindered by four cats, aided by tea. She volunteers in a charity shop where she sources haunted objects. A forensic science degree and passion for microbes, insects and botany often motivate her words. Her debut short fiction collection was published in June 2023.

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