8. Cats

Tragedy earned me sympathy: I saved up all the sympathy I earned, supplemented with paternal guilt, and spent it all on cats. A long line of cats, from the Humane Society at first, then the strays and kittens came. (Many cats were required; the farm was bisected by a brutal road.) My father worked, he fell in love, he was important in the town. Many nights I was alone, the farmhouse had fourteen rooms, and the only rooms safe were rooms with cats in them. At night I ran from room to room through the dark with a cat in my arms.