The garden is empty tonight

In my house, we have a garden enclosed by a high redwood fence. It's not very large as far as gardens go, but for a city home, it's ample enough. We have a lone palm tree, rose bushes, lavender, jasmine, and bulbs that shoot up dahlias in the spring. When we first bought the house over twenty years ago, it was the only one we could afford in San Francisco. It needed work, but it was a fine old house, built in 1903. Slowly, we renovated parts of it, and in the process, we created a home for ourselves. We both love animals and wanted to have pets, something we'd not been able to do in cramped apartments with rotating roommates, yet it took us a while before we eventually found our first dog, a senior rescue named Chacha.

But we had animal visitors. I don't recall precisely how precisely they showed up yet they did - three orange feral cats, siblings, a brother and two sisters, and very young. They liked our freshly cleaned garden and decided to stay. We fed them twice a day and left the back door into the garage, off the garden, open for them, fitting the garage with comfy boxes stuffed with old sweatshirts, cat trees, and cubby-holes for them to feel safe and stay warm during the cold and wet Northern California winter. Eventually, with the help of our neighbor, a veteran cat lady, we trapped, fixed, and re-released them back into our garden. They vanished for a time, no doubt affronted by the trauma, but they returned. We named them: Naranjillo was the big male, with his deep orange coat and white-ringed tail. Dulci was the slim, blonder one, and Gatita was the fluffier one with a squinty left eye.

As years wore on, other feral cats arrived and left - some willingly, roamers that they are, others violently killed by a speeding car on the street or a random dog left to rampage in the neighborhood off-leash after hours. We collected their bodies if we found them, had them cremated and kept the little wooden boxes. We lost our Chacha suddenly to an auto immune disease and adopted our beloved corgi, Paris, who was our constant companion for 13 years. We found a mommy cat with a new litter in the local park where we walked Paris and started feeding her; in time, we trapped her and her kittens, fixing and releasing her, and finding homes for her children - all save one, Boy, who stubbornly eluded capture for over two years until he entered a trap baited with tuna. When Boy and Mommy's situation in the park became too perilous, their bond with us too deep to evade, we brought them home, and here they are today. We were warned repeatedly that feral cats can't adapt to being indoors, but they did. They've become affectionate and demanding overseers of our domain, their presence an immeasurable comfort upon the passing of our Paris, a loss so profound that to this day, I still feel it.

All through the ups and downs, our three feral cats were there. When we weeded the garden on Sunday, washing and cleaning the bird-bath fountain - no matter how many fresh-water dishes we left out, they preferred to drink from the fountain - they'd sit and watch us, curiously. We could never touch them, but they didn't run or hide, and often sat waiting, so close to us at feeding time, that we could have reached out and petted them. If we tried, they recoiled. Undeniably wild, they came to trust us and we came to see them as part of our family. When we went on vacation, we hired cat sitters to take care of our indoor pets and our ferals.

Last year, Gatita disappeared. She and her siblings were nearing their fourteenth year with us, a milestone for any feral cat. We searched frantically for her throughout the neighborhood but never found or saw her again. She'd been there the previous night for her feeding, older but no worse for the years, and the next morning she was gone. Never knowing what happened to her made us disconsolate for a time.

Six months ago, Dulci began losing weight, looking frailer and more arthritic, but her appetite was hardy. She loved to sun herself every morning by the lavender bush, sometimes with Naranjillo beside her, and sit by the fountain at dusk, as the fog rolled in. She would sit so still, like a sphinx, so present in the moment as day surrenders to night, that watching her from our window became a ritual for us.

We knew we would lose her. Her weight loss was unavoidable, and we couldn't trap her again only to undergo a battery of medical tests that in all likelihood would reveal failing kidneys. We spiked her food with tuna and other goodies, and she'd regard us with her gentle amber-hued eyes as if in gratitude. One day, my husband nearly touched her but she stepped aside at the crucial moment. She always kept her boundaries.

This morning, she didn't vacate her box in the garage when my husband left for work. He called to tell me after I returned from yoga, so I went out in search of her. I found her under the lavender bush, panting, her back legs paralyzed, in obvious distress. She was dying. She may have suffered a stroke. I called my husband in tears and he said he'd come right home. In the meantime, I brought her box into the garden and used a towel gently draped over her to shift her out from under the bush. She tried to hiss at me, but she was too weak. When I held her in my arms, for the first and only time, she seemed to understand and she melted against me. I set her in her box, and once my husband arrived, we rushed her to the feral cat vet, who had spayed her all those years ago. She was past any hope, but in those last moments, she felt my hand on her little body, so tired and thin now, and she heard my voice, telling her we would always love her and never forget her. She left this world so quietly. She never made a sound.

Tonight, the fog rolls in. Naranjillo is the only one of the three who remains. He came to his feeding and then wandered off to wherever he goes at night; he was never one for the garage unless rain is pelting down. The fountain sits where it always has, but the garden is empty tonight.

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." - Anatole France