I hadn’t given it any thought at all, though I suppose deep down I knew that one day I would wind up like Smokey the cat. I remembered the boy crying the day they buried Smokey in the yard, and I hoped he wouldn’t cry over my death. My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy. I didn’t want to cause him any unhappiness now—in that way, I decided it was probably better that he wasn’t here to see this, though I missed him so much at that moment the ache of it was as bad as the strange pains in my belly.
