Prior to Sunday, Oscar and I were living in Nicole’s apartment, formerly our apartment. I stayed there for two weeks, and Oscar stayed a week longer than that. The problem is, Henry has been really depressed and crying all night since Newcastle and I moved out, so she was thinking of getting him a kitten. But she wanted to practice with someone old enough to defend himself.

Oscar and Henry did not get along. When the former first showed up at the latter’s, there were some really bad fights, so Nicole’s boyfriend cobbled together a gate to keep them apart, but they could get used to each other. They called it the DMZ. Oscar could jump on top of it without much effort. They could be in the same room together, and on my first night, they snuggled up on opposite sides of my lower legs and we all slept together.

His last week there, Oscar finally had the Surgery That Dare Not Speak Its Name, and I walked him to the vet in a backpack. I couldn’t watch his reaction, but he was quiet, and I think that’s a good sign.

But now we’re home. Nicole’s apartment is 850 square feet, mine is 435. I’d love to take him for a walk, but on the rare occasions I don’t pass out from blood loss and get him into the harness, his feet stop working. His motto is “Death from above!”; but he doesn’t have a lot of heights to aspire to.

I don’t want Oscar to get bored. I play with him a few minutes periodically. I talk to him, I let him sniff whatever’s in my hand, I scratch him behind the ears whenever I see him, I open my window in the middle of a heat wave. I don’t want him to get bored. I bought him a new cat tree and backpack. The tree arrived today, it took me over an hour to assemble it. It’s the perfect height to loaf out in front of the window. On the lower tier, there’s a ledge that’s perfect for hanging out with Dyad while he’s working.

Unfortunately, I have to get rid of the old one. Until January, I’ve never lived alone in my life, especially when it came to Newcastle. I’d never made a big purchase for my cat, the love of my life. It came from our joint account when I was married, and Nicole and I split expenses for the cat. So the first thing I bought was a tree for Newcastle. It was not a tall one, for an old man, but he never used it anyway.

Newcastle only lived alone with me for six weeks, and he never used it. Sometimes he’d get into the hammock that was the same height as my desk. Even if I wasn’t looking, I knew he was there. He was my anchor. Since then, Oscar enjoyed the hammock a lot whenever I was working.

I hated throwing the tree away because it’s the last monument I had to him. But I got a new kid, and I’m buying presents for him now.

* Oscar is in this picture.