Lyle

The first summer Amy and I were together, in 1995, she asked me to take care of her cats while she and a friend took a car trip. I didn't yet have much of a rapport with them; Ava shunned me, while Lyle was still a few weeks from allowing me to support his paws to look out the kitchen window while Amy cooked us scrappy, young-couple dinners. I thought Lyle was a ridiculous name for a cat, and though a lifelong cat person, hardly considered him an asset in the relationship I'd just entered. Still, I was horrified to discover, the night of July 4, that the two of them, still barely out of kittenhood, had escaped through a bathroom window. I recovered Ava soon enough, but Lyle took much longer, and then only at the cost of deep scratches along both of my forearms.

By the time these had healed, Lyle was at the vet with a mysterious virus that cost Amy $600. Only a few weeks later, he was sick again—this time, to the tune of $900. Amy simply didn't have the money. I stepped up to the till, but told Lyle in no simple terms that, from now on, I owned his ass. (And maybe thought the same about Amy.)

A little less than a year later, Amy and I were preparing for my parents' first visit to the San Francisco apartment we'd found together when Lyle disappeared through an open window. Foolishly, we'd thought the four-story drop would speak for itself. Assuming he'd leapt across the alley and across the neighboring rooftops, we postered, called, rattled dishes late into the night, drove to the pound to check the roadkill log, mourned him despite a deep sense of betrayal that he would have left us this way. A week later, following the conclusion of the ill-starred, comically snakebit parental visit, we found him hiding behind a flattened box in the alleyway, near the dishtowel he'd slipped on as it dried in the windowsill. For that, he was sentenced to six weeks in a small cage while his shattered pelvis healed, with only the contents of his litter box to play with. And we were out another several hundred bucks.

We'd only just taught him to walk again when, two weeks later, he left through another window. This time, we cared for his injuries ourselves—mainly by ignoring the limp that generally appeared shortly before dinnertime, and seemed to migrate from paw to paw as his recollection faded.

Every male cat gets blocked now and then; Lyle threw in a couple of these for good measure as well, usually choosing the weekends, when the emergency clinic's rates peaked. But few cats can claim the distinction of destroying an entire laptop with a single puke (much to the amusement of Dell technical support), back when they still cost $3500. Maybe it was a comment on the novel being written; maybe I should have heeded him. For years afterward, I never turned my back without laying a towel over the keyboard. Lyle, having made his point, was thereafter content to sit beside the screen and talk to the birds outside the office window.

For Lyle's mysterious eczema, we switched his diet to chicken, fish, lamb, rabbit, and venison in turn before accepting the stalemate of quarterly prednisone injections ($120 per) and a prescription diet that was always a long, heavy walk away. By the end, he even had us spending money when there was nothing wrong with him—$250 a shot for "well cat" visits.

Ava has always been the Fat Girl, round and robust if a little neurotic. Lyle, the Little Man, was a scrawny little punk inside his voluminous grey and white fur, eight pounds wet at the most. But he knew how to use it.

Lyle's favorite place to be was two feet beyond the beckoning hand of a dinner guest, smirking and wagging, looking back over his shoulder as if thinking of something else that needed doing. He minced across the floor—"Fancy Nancy" was another nickname—with his willowy tail sailing behind, the calls of "Lyley! Lyley!" sweet music to his ears.

But when he gave it up, he held nothing back. No cat could curl into a tighter package on a lap, or sprawl more loosely on a bed. His purr was full-throated and powerful, and he craned his neck and stomach so as to receive the greatest possible love per square inch. In your arms, he surrendered limp as a rag doll, his little body thrumming with pleasure. Only the most pitiable cynic would deny the reciprocal love in those sly green eyes.

When Amy and I moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, our month-long stint of guest room surfing was punctuated by daily visits to the clinic where we'd had to board the cats. In a room otherwise populated by howling, moping, and occasionally dying cats, Lyle maintained quiet dignity, playing gamely with a scrap of string as Amy and I fought back tears at our unresolved mortgage situation, unknown move-in date, and rapidly approaching due date. A month later, the lives of both cats changed dramatically.

A long-haired cat has as much to fear from an infant as a long-tailed cat from a rocking chair. Lyle never once scratched Bobby, no matter how hard he pulled, perhaps accepting in good faith our calls of "gentle, gentle, nice touches for Lyley." Amid the chaos of early parenthood, he must have been grateful for attention from any corner; no longer did our houseguests have to coax and cajole to earn a leg-rub or a lick. The game was up. He loved people, and he knew we all knew it. For all the playdates, forgotten mealtimes, neglected brushing, and short tempers our growing family brought him, he was always ready with a purr at the end of the day.

Lyle purred his last this morning. Lost weight and balance, brain tumor, "the final act of love." There's really nothing to be said, notwithstanding the preceding thousand words, but much to be felt. And Lyle, we'll feel it for the rest of our days. Thank you for being part of our lives.