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LEAD: WE went to the animal hospital, my daughter and I, with the cat wrapped up in an old yellow comforter. 'It's all right,' the cabdriver said when we choked up trying to give directions. 'I know how you feel.'
WE went to the animal hospital, my daughter and I, with the cat wrapped up in an old yellow comforter. 'It's all right,' the cabdriver said when we choked up trying to give directions. 'I know how you feel.'
'I had a calico. Beautiful cat. Had just one litter. My wife and I, we mated her with a pure white Persian. You should have seen those kittens! Five of them. One was black with a white star on the forehead, and another was white with a black star on the forehead. Two of the others were tigers, and the fifth was a calico just like her mother. She had them under my bed. Wouldn't you know? And when I was lying on it she used to show them to me, put them right down on my belly. I was the only one she showed them to. Sixteen years I had her. Fourteen years you've had yours? She had kittens? I bet you've given her a good life. Oh, I miss my calico - Mish Mosh I named her because of the colors - but I had to face reality. You've always got to face reality.'
When we got out of the cab he yelled after us: 'Remember! A good life.'
It's funny, the things one worries about. We didn't want to put the cat in her carrier because she hates it at the best of times, and this was the worst of times. It was cold out besides. So we settled on the old yellow comforter because when I first saw this cat, it was draped over her head. My daughter was in seventh grade, the comforter was on her bed, and a scared kitten just separated from her mother was peering out from underneath it. But would the vet think us neglectful, to carry a cat in so curious a wrapping? Would the people in the waiting room? We wanted everyone to think well of us because we wanted desperately to think well of ourselves. We kept telling one another that we'd been good and faithful keepers, but words like 'maybe' and 'should we have' and 'if we had' cobwebbed our conversation. Maybe it was wrong to wind the cat in a comforter so big it all but trailed on the ground. We were silly to fret. In the waiting room we saw cats swaddled in baby blankets and crocheted afghans, and a small dog shawled in white mohair and sitting peacefully in its own little bed which, in turn, was sitting on its owner's lap. A big golden collie waddled by, swishing its tail, and made us smile. A Lhasa apso promenaded past, so fast and furious on its stubby little legs I was reminded of that famous Italian Futurist painting of a dog walking. And then our name was called and I was reminded of why we were there. I wasn't very articulate talking to the vet. I was crying too hard.
I never cry now, except when Heathcliff says to Cathy, 'How can I live without my heart? How can I live without my soul?' and when the bird twitters on the windowsill in 'Little Women' and Beth gives up the ghost. Then my eyes get wet and I thank God that I am watching this film alone. I forbade myself tears years ago, at first out of vanity. When I cry my eyes are red and swollen for hours afterward. No, worse. My face is swollen for hours afterward.
There is a second reason, arrived when I got out of college. Women were reputed to weep on the job. Not this woman. No way I was going to let somebody know I'd been gotten at; no way I was going to give somebody that satisfaction.
There is a third reason. I grew up in a household that honors self-control. And then there is the fourth and most important reason: I became a mother. When I cried during their childhood, and I did sometimes, my daughters were frightened. Where is safety, where is strength if even a parent weeps?
But now I wept, not caring if my face grew red or if the doctor thought me silly or if my daughter thought me weak. And as I did I realized that if pets permit us to love unreservedly, they also permit us to sorrow unreservedly. One winter night a long time ago, I sat in a kitchen with the person I loved most in the world while a pot of water bubbled on a stove. In it was the syringe he was sterilizing for the morphine injection that would give him a few painless hours. He wanted me to see him do it, he said, so that I'd know everything about his disease and know that he could, for a while longer, manage it himself. So that I'd know he wasn't afraid. When I started to cry he said, 'No, don't,' and I stopped. This was hard for him, telling me that he was going to die. My tears would make it harder.
That was the saddest night, but there have been other sad nights when tears would have distressed the patient. So what did I do? What everyone does. I traveled to some cold region in myself and stayed, doing what had to be done but fearful that while I was there my nerves would be frozen forever. This time, though, tears would not distress the patient.
We were sitting outside the examination room by now, my daughter as Niobe-like as I, watching the parade of pets. A terrier had a broken leg; a Yorkie was bustling about importantly; a white standard poodle was flaunting a big gauze bandage round her middle. Spayed, I suppose. Then, sooner than we wanted to see him, the vet came out, with X-Rays in his hand.
Suspicious, he said, but not positive. Still strong and active, he said. Antibiotics twice a day. Use hot compresses. Reprieve! Reality had been postponed.  We hadn't risked hope, yet here it was. The cat was on the examining table, skinny, unkempt and, as ever, trusting. We picked her up. We wrapped her in the old yellow comforter. And, lighter by a ton of tears, we took her home.