After Louis

People asked me a while ago how Milly and Cooper had reacted to Louis's absence. I wasn't really up to writing about it then, but now it's been more than a month, and I am able to (most of the time) talk about Louis without crying, here's the rundown.

The first night Louis was absent, Cooper didn't seem to notice—just put himself to bed in the Spare Oom. But Milly kept looking for him. It was quite evident to me; she and Louis usually hung out in the living room with me, and she always kept a watchful eye on Lou, because he used to chase her quite a bit. He never got over been jealous of her, and sometimes he could still be quite aggressive, although he stopped short of actually hurting her. So that first night, she was very actively looking for him, expecting him to come through from the kitchen (the boys eat—ate—in the back room, Milly usually eats on a little red table in the living room). 

As the days went on, and no Louis, Milly basically began stretching her legs and taking over the house at night, once she and Cooper had eaten and he'd put himself to bed. She started roaming the whole house (except the second bedroom, where Cooper sleeps, apart from sometimes sneaking in to spy on him, and the study, which I don't think she ever goes in unless I am working in there). And I have to say, she's a much more confident, and dare I say, a happier girl now that she's not constantly on high alert about being beaten up.

She’s better with me, too; more playful, more affectionate (although Chinky Whacker still appears regularly and without warning), and indeed, tonight when I came home, she behaved exactly like she missed me and had been waiting for me. She was in the kitchen, behind the door that stops her going outside, now, when I’m not home (Cooper can still get into the back room to eat and for safety if he ever needs to), tore into the living room and flung herself down for a tummy rub. This is a first. It’s nice. I’m sorry why it’s happened, but I am glad it has.

Cooper hasn't shown any signs of fretting for Louis, but I think he missed him quite a bit at first. Mostly during the day, when he first went out in the morning, he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He and Louis used to do the rounds of the garden, spraying over where the night visitors had been. They'd often have a little chase around, a bit of a brotherly rumble, as if they were warming up for the day, before eventually Louis would head off on his adventures and Cooper would go and find somewhere cosy to snooze. (He sleeps A Lot. Sometimes I come home and he's so fast asleep in a nest in the garden he doesn't hear me calling him to come inside.) I used to love watching them take back the garden in the morning—somewhere I have a manuscript draft of a story about The Daytime Cats and the Nighttime Cats, which I might revisit soon.

One day, when I left for work, I could see Louis sitting on the back fence of the house two doors up. (I park in the carport in the back yard of my house and drive out through the back gates into a laneway at the back. It was across that laneway, through the yard of my neighbour Simon's house and onto Macquarie St that Louis met his fate.) Lou was staring down into the yard from his perch on the fence. I called out to him—Lou! What are you doing? and walked up the laneway, expecting any minute he'd take off, not wanting me to interrupt Secret Louis Business. But he didn't, and when I got there, Cooper was on the ground in the overgrown back yard of the house. I think Cooper was hunting mice, and Louis was helping out. There, Coop! There's one! I have seen them hunting together, mice and pigeons, and this would have been one of the last times. It’s a lovely memory (sorry, mice).

Because then Louis wasn't here anymore.

For a while, Cooper would go out in the morning as usual, and then he’d just kind of hang around the back area, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. The morning routine, or ritual, was changed, and without his brother, he didn’t seem to be quite sure how to start the day. Poor Cooper; he’s doesn’t always rub along easily with life, and his start in life wan’t easy, and I wonder what he makes of yet another mystery, another loss…

I try and bring Cooper into bed with me most nights. He won’t come in by himself, but if I bring him in, he usually stays. Milly freaked out at first, but apart from the odd stink eye and skirmish, the latter accidental, mostly, I think, they mostly keep their distance, and we have a mostly peaceful household.

I talk to them about Louis all the time.

As for me, whenever I am at home, it feels like there’s a big empty space where he is not. I still look for him every time I park in the lane way, seeing him come running from Simon’s house, across the lane and home. I see him trotting across the back yard, bells on his collar a-swinging, his strong little chest out, happy to see me, happy to be home after his day’s adventures.

And I always told him—be careful. I love you. Be safe. Look for cars. I want you to be here with me for a long, long time. And I always knew he would go his own way, but I never believed I would lose him. I’m still not sure I believe I have, although there he is in his little box on the mantlepiece. Darling boy.

I miss him cuddled against me in bed. I miss the gaze of blissful adoration he gave me whenever he was snuggled on my lap. I miss his velvet patches and his strong cheekbones and his spotty chin and his pitch black paws. I miss his smart, funny, cocky, happy, confident way of striding across through the world. His was a big life, and a too short one. I will always miss him.

And that will have to do.