PROLOGUE THE FINAL STRAW (5TH installment)

PROLOGUE

THE FINAL STRAW

 (5^TH installment)

The one remaining constant that still gave me comfort was my gadabout, handsome, silver-and-white tabby cat, Cosmo.  He took time out of his daily visits throughout the neighborhood to walk me to my car and then escort me into the house at night.  He never missed those duties.  He was my sentinel watching my comings and goings.

But one night I came home there was no Cosmo running out from the bushes to greet me at the door; he had not even escorted me to my car when I had left three hours earlier.  When he had missed both duties, I was worried.  I even took time to walk up and down the street to call for him.  The more I called the more silent the night became.  No answering “meooowww” came lilting from some neighbor’s yard.  By the time I came through the front door, I was shaking with dread.

“He’s not coming back,” I said, as I came into the den to find my husband reading.

“Who’s not coming back?”

            “Cosmo.  He’s gone.  I know it.  He’s just not coming back.”

            My husband looked up from the newspaper he was reading, leveling his long-eyed stare through his reading glasses at me, not focusing on my face, only my words.

            “You don’t know that,” he said, rattling the paper, bending back to his reading.

            I felt my eyes squint into my own slant-eyed stare, the one I used more and more frequently when in the company of my Prince Charming.  Anger built at the dismissive way he had ended the conversation.  But, more than that, despair again washed over me at the thought of Cosmo not coming back.  The despair, however, was quickly replaced with a building rage.

            “Of course I know that,” I snapped.  “He didn’t come out to greet me, and he didn’t answer my call.”

            A heavy sigh emerged from my husband and there was a short rattle of the paper. “You know Cosmo,” he said.  “He’s the ‘Dude.’  He’ll come home when he wants.”

            Before I could choke it back I felt my own sigh escape my lungs.  I wanted to argue.  I wanted to scream at Prince Charming and tell him he was wrong.  Instead, I crushed my hands to the sides of my head, hoping to subdue the throbbing pain building behind my eyes.        

“Please let me be wrong this time,” I prayed.  “Please, God, let Cosmo come home.”

But God did not hear my prayer.  Cosmo, my independent, handsome tabby cat never came home.  I searched and prayed and looked some more, but he was never found.  It was the final blow to my charmed life.  His leaving took my faith, my trust, my love, and my sense of me.  I was truly lost.

So this is where the story of Scruggs and Samantha begins.  It begins at the end of me.