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cats. Even my dad does it—a habit he kept from his marriage with Mom. Our family never calls “kitty kitty” or whistles or calls a name. We make the crisp sound people make with their tongues against their teeth, the sound that usually means shame, shame.
    Myrna usually rose up to meet my touch, a calico cat with tobacco-gold and brunette patches and a white underbelly. Now she arched her back, radiant with whatever feline hormones rush through a cat when she goes into labor. This was her first litter, and she put a forepaw against the side of the sagging Green Giant creamed corn box, bracing herself.
    Pink cat water blotted the towel at the bottom of the box. Mom says cats are dumb as doorstops, but she is the one to give Myrna chicken liver. Myrna’s flanks heaved. I murmured encouragement, wondering what reassurance she could possibly derive from a member of an entirely different species telling her everything was okay. Myrna made what sounded like a song, or a mating moan. And then she would relax, purring so loudly you could hear it all the way across the room.
    I told myself I felt good, and I did, but a ringing in my ears made me sit at the edge of my bed. I talked to Myrna from where I sat, and she made a gentle trilling noise through her nose.
    Audrey was asleep in her cage, a white hump almost entirely covered by cedar chips. Rowan had rescued her from a snake wholesaler, the subject of a video his dad had made. Audrey was a female white mouse and had been scheduled to be a python’s lunch. Every time I came home I checked to make sure Myrna had left the mouse alone.
    Newspaper articles about Dad decorated my bulletin board along with my Wild Creatures of Africa calendar and pictures I had photocopied from books, the 1912 Olympics, the first year women divers had competed. The black-and-white divers—gray and light gray—smiled out at our world, carefully posed photographs. Even the photo of Sarah “Fanny” Durak, the best swimmer of her era, was a shot the cameraman had arranged with care, the swimmer pretending to be about to leap from poolside in her cap and boxy bathing suit. She had scandalized the world by wearing a one-piece—before then, women swam in a kind of skirted, layered outfit. The only action photo from that period was a blur, an unnamed diver in what looked like a simple forward-dive tuck, her momentum and the early photographic equipment turning her into a ghost.
    â€œRecord Award in Cracked Foundation Suit” was tacked to the board beside “Out of Court Settle in Landslide,” a headline I had never thought made as much sense as it should. If a house tumbled downhill in record rains, or a cellar filled with long-stored fuel oil, Dad was there to help the owners get what they deserved.
    One celebrated case was featured in the most time-yellowed of the articles, Dad standing with his hands on his hips, his suit jacket hanging over one arm. His hair was longer then, mussed by the wind. He was always unknotting his tie, rolling up his sleeves, or putting more clothes on, whatever he could to keep going. “Harvey Chamberlain surveys lead-poisoned land,” read the caption. Kids had been playing in the dirt for generations. Dad sued the oil company that owned the land, and dozens of families shared the multi-million-dollar settlement.
    It had been so sudden, Dad announcing that he was marrying his secretary, that he would be back in ten days, say hi to my mother. Even Mom, always ready to make some ironic noise or shake her head like she was in on another one of life’s jokes, was quiet for a long time. And when she spoke about it at all, it was to say, “He’s marrying her,” in disbelief.
    Everyone talks about new life, how precious it is, but sometimes I wonder. The first kitten looked like a dark sock soaked in snot. Myrna got to work, washing, preening away the umbilical thread.
    I found myself sitting with my head