I was eight years old and the family cat was sick, no one knew what the cause or the problem was but it wasn't eating and it was having seizures/strokes, messing itself and all over living just about the most miserable existence imaginable.
The cat was my mothers, second only in favor among her pets to the goat that used to follow her around the yard and lay in her lap on the porch. My mother was sick too, sick with worry and the thought of watching the poor thing die so slowly and miserably.
I was eight when my mother went to the store and my father told me to take the "fucking cat outside and get rid of it."
I wasn't strong like him, I couldn't hit hard like he did, I couldn't yell loud like he could. My mood didn't dictate who could or couldn't smile or be able to sit down at the dinner table but that was the day I realized I could do something he couldn't do.
I could kill with compassion and lie about where the body got buried.
