“But I Already Said Goodbye” by Wendy Jensen is a novel just released by Black Rose Writing exploring the close links between animal and domestic abuse. Amber, a brand-new animal welfare activist in 1980’s New Mexico, rescues her one-eyed cat Tom from a hoarder. Tom becomes her best friend as she struggles to free herself from an unwelcome relationship and learns to extend her growing talents into saving herself. Here is an excerpt from the first chapter, when Amber first meets Tom at her first experience in her new job.

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After several miles we left the highway and made a few turns past small homes with cacti in their window boxes. Marlene sighed heavily as she pulled up to a tiny neglected yard where a few women were carrying small cages out through a tattered screen door. Long ago someone had cared enough to hang shutters at each window, but most of them were now laying in the dried weeds, paint long since peeled away. Marlene opened her door. “Hey, Lisa, how’s it going?”

“Better for them, now,” said a plump woman with a brown ponytail, clumps of fur sticking to her faded pink T-shirt. She held up her plastic carrier and grinned at the two little tabbies inside.

Marlene and I carried some empty cages across the yard and maneuvered them inside. The living room was tiny and overflowing with boxes, old broken TVs, discarded mail, and newspapers with headlines going back to Nixon. It smelled overwhelmingly of cat urine. Gloria sat in a wheelchair, in the only cleared spot in the living room, distractedly stroking three long-haired cats huddled on her lap. Dressed in a shabby bathrobe whose faded purple flowers mocked the seriousness of the situation, she looked sad and lost. About a dozen other cats fled as we crossed the room, disappearing silently around boxes and ripped-up furniture.

“What am I going to do? I can’t live on the street! My babies need me,” Gloria cried, a tear sliding down her wrinkled cheek.

Lisa went to her and patted her thin shoulder. Marlene, settling the cages down on a stack of newspapers, muttered quietly to me, “Lisa is our people person. She has a heart big enough to hold even the most guilty consciences.”

“You’re doing the right thing, ma’am,” said Lisa, looking earnestly into Gloria’s eyes while she held her bony hand. “We’ve come to help. We’re just going to collect your babies and get them to a safe place so you can keep your home.” Gloria’s shoulders relaxed slightly with relief, then tightened again as she saw Marlene wrestle two of the friendlier animals into a carrier. They kept turning back, pushing away from the doorway of the carrier, their matted fur catching on the hinges. I went over to see if I could help, Gloria’s wails rising behind me.

“What’s going to happen to them? Where are you taking them?” she cried. “Maybelline! Sammy! Who else do you have in there?” Marlene frowned and turned away, lifting the carrier over a pile of old magazines and heading for the screen door.

Lisa knelt down, talking quietly to Gloria about finding homes through the local shelter, and spaying her cats so that they didn’t have to keep having kittens. “They’ll be in good hands.”

We worked through the rest of the day, wearing surgical masks in the basement, where the smell made our eyes water. Most of the cats were harmless, but a few of the larger more frightened tomcats had to be dragged out from underneath couches and piles of boxes, hissing and screaming until they scrambled into the backs of their carriers. Their business was one of survival, far from the pampered Persians in those cat food commercials. No crystal bowls for them.

The kittens were the easy part. Pretend-fierce, tiny bottle brush tails pointing straight up, backs hunched, they skittered sideways away from us. Their hisses were almost inaudible, the barest puffs of air as they warned the lumbering humans away. They ran crazily in between the towers of magazines, zipping around the corners with their little paws scrabbling madly on the floor, sliding into the feet of a would-be rescuer, tumbling head over heels, only to zip off again. It was all a big game to them. We collected them gently, loading the carriers back into the cars, windows open to let out the heat and the smell.

Marlene settled a carrier into the back seat and took off her glasses, rubbing the lenses with the hem of her t-shirt. “I saw another kitten in that back room near the green couch. Can you get her, Amber?”

“Sure.” I turned back to the house, crunching through the dead grass. Gloria, her lap now empty, twisted a tattered lace handkerchief around her fingers. She smiled weakly at me as I passed by her wheelchair. In the back room, I squeezed in between two stacks of sagging cardboard boxes and knelt to peer under a dirty couch crammed behind them. Just then I felt small feet walking across my calves. I turned to gather up the tiny black kitten who was staring at me with bright green eyes. Watching her play-biting my knuckles, I mused that it was a blessing that she didn’t know. She didn’t know that there are not enough homes. She might land in paradise, no kittens of her own to care for, living as queen of the household, lolling on her favorite perch and a soft cozy blanket, eating regular meals and nestling into a loving lap. But what about the sick ones, the ugly ones, or the old and lame ones? Who would care for them?

I tucked my heart away, knowing that safety and a good meal awaited her at the shelter. Hope was better than her present uncertain future.

The morning passed quickly, a growing number of meowing faces staring out of the carriers, eyes wide with fear. Two mothers were nursing litters. They were headed for the special room at the shelter where foster volunteers came to take them home until the nurslings were old enough for adoption.

...

“The last room,” said Marlene. Sweaty and tired, we put the last of our empty carriers down and closed the basement door behind us to prevent last-minute escapes. We lifted boxes and peered around paper piles, kneeling to look under tables, alert for any remaining signs of life. Then I saw him, wedged far back underneath a filthy ragged couch, panting, his ears pressed flat against his skull. He was big, gray and long-haired, with a scar across his nose and one missing eye. His large jowls marked him as an older tom, and as he lifted his lip in a silent snarl, I could see that whatever had scarred his face and ruined his eye had also broken a few teeth.

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Wendy Jensen came to Bow 20 years ago to raise her children, play violin, and work her homeopathic housecall veterinary practice. Now retired, she writes, advocates for the Crisis Center of Central NH, teaches homeopathy, and plays violin with the Deep Blue C Studio Orchestra. She will be hosting a book signing event at Main Street BookEnds in Warner.

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