“I took her for a ride.”

I love animals. I have a rescue puppy that I dote on who is the star of the dog park. I had a few pets growing up — for a while. Sadly none of them lived a full life with us as Bryan would always at some point eventually decide to get rid of them. The first one I remember was a black Lab we had when I was about 6 or 7 that we called Cinders. When my parents had split up again(this was a frequent occurrence) my mother and I had to move out of the house into an apartment and we had to leave Cinders behind. I would sometimes spend time at the house with Bryan when my mother had to work. Bryan was not happy about having Cinders around and one of the times he was watching me he took us for a walk around the neighborhood and, without any warning he hoisted Cinders up and pushed her over a fence. That was it. No more Cinders.

A few years later I had a cat named Sara. One night she didn’t come home for dinner. Every night for a week I went out to the back balcony and called her name but she never came. Finally when pressed Bryan admitted “I took her for a ride.” That was it. No more Sara. I was 11 when this happened.

He had done this a few times to cats we had before I was old enough to remember. Among the family photos are a few snaps of 3 fluffy kittens that ended up in bag that was thrown into the Pacific Ocean.

I think about Cinders and Sara a lot. I remember that tall brown fence and the horror I felt as my dog went over. I remember visualizing my father driving with the cat freaking out in his truck and him opening the door and dumping her on the highway. She was probably hit by a car. I hope this is really what happened to her as it is entirely possible that Bryan killed her himself somehow. I don’t like having to think about this but I do. I also think about Ren and Bob. They lived awful, short lives before they were finally put out of their misery. Jello lived a long live but that’s only because Bryan left for good before he could do anything to her.