Living in the city meant semi-starvation rations with thin, startling bright silver linings.  I remember being frightened even when my rent was paid in full for the month.  But living in the city meant free days at the museum of art, tranquil walks in the coldest winter months, and wondering what hid behind the bright electric lights in other people’s apartment windows; enjoyable moments in chaos.

My worst day was when Pristina died.  She came with me to the city when I moved from my parent’s home in the suburbs.  I had just graduated from a community college that taught me nothing and parents who knew I was off to great things because they never made life “too easy,” for me.  My parents tolerated me and Pristina though they never said so. Moving out with my princess bedroom furniture, college loans and my cat, Pristina, they beseech me to remember self control and remember my birth control. We moved into a loft apartment together and I lost my virginity to a writer who lived across the narrow hallway and was twice my age.

After I found myself awake beside a man I didn’t know,  my longing for Pristina grew – she was just across the hall all alone. Creeping out of bed, gathering up my strewn clothing and tiptoeing along the hallway to my studio apartment, I cried and petted my cat, telling her I would not leave her again.   Though I was late for work, the next day and shuddered at the thought of loosing my job. 

I didn’t go home for Christmas that year.  New Year’s Day my parents wrote me from Florida, encouraging me to visit them in the retirement community they had found.  I worked a second job in the evening and for two years Pristina and I worked and slept in a studio apartment and the writer across the hall slipped us poetry under our door. I received a promotion, a raise, and a corner office in the basement for my diligence.

I paid off my last college loan on November 16th and that night I ordered out; a rare New York Strip with soft wedged potatoes sprinkled with sea salt and balsamic vinegar for me and Pristina.  Pristina sneezed over the potatoes and licked her lips each time she swallowed a dainty piece of meat.  She taught me the art of savoring a meal.

Pristina and I moved to a one-bedroom apartment with wooden floors and an ancient-looking bathroom, which depressed us both.  The kitchen was dark green with brown linoleum and I told myself we would get used to it because the skyline of Chicago was worth the depressing dark interior.  The skyline wasn’t enough and one year later we moved into a renovated old brick factory at the suggestion of someone I knew.

The writer who turned poet lived on the bottom floor of the once busy factory with his new wife and their golden retriever.  The wife tapped on my door; she had long dark black hair and her face was smooth and round; she would smile at me and invite me to their apartment.  “No worries, no worries, I’m not jealous.  Come and eat with us.”  I always refused and Pristina would sit upon an old heat register meowing down at the poor dog who lacked exercise.

I left for work on a frigid January day and was late coming home because the CTA was running slow and the sidewalks were slippery.  Pristina was alone and in the dark when she died without me.

Her funeral expenses set me back, and I had to miss a day of work, but I came home with a jasper jar with her ashes in it.  I called my mother to tell her and after explaining that Pristina had not died years ago I hung up and sat in the dark.  I understood the coldness of a smooth jasper jar.

The writer turned poet, turned writer and his wife showed up in February with a great framed painting of Pristina for my brick wall, where no pictures hung.

“You need color up here.  Pristina, her dark fur and golden eyes will make this place feel like home again.”

I said nothing to him while he drilled and worked and swept up the dust of his labors.

“Why don’t you have dinner with us?”

“No, thank you.”

He slid the wide door of my apartment shut and tiptoed away.  I sat in the dark for another night with my back to the painting.

April in Chicago can be violent.  The wind slams and bounces against the tall buildings and tumbles down to rattle old brick buildings, once sheltering physical labor, now sheltering poets, writers, wives and administrative assistants with a knack for numbers.  The dog below howls in a low whimper when the thunder replaces lightening.  Pristina leaps down from her perch on the wall and walks, tail perpendicular, to the register and mews at her old friend.

There is calmness.

I think of making love one more time to the poet before I have my picture painted and hung next to Pristina’s. However, I don’t want to surrender again to my need-consumed psyche, which is only fodder for self-deceit. They taught me self-control, my parents.