Page 28 of Bad Husband

“Noah, stop!” I yell and attempt to run after him, but he runs right over the cat before I can get to him. I don’t know why, but I kinda blame the cat here because Jesus Christ, why didn’t he move when he saw the bike? Don’t cats usually run away from moving objects besides a ball of yarn?

“I can’t believe he just did that,” Callan says with wide eyes.

Yep. He did. Ran right over the cat with his big wheel.

Just keep your eyes closed if you want because I’ll let you in on a little secret. The cat didn’t make it. His nine lives were up.

Noah glances back over his shoulder, a pointed glare at the cat. “I am Wolverine,” and then rides away on his bike. I blink a few times, trying to decide if that really happened and if I’m standing over a dead cat.

Remember how I said Noah’s a grudge holder?

Clearly this was a grudge-murder. I’m still in disbelief this actually happened.

“He’s like Al Pacino inScar Face.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You’ve seen that movie?”

“Yeah, on Netflix. Rest in peace, Mr. Poppy.” Callan pets the cat’s head softly and then stands next to me watching Noah still riding away. “It’s like the ending of a movie, and he’s riding away in the sunset.”

Mr. Poppy? Who the fuck names their cat Mr. Poppy?

“Let’s hope he comes back. Your mom would miss him,” I tease, attempting to draw a little humor to the situation, though I know this isn’t the time. My toddler son just murdered a cat.

Sure, you could laugh and say, “Oh, he’s three, he didn’t mean to,” but let’s be honest. You saw the look in his eyes. He totally meant to hit him.

There’s no blood or anything, the cat went peacefully, at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Staring down at him, I have flashbacks of my own cat slaughtering experience when I was younger. I’m not ready to share that dark part of my life just yet. It’d be too emotional right now.

Let’s focus on the bigger issue here. The fact that I have a dead cat on my hands and a son who’s showing no remorse. Should I have him tested?

I got one kid who could potentially arm nuclear weapons and one killing animals. Isn’t killing animals a sign of a serial killer? Are we going to look back on this moment years from now and say, “There were signs?”

MY LUCK FUCKING sucks. I should be thinking of ways to make my wife fall back in love with me but no, I’m attempting to bury my neighbor’s cat without him and my wife knowing.

“What are you doing with that shovel?”

I jump at the sound of Madison’s voice and attempt to hide the shovel behind my back. I’m not sure why. It’s obvious she’s seen it since she asked. At least I don’t have to worry about her now. I only need to hide it from the neighbor.

Can you see how much I’m sweating? Christ, it’s embarrassing. It’s like the time I had to bury my neighbor’s cat when I was a kid. It was a very traumatic experience. I’ll tell you about it later but it’s why I can’t stand cats. “I’m burying George’s cat.”

Her eyes widen and then she notices the black plastic bag at my feet. “Why?”

“He scratched the shit out of Noah earlier tonight so Noah ran over him with his big wheel.”

“Oh my God,” she panics, her eyes wide and darting from the bag to me and then back to the bag. “What do we do?”

I raise an eyebrow and then lean down to pick up the bag. “Bury it?”

“Shouldn’t we tell George?”

“No.”

And now she’s staring at me like I’ve lost my mind, but then she bites her lip. Fuck, that’s hot. She doesn’t do it often, but it gets me every time. “What if the cat comes back?”

Let me tell you something here. Madison hates scary movies about as much as I hate cats. She once watchedPet Cemeterywhen she was seven-months pregnant with Callan and already paranoid as shit. Pregnancy hormones do strange things to her. Anyways, she forced me to sleep with the light on in our room for three nights and made me swear we’d never get a cat. Like I’d fight her on that one. Though on the fourth night, I was done with it. I made her turn off the light and sleep like a normal person because that shit was getting out of hand. We still have our no cat pact though.

“This isn’tPet Cemetery, Mad. He’s not going to claw his way from the ground and sit on your chest in the middle of the night meowing.”

She shivers at my detail. Maybe I’m a shit, and maybe this is why she wants a divorce, but the boy inside of me senses my opportunity, and I act like I’m going to throw the dead cat at her.

---