He retires and keeps waking up at 5:40. Not from habit, he tells himself. The cat. The cat learned the schedule from him, and now the cat enforces it. He is being governed by a rhythm he set.
He makes coffee at 5:55. He used to drink it while dressing for work. Now he drinks it sitting at the kitchen table. Same coffee. Different everything around it.
His daughter calls on Sundays. She asks what he's been doing. He gives the list: grocery store, walk, called Ray, fixed the gutter screen. She says that sounds nice. He can hear her checking a box she keeps somewhere, a box labeled Dad: okay.
The cat gets on the counter while he's making the coffee. He says "down." The cat looks at him. He says it again. The cat stays. This has been happening for eleven years.
Ray dies in March. Not suddenly — Ray had been announcing it for fourteen months, the way Ray announced everything, with a calm certainty that made you think he'd been briefed. The funeral is on a Tuesday. Forty people. Ray's daughter reads something Ray wrote about fishing, which Ray hated. Everyone laughs because it's that kind of piece.
He goes home and makes coffee at 5:55. The cat is on the counter. He says "down."
His daughter calls on Sunday. He tells her about the funeral. She says she's sorry about Ray. He says it's all right. She asks what else he's been doing. He gives the list. She checks the box.
In April he starts walking a different route. Not for any reason. The old route went past Ray's apartment and he doesn't want to look at the windows. The new route goes along the canal. There are turtles on the logs in the mornings. He counts them sometimes. Other times he just notes that they're there.
The cat gets on the counter. He says "down." It's not even a request anymore. It's a sound he makes at 5:56, part of the sequence: alarm, feet, bathroom, kitchen, cat, "down," coffee, sit.
In June his daughter visits. She stands in his kitchen and watches him make coffee. The cat jumps on the counter. He says "down." The cat stays. She says, "Dad, you know the cat's never getting down."
He says, "I know."
She says, "So why do you still say it?"
He pours the water. He doesn't answer because the answer would sound wrong if he said it out loud. The answer is that the cat is eleven and will die before he does, probably, and when the cat dies the counter will be empty at 5:56 and he will have no one to say it to. The answer is that "down" is a word he says to a living thing that ignores him, and that's a relationship, and it's one of four he has left.
He says, "Habit."
She nods. She checks the box.