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Carol Davidson loved her husband dearly but even she had to admit that when his eyes went absent and clouded it usually was a bad sign. Whenever he was ready to share his thoughts with her she would either be dealing with a great plan that would turn their lives into a temporary hurricane of chaos, or a breakdown about something that might seem minor to most but rested heavily on Ken‘s fragile and compassionate chest. Of course, she much preferred the first possibility but she was prepared for both.
“What’s the matter, dear? Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?” she asked, squeezing his hand and taking a fork of her strawberry cake while she waited for an answer.
Alas, nothing. Ken just kept staring at his half-eaten piece of cake, his mind wandering metaphorical fields Carol couln’t see from her peaceful seating place on their garden terrace.
Carol had finished both her cake and coffee by now but she would not leave before Ken was done, too, so instead of clearing her part of the table she leant back and enjoyed the view. Their small pond right in front of their patio was splattering quietly from the miniature fountain that was in it. They had always been worried they might have to get rid of it for safety reasons once they adopted children but these days it was the most steady part of their ever-changing garden that looked so different with each season. Now that it was spring, the countless and admittedly somewhat untamed flowery bushes were blooming in various colours and the soft, pastel pink petals of their two cherry trees created a stark contrast to the otherwise vibrant and eye-catching flowers. Some might say that this disorganzed mess of blue, red, yellow, purple, orange, green and various shades inbetween was lacking taste and design but both Ken and Carol liked it this way. Their garden lived and flourished on its own without their interference.
A movement at the bottom of one of their trees caught her eye, a small squirrel that was rummaging through the grass and weeds near the roots.
The little guy seemed to be quite alert and looking for something and Carol automatically took over the worries the squirrel seemed to have, looking around just the same. She spotted a subtle shuffle in the leaves of a bush below the crown and in the split second it took her to get up a flash of orange fur shot out of the hiding spot and at the fearful squirrel.
“Oh no!” Carol quickly took a few steps forward, ushering the pet away that disappeared into the bush leaves just as fast as it had come out.
Either her voice or her movement had taken Ken back to reality as well and he was quick on his feet, rushing over to where she was kneeling next to the squirrel already. The poor thing’s head was almost ripped off, the cat had gotten a clean strike at it.
“Oh no” Ken whined, looking down at the poor small animal with glassy eyes: “That’s not fair.”
“It’s nature, Ken” Carol said, laying an arm on his shoulders, “It’s fair in its own way.”
“But the cat has a nice, cozy and safe home to go back to and this little guy doesn’t. How’s that fair? I could’ve stopped it had I paid attention! We have to help him!”
Carol sighed, looking down at small body and the even smaller severed head, now feeling a slight pang of her husband’s guilt, too: “I don’t think we can.”
The over-the-top despair in Ken’s eyes would have been comical if Carol didn’t know that it was completely serious and honest; he always needed to help everyone and everything he came across, even though it didn’t always go well. And that certainly didn’t exclude defenseless mammals.
“We can…” he trailed off, a thoughtful expression on his face as he was trying hard to think of a solution, “We can…Keep it with us and bring it to a vet!”
“No, Ken, we really can’t do that” Carol shook her head with a sympathetic smile, patting his shoulder.
“Why? There’s this guy” Ken sat up energetically, pushing up his big glasses to sit where they belonged again, “It was on the news! Ed? He kept a squirrel in his pocket! Until it recovered! We could do the same!”
“Yes but dear..This one is dead.”
“Ah. Right.” Ken shook his head and sunk back into his slumped position, then nodded: “Right. Had forgotten about that for a moment. I guess we can’t keep it then.”
“I’m sorry, dear” Carol said apologetically and pulled him closer, “But we’ll make it a beautiful little grave and we can bring flowers from time to time. I’m sure it would’ve liked that.”
“It’s a squirrel” Ken said, looking at her with a defeated expression: “I don’t think they care about graves, Carol.”
“They usually don’t, but imagine how proud this little guy would be if there’s an afterlife for squirrels and he has a nice grave in its honour. That’s something special, isn’t it?”
“Yes, maybe” Ken said with a worried sigh, “I just hope that it won’t get to his head. I wouldn’t want him to make fun of all the other squirrels that died and don’t have a grave.”
“I’m fairly certain that won’t happen, honey” Carol said with a chuckle, well aware that they both knew there were no squirrels going to be bullied in the squirrel afterlife for not having a grave. But if thinking about those things helped Ken cope with the murder that had just occurred in his own garden there was no harm in both of them playing along with it. And they surely had some space for a squirrel grave.
She gave Ken’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before she got up: “I’ll go and get us a spate, how about you look around for a nice place where we can bury our brave little squirrel?”
Ken nodded and followed suit, looking around the garden, then back at Carol: “Thank you, honey.”
“Don’t worry about it, dear” she said and gave him a smile, getting a very teary-eyed grin in response: “Let’s just make sure he has the most beautiful grave any squirrel has ever seen.”