In barely a whisper he muttered the cat’s name. She sat, ignoring him, by the sliding glass doors in the dining room, where out in the yard two crows against a backdrop of new snow had her full attention. An imperious exhaustion suddenly came over him, and for the first time that he could remember he felt with absolute certainty that he would never make it to the bed. There was still a little bourbon in the glass. I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink. No no no. The cat did not move as she watched the crows. There there, he thought. There there.