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Would they find her if they start digging, little brown Sugar?

She was so small before she died. Before laying her in the earth, I felt her furred body longer. More stiff. It's not longer Sukar, mommie said. The little one is no longer there.

An early morning phone call.

Assurance that Auntie Mona will be up. We're both early risers.

I know it will be a matter of 5 minutes till I reach the garden.

In the middle of everything happening inside me, I am slowly accepting that I no longer have a claim to that place.

Those who I belong with are moving elsewhere.

The thought of having to start a new relationship with another building is exhausting. I don't know how easy it will be for me and the new walls to be able to listen to each other.

Sukar is on my mind since last night. I keep thinking that when I left her there, I left her knowing that she will always be near.

That little brown thing that lived inside my pullovers and sweatshirts.

Now this image of the crack in the cement which marks where she lies will become only a memory like the memory of that day in the garden, digging, and waiting. Sitto watching from her room, wondering why I was there so early.

Things have changed so much since then.

I no longer have cats.

I have seen and known other losses through early morning phone calls. Losses that make this loss more bearable. Losses that seem more assured as today begins.

It's silly saying goodbye to a house when what's inside the house is what matters to you, and they are somewhere else, beginning again.

There was always a drop in the pit of my abdomen as I went down the slope to the garage.

Next time a taxi driver asks me whether to turn right here, I will not feel or think the same things. The sensation of the drop will not come to me as I explain that this is a garage.

It's a slope to the magical land of cookies and chicken pie and girl nights, and family rooms.

It's a drop of excitement at seeing the newest addition to the family almost 7 years ago.

It's also the numbness in your gut one morning in July.

If only we could've dropped that day from the calendar, just like that, with a flick of a wand, would I be writing this now?

Beginnings are beautiful.

So is your new wallpaper.

We shouldn't put the posters up I think because it's still so new and nice.

I will miss seeing you through the trees, knowing you are right there around the corner.

But I won't think of that today.

I'll think of a one-sided smile as I climb the slope back to the real world, knowing there's still a whole bunch of other climbs.