David Rodriguez

And my wife, Ruth, she just took it on.

I would come home, and there'd be piles of boxes of toys and cat trees.

And I'd be like, we already have a cat tree.

She's like, we have one.

But mostly I would come home, and I would go into the bedroom, not even realizing she came home from work, didn't come say hi to me, and she would be half under the bed, because that's where Hemlock hid, and she would spend hours, inch by inch, building trust with this animal, until one night, Hemlock jumped into the bed and snuggled with her, and she put her forehead against hers, and I'd never heard her do a voice before.

It was very jarring.

She went, hey, baby, hey, baby.

And then we fell asleep, and I woke up to Hemlock ripping my feet to shreds.

And this every day, every night, no sleep.

And when you're half awake, it is actually terrifying.

But I couldn't bring myself to say, let's not have Hemlock sleep in the bedroom because of this larger thing we weren't talking about.

And I guess that's chivalry, I guess.

I don't know, letting Hemlock shred my feet.

And then one day at work, I was in a meeting with my manager, and he had actually had a baby recently.

And he had actually named her what we were going to name our child.

He didn't know that.

And he was distracted the whole time because she was doing adorable things.

And after the meeting, I went to my bedroom and I just sobbed uncontrollably and was confronting that I don't know if I was ever really honest myself about how badly I wanted this.

And I laid in bed and I just sobbed deeper and harder and louder than I ever had.

And Hemlock jumped on the bed, I hid my feet out of instinct, and he laid on my chest and just started rubbing his face against mine.