I'm not one to shit on my ex, but... 

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We ended up getting a cat and named it Doreen.  My ex never adored her like I did.  I think she was weirdly jealous of the cat's affection, as though Doreen was plotting to come between us.  I'd try to be reassuring, but I guess in my ex's worldview it wasn't possible for someone to have the depth of feeling to love both a partner and a pet at the same time, that somehow my petting the cat diminished the love I had left available for my partner.

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My ex was in charge of feeding, and I realized after some time that Doreen was always hungry and had gotten very frail.  Doreen became a little aggressive at the table, and I took to feeding her myself when I got home from work.  I asked my ex about this, and she said "we can't afford to feed her twice a day."  I told her we could do without ordering food delivery one night a week, and I started bringing home extra cans and bags of food.

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A couple weeks later, Doreen, who was indoor/outdoor, went missing, which she had never done before.  I was really worried, and my ex acted concerned as well.  After a few days, I started to give up hope.  But one night, I heard meowing and scratching at the back door.  Doreen was dirty and starving and she had hitchhiker seeds stuck in her fur which took hours to pick out.  She looked like she'd walked for miles.  My ex was unexcited to see Doreen return, and acted strangely nervous about it.

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While I was at work the next month, my ex -- without telling me -- took Doreen to the vet and had her declawed.  I was shocked when I came home, and all my ex would say was "she scratched me," even though she wouldn't show me where.  When I became upset, she said Doreen was lucky to be declawed because she almost had her "depawed" and that she "knew a guy."  For two weeks, I had to try to keep Doreen from jumping or climbing while she healed.  One night, I found a printed diagram of feline skeletal anatomy among some papers.  My ex had made a red circle around where the foot meets the tibia.

 

Anyway, Doreen and I now live in Florida.  If anyone wants the name of my ex's employer...
 

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One thing I don't talk about much is my grandmother.  She was a serial killer.

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Mom's relationship with her was strained.  There are no photos.  Once I got $5 in the mail from her for Christmas.

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Her name was Lena Griggs, and she lived in an old white house in Choctaw for thirty years after our grandfather died.  My parents took me to visit that house a couple times when I was little, but I don't remember anything about the woman, just a fence along a dirt road with grass growing up the center, and green blackberries, and a nest of yellowjackets.  

 

​So it came out in the 1980s that my grandmother had murdered several men.  Out in that old country house, she'd take in laborers passing through looking for work at neighboring farms.  Apparently, she used pesticide mixed into food, a little at a time.  Buried their bodies near the crick - she would probably have had to chop them into pieces and use a wheelbarrow - and planted rows of beans over them.

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One year there was a huge storm washed everything out.  A fisherman spotted exposed bones up off the bank.  They found four bodies.  There might have been more.  It was in all the papers.  She was sick and died in jail before there could be a trial.  She denied everything.  

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My grandmother was known to be a kind-hearted woman.  There's a hobo sign, a cat, used to direct travelers toward a "kind-hearted woman," the sort of friendly old widow who might provide a meal.  I think about that.  And I wonder sometimes because I believe I am a kind person.  But who knows what we're capable of.