That Time My Cat Almost Killed My Fiancé

And how the pandemic has helped them to sort their differences .

A photo of Juniper, our cat, taken by her second-favorite cat-sitter, Tyler Ford.

A couple of years ago, I was away on a business trip when I received an SOS text from my partner, Darien. 

“I think she’s trying to kill me.” 

Darien had just gotten home from a particularly brutal shift in the emergency room. It was his third late shift in a row that week, and a drunk person had vomited on his favorite pair of work sneakers. Exhausted and defeated, he arrived at our apartment and immediately jumped into the shower. Just as the hot water hit his skin, Darien heard a loud crash. It sounded violent and heavy, like broken glass. He worried there was an intruder in the house, so he ran out into the living room, completely naked, to survey the scene. But just as he saw the culprit — our cat, Juniper, who’d knocked a large vase of flowers onto the floor — he realized the trap he’d fallen into. He slipped in the puddle of flower water — causing his legs to fly upwards, his body to suspend completely in midair — and crashed down onto the hardwood floor, mere inches away from the shattered glass. 

Darien lay there, writhing in agony, for at least five minutes, unable to come to his senses. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Juniper perched above him on the table where the flower arrangement once stood. Her golden eyes gazed at him apathetically, but her tail flicked back and forth in amusement.

I’ll admit: This whole near-death experience was my fault, really. Darien, who’d never owned a pet before in his life, was so excited when we moved in together that he asked if I’d like to finally get a pet of our own. I love dogs and grew up with them, but it was always cats that were my favorite. I loved that they were independent, beautiful, slinky, acrobatic, and mysterious. And of course, with my long work hours and travel schedule, I felt more able to care for a cat than a dog. And so came Freddy, our first cat: the gentlest, most lovable, low-maintenance rescue one could ever dream of adopting. You pick Freddy up and he purrs, grateful for the affection. You sit on the couch and he rushes over to curl up on your lap. Even his etiquette is outstanding: he is extraordinarily neat with his food and his litter box. Things were going so well with Freddy that, one year after he was settled, I begged for another. Darien reluctantly agreed.

After one trip to the Brooklyn Cat Café, I was sold: A tiny, nine-month-old ginger tabby was playing hide and seek with a cat three times her size. She had white paws, and a fluffy white neck that revealed an even fluffier white belly, giving the impression that she was wearing a striped orange suit. When I picked her up, she mewed in protest, as if begging to get down to hang out with her friends. I watched her squirm, her little pink nose twitching as she wiggled to get free. Her name was Juniper, and I was absolutely in love. Darien, to his credit, was horrified. “That cat doesn’t seem anything like Freddy,” he said nervously. So, we agreed to a compromise: We’d foster Juniper for a month before deciding whether or not to adopt her.

Unfortunately, the Cat Café dropped Juniper off while I was on (yet another) business trip. This left Darien, a brand-new cat parent, in charge of acclimating two cats to a small, one-bedroom apartment. (For the uninitiated, cats are not like dogs, who generally love each other’s company. Bringing a new cat into a household is known to be tense, emotionally taxing, and dangerous — for the cats, too.) Unsurprisingly, Juniper’s presence instantly prompted a territorial response from Freddy, who took to growling in a low, menacing grumble whenever she came near. Freddy protested his new roommate by hiding under the couch, away from Darien’s grasp, only emerging for meal times. “She’s turning him into a bad cat. We have to give her back,” Darien pleaded with me over FaceTime. He sounded close to tears. In the background, I could see Juniper, a tiny ball of ginger fur, chasing her own tail. 

When our month-long foster trial finally came to an end, I was relieved that there was no phone call from the Cat Café inquiring after Juniper. I knew that as soon as Darien got the call, he would tell them to come get her. Two months into our new living arrangement, after Freddy finally relented and started cohabitating peacefully with Juniper, this fact finally dawned on Darien. “They’re not coming to get her, are they?” he asked. 

As if she knew exactly how he felt about her, Juniper found ways to torture Darien that were incredibly specific. If he fell asleep with his feet hanging off the mattress, she’d slink under the bed and pounce on his toes with her claws. I’d wake up to him in the middle of the night, standing over the bed, screaming in the darkness. Thinking he’d scared her off, Darien would close the door, grateful for a peaceful night’s rest. Little did he know, Juniper was still waiting for him under the bed. She’d pounce again. 

And then there were the mornings Darien rushed to get ready for work. In a flurry, he’d storm through the apartment, throwing all of his things into one giant backpack. Always and without fail, he’d forget something crucial in the rush — his wallet, his phone, his headphones, his ID card. So every day, his departure would involve at least three trips in and out the door. Perhaps sensing his anxiety, Juniper seized the moment. Just as the door would close behind him, she’d slip out into the hallway of our apartment building. Some days he’d notice immediately and could pick her up quickly, but other days, he wasn’t so lucky. One time, Darien thought he was perfectly in the clear, so he entered the elevator after a particularly dramatic morning and breathed a deep, heavy sigh of relief. Just as the elevator doors closed, he saw Juniper in the narrowing gap, triumphantly prancing past. 

Her favorite torture mechanism involved Darien’s extensive grooming routine. The man is beautiful, no doubt, but he also spends hours locked in the bathroom every week cutting his own hair, cocktailing various face masks, stealing anything and everything from my medicine cabinet that he thinks will “work better for his skin.” He insists on solitude for this practice, which is understandable — if you’re not a cat. A closed door is an affront to house cats everywhere. Juniper would stand sentry outside the door, waiting in vain for her moment to be let in. If she started to cry loudly, Darien turned on music to drown her out, taunting her. But as soon as he finished his routine and opened the door, Juniper would exact her revenge. After a quick leap onto the counter, she would knock his favorite pair of expensive clippers onto the floor, shattering them in two. He’s replaced those clippers at least six times since we’ve had her. 

And then, of course, there was the unfortunate episode when Darien decided to try activated charcoal with his toothpaste and left the product slightly ajar on the bathroom counter. Juniper knocked it into the sink, spilled it all over, then managed to coat all four of her paws in it before walking onto our brand-new, white rug. For weeks, Darien was on his hands and knees with a bottle of stain remover, doing his best Lady MacBeth impression.

“Honey, you have to pay attention to her,” I eventually told him. “If she thinks you don’t like her, she’s just going to keep messing with you.” 

“This is my house,” he responded. “Why am I going to cater to a cat who lives in my house?”

He had a fair point — but also a moot one. “Unlike dogs, cats have not become part-human,” writes John Gray in the book Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life. “Humans accepted cats in their homes because cats taught humans to love them. This is the true basis of feline domestication.” In other words, historically speaking, we didn’t really domesticate cats; they domesticated us. This is why conventional wisdom will tell you that dogs make wonderful pets, and cats make, well, roommates. 

What Darien misunderstood about little Juniper was that, when it comes to a cat’s love, you have to earn it, and then you have to keep earning it. Cats are not willing to ignore your flaws or miraculously forgive your transgressions. They’re not going to grovel when you think they’ve done something wrong. And they are going to upset you — sometimes deliberately — if you don’t hold up your end of the relationship. “Cats may come to love human beings, but that does not mean they need them or feel any sense of obligation to them,” Gray writes. 

Juniper is now four years old. When New York City shut down last March, Darien and I were both home more than ever — and Juniper responded in ways we never would have imagined. Where she used to keep a safe but comfortable distance from us, she now sat perched on the sofa behind us as we watched television, or on our countertops while we cooked dinner. Sometimes, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to see her curled up in the crook of Darien’s arm, sleeping peacefully. Eventually, he’d stir and she’d retreat to her usual spot under the bed.

When his work schedule in the ER inevitably picked back up, Darien practically reverted to the schedule he had during his residency — impossibly long shifts, all back to back. He felt physically and spiritually exhausted. The disruption in routine seemed to bother Juniper, who now looked panicked whenever she heard the door open. When Darien left for work and closed the door (after tricking her into staying inside), she’d start crying — and wouldn’t stop for an hour. “It’s ok,” I’d say, sitting beside her. But she didn’t want to be held or comforted; she just stretched her tiny white paws toward the door handle, trying to open it so she could follow Darien outside. 

Most days, it was there she would stay — curled up in a ball on a stool by the front door, waiting for Darien, leaving her post only to eat dinner. Freddy followed me to bed every night, dutifully sleeping at my feet, but Juniper remained on guard. When Darien finally did come home, she didn’t try to slink past him out into the hallway, or play any of her old tricks. She just followed him around as he settled in for the night. Now, though, he took to leaving the door open for her as he took his shower. On nights when he was the most worn down by the pandemic, he swears she noticed. Those evenings, she wouldn’t just sit on the counter waiting for him, watching his every move. Instead, she’d sit right on the sill of the bathtub while he showered, water spraying her face, but nonetheless watching diligently, as if expecting him to disappear again. 

On the days where Darien was so exhausted he could do nothing but sleep, Juniper would lay down on the opposite corner of the bed, eyes looking toward the doorway, like she was watching out for him. If I tried to close the door in the morning to keep the cats from disturbing his sleep, she’d protest by wailing outside the door until he let her in. 

I’ve pointed out her change in behavior many times over the course of the past year, and Darien told me that I was going insane. But now, he’s started to call her his shadow, because she follows him everywhere he goes when he’s home for the day. After years of chastising me for talking out loud to our cats, I recently overheard Darien arguing with Juniper from the other room. “Can I please have a moment to myself? I am going to be fine,” he was saying. (Juniper did not relent — the bathroom door closed behind both of them.) 

Darien and his reluctant friend, Juniper.

Darien took to explaining Juniper’s personality in a paranormal kind of way: “She’s like a little spirit or something — I think she’s watching over me,” he told one of our friends recently. It’s funny that cats have historically carried some sort of spiritual significance, whether they were worshipped as gods by the ancient Egyptians or seen as guardians by witches. Maybe something about them is so confounding to us that we assume they have a divine wisdom or otherworldliness. 

But I think that cats are less an example of divine wisdom than one of pure common sense. As Gray writes, “Cats do not love in order to divert themselves from loneliness, boredom, or despair. They love when impulse takes them, and are in company they enjoy.” Humans tend to value heroic or unconditional kinds of love (hence our obsession with romantic films, happily ever after, or...dogs). What we are less likely to praise is the realistic kind of love: the one that has its limits, its messes, its betrayals, and its pettiness — but endures anyway. True love is a wonderful, miraculous thing. But an unlikely, hard-won love is just as sacred.

Juniper, even as a kitten, suffered no fools. It took a long time for her to grow to love Darien, who she could tell had no real love for her when she first came to live with us. And Darien, obviously, took a long time to really love her. But as they slowly got to know each other, torture each other, and eventually tolerate each other, they both made small concessions that allowed for a real love to be born. With the olive branch officially extended between them, Juniper also stopped being such a nuisance (for the most part). It’s been a while since she’s knocked over a candle, a wine glass, or a beauty product. Although, the other day, she did approach Darien while he was laying down and threw up directly next to his face. He came running out of the room, dry heaving, asking me if she was sick. (Like I’m the doctor!)

In December, for the first time in a while, Juniper retreated back to her post under our bed, where she hadn’t been for over a year. It felt like a regression. Darien and I, unbeknownst to us, betrayed her by bringing home a Christmas tree — the size and commotion of which terrified her. When I tried to lure her out from under the bed, I could see that she was trembling. Darien glared at me. “This is your fault,” he said. “We should have gotten a smaller tree. Look what you did to her.” 

I couldn’t help myself. I smiled. “Look who cares so deeply for little Juniper now!” 

On the third day of Juniper’s Christmas tree protest, I heard Darien speaking in a higher octave than normal. I crept into the bedroom, curious, but hoping not to disturb the moment. There he was, laying on the ground by the bed where she was hiding. He had cut up small pieces of roast chicken and placed them on the ground right beside him, cooing to Juniper, coaxing her to come out. Once in a while, I’d see her white paw reluctantly reach out to drag a morsel back underneath the bed. 

“It’s going to be ok,” Darien kept telling her, his voice soft and soothing. “You have nothing to be afraid of. I’m here.”