Seaglass Summer (11 page)

Matilda’s human mom, the rock lady, comes rushing in and crouches down to pet her exhausted dog. “Oh, my brave girl, you did it. Thank you, Doc.”

“All six puppies survived,” Uncle Sanjay says, beaming. I’m thinking of the little one that almost didn’t make it. I helped him take his first breath. Me, Poppy Ray. I’m beginning to understand what Uncle Sanjay meant when he said,
The ones we save make it all worthwhile
.

Chapter Twenty-one
GRAINS OF SAND

W
ednesday afternoon, when I’ve been here two and a half weeks, Mr. Pincus brings Marmalade in again. He talks a mile a minute, telling endless stories. “Got into everything when he was a kitten, you know. I didn’t call him Marmalade because he was orange. He kept getting into jars of marmalade. Ever known a kitten to eat jam?”

Duff doesn’t weigh Marmalade or take his temperature. When she steps out of the exam room, I follow her and tug her sleeve. “You forgot something.”

“I didn’t forget, kid.” She strides into Uncle Sanjay’s office and closes the door. I hear her talking to him in a low voice.

Duff and Uncle Sanjay come out of his office, and I follow them back toward the exam room. The whole clinic is quiet.

“Why don’t you wait out here?” Duff says, leading me up front. “Isn’t the day beautiful? Why don’t you go out and enjoy the sun?”

“I want to stay here.” I feel like a string pulled tight at both ends. Stu is sitting up front, next to Saundra, resting his head on his paws.

“What’s going on?” I ask. But I already know in my bones, in the tips of my toes.

Duff gives me a sad look. Even her spiked hair seems to droop.

I run down the hall and burst into the exam room. Mr. Pincus is sitting on the bench, the bony orange Marmalade in his arms. Uncle Sanjay is standing over Mr. Pincus, resting a hand on his shoulder. My eyes start to water.

“You have to save him,” I say. “
We
have to save him.”

Uncle Sanjay glances at me, looking startled. “Poppy, you shouldn’t be in here—”

“It’s all right,” Mr. Pincus says in his gravelly voice. “Let her stay. Come here and listen. Put your ear to his fur, young lady.”

I lean down and press my ear to Marmalade’s soft fur. “He’s purring.”

“You see, he’s content. He’s not afraid. Do you want to hold him?”

Uncle Sanjay steps back, tucking a pen into the pocket of his lab coat.

I lift Marmalade and sit beside Mr. Pincus. “He’s so fragile,” I say. “He’s still purring.” Marmalade settles into my arms. I’m holding a bag of floppy bones covered in fur, but he’s vibrating all over.

“He likes you,” Mr. Pincus says. “He knows you care about him.” His voice breaks at the end of his sentence, and he presses his hands into his face. His shoulders shake.

Uncle Sanjay rests a hand on his arm again. “We can give you a little time with Marmalade. We don’t need to rush.”

Mr. Pincus nods, still pressing his hands to his face. “Poppy can stay,” he whispers.

“Okay. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Uncle Sanjay steps out of the room and shuts the door.

Mr. Pincus fumbles in his bag and pulls out a soft brush. “He loves this. He lets me brush him for hours.” He hands me the brush.

My fingers tremble, but I run the brush down Marmalade’s back, and he purrs more loudly. His breathing is slow and ragged. He nestles under my armpit. I hold him closer.

We sit like that, me brushing Marmalade, and Mr. Pincus telling more stories: about how Marmalade caught a mouse in the house once and left it in a shoe as a present. About how he liked to meow at the birds through the window and swipe at the glass. About how he liked to jump onto high shelves and bat Mr. Pincus on the head, with the soft part of his paws so he wouldn’t scratch the skin.

“He’s had a good long life,” Mr. Pincus whispers. “Doc’s going to help him cross into the next world, where he’ll run around like a kitten again.” Tears spill from his eyes. He wipes them away. My chest tightens, and the light flickers and dims. Somewhere outside, a dove lets out a soft
woo-oo-oo-oo
call.

Uncle Sanjay steps back inside. “Are you ready for me now?”

Mr. Pincus nods, swallowing hard. “Thank you, young lady. Marmalade says thank you, too. He will never forget your kindness.” Mr. Pincus takes a deep breath and lifts Marmalade from my arms. As I leave the room, I am empty inside. I hold the seaglass up to my eye, but the world isn’t clear anymore. The glass is starting to look cloudy. For the first time, I notice black speckles suspended inside. I can’t tell what they are—maybe tiny dead insects or grains of sand—but they’re trapped in there forever.

Chapter Twenty-two
THE KINDEST THING

I
hide in the kennel room. Stu follows and sits next to me quietly, his paw on my knee, as if he’s begging me not to be sad. “How do you always know?” I scratch his ears. He watches me, his brown eyes steady, tail between his legs. I hug him and bury my face in his warm, furry neck.

Uncle Sanjay comes in and sits on a pile of cat food bags beside us. “I was wondering where you two were.”

“We’re in here.”

“I’m sorry about Marmalade,” he says.

I can’t say another word, or my tears will fill the room and we’ll all drown.

He rests an arm around my shoulders. “A long time ago, I made a vow to do what I could. To heal. To alleviate suffering. Some people said to me, ‘Why are you worrying about the animals when so many people are suffering?’ I said, ‘The animals are the most forsaken, precisely because everyone says what you say, that their suffering does not matter.’ ”

Stu flops down on his belly and rests his head on his paws.

“Marmalade mattered,” I say, looking out the window. Two mourning doves alight on a tree branch.

“That’s what I mean. Suffering is suffering, is it not? No matter what form it takes. Human or animal. We’re animals, after all. The human animal. I have always wanted to help the most forsaken ones. I do what I can.”

“I wish Marmalade didn’t have to get old and die. I wish he could’ve stayed a kitten forever.” The noises in the clinic—a dog barking, doors closing, the telephone ringing—come from a faraway universe.

“Time marches forward and drags us all with it.” Uncle Sanjay places his hand on mine. “Without death, life wouldn’t seem so precious. We can’t have one without the other. Some of us die before our time, while others
get to live a long life. Nobody knows why. We did what was best for Marmalade in his old age, the kindest thing to do.”

“Oh, Uncle Sanjay,” I say, hugging him. “Why is the kindest thing also the saddest?”

Chapter Twenty-three
KILLER WHALES

“U
ncle Sanjay thinks you’re very upset,” Mom says on the phone in the evening.

“An old cat had to be put to sleep,” I tell her. “His name was Marmalade.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie. Pets rarely live as long as we do. Such a shame. Do you want to come to India, see your cousins? We could still get you a ticket. But we don’t have much time left here.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I imagine Mr. Pincus at home in a quiet house, without his kitty meowing at birds or dropping dead mice into his shoes.

The island seems hushed, too, as if the birds are whispering to each other about the cat that went to sleep.

I wish I could forget Marmalade. I wish I could fill the empty spaces. I try to meditate, but the seaglass is cloudy. Every time the door to the clinic opens, my heart beats a little faster, and I hope the next patient will go home alive and well. No more furry friends die over the next few days, but I can’t shake the gloominess inside me.

Then, Sunday morning, a week before my parents are supposed to pick me up, I wake to the sound of stomping elephants. The forest is taking over the cabin, and all the wild creatures are moving in.

But it’s only Uncle Sanjay rushing around, tidying up and making peanut butter and lavender chutney sandwiches.

“Get dressed, my dear niece. Bring warm clothes.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a secret. We’re taking a trip to cheer you up.” He grabs a towel and locks himself in the bathroom. I hear the shower running and his off-key singing.

Right after I change into my island overalls, the doorbell rings. Toni Babinsky is standing on the porch, bundled in
a sweater and jeans. She looks pretty with her hair pulled up inside a woolen hat.

Francine and Droopy bounce around in her van, which is parked in the driveway. “Hey, Poppy. How’s your meditation coming along?”

I show her the seaglass. I see more speckles today. “A lot has happened. Some things not so good.”

“Everything in life is meaningful.”

I tuck the seaglass back into my pocket. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“I suggested we go whale watching.”

“Whale watching? Really?” I want to be happier than I am.

Hawk comes careering around the corner on his bike, a pack on his back. He parks his bike against the house and trots up onto the porch. “Ready to see some killer whales?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Hey, cheer up.” He gives me a playful poke in the ribs.

I try to smile.

Uncle Sanjay traipses out and loads two paper bags into the van. “Bring your rain gear. The weather can be unpredictable. I’ve brought binoculars and water and food.”

I grab my blue gum boots and raincoat, which I saved from the stream, and we all get into the van. Stu and the other two dogs clamber around in the back, tails wagging.
They have plenty of room. Toni’s van could hold an entire town full of dogs.

I sit beside Hawk in the backseat. Toni drives along the rolling road, past farms and through forests. Now and then, the sea twinkles through the trees.

“How far do we have to go to see the whales?” I ask above the din of the dogs and Indian pop music. Uncle Sanjay is playing a CD with booming drums and high-pitched singing.

“West side of the island,” Hawk says. “West Bluff State Park. We pass through Freetown on the way.”

Uncle Sanjay chats with Toni about J-pod in the front seat.

“What is J-pod?” I ask Hawk.

“A specific group of orcas. A group is called a pod. Usually, family members travel together. This time of year, you can see their dorsal fins through binoculars. I brought my big ones in my backpack.”

The van slows, and we pass through crowded, noisy Freetown, nothing like Witless Cove. Shops are everywhere, people spilling out. Concrete sidewalks. Straight new roads. Then the meadows and forests creep in again, taking over.

“How big are the orcas?” I ask. Uncle Sanjay and Toni keep chatting in the front. “Are they really whales? What do they eat?”

“They’re called killer whales, but they’re actually in the dolphin family,” Hawk says. “They eat fish, and sea lions, and sometimes even whales. They’re around twenty-five feet long and can weigh up to six tons.”

“Six tons!”

“Yeah, like maybe twelve trucks.”

“Whoa.”

When we reach West Bluff, a windy park perched over the churning Pacific Ocean, we take the dogs out on leashes; then we all sit at a picnic table, the wind whipping our hair, and eat our peanut butter and lavender chutney sandwiches. We take turns with the binoculars, watching the sea. We search the waves for almost an hour. Just when I think the orcas won’t ever come, I see the fins.