Seaglass Summer (9 page)

“I’ve never known a cat to purr at the vet,” Duff says, scribbling in Marmalade’s chart. “Except when … well. How are things coming along with him?” She turns her back to Mr. Pincus.

“He’s drinking way more water,” Mr. Pincus says in a gravelly voice.

She turns to look at Mr. Pincus. “Shall we check his blood again?” Why is she asking him? He’s not a doctor.

“I say let him be,” Mr. Pincus says.

Duff nods and walks out. Where is she going? What’s wrong with Marmalade? Why didn’t she take his blood?

Mr. Pincus holds Marmalade close and rocks him. “My
wife, she wanted a dog. Never liked cats much. But when I got Marmalade, she fell in love with him. He followed her everywhere in the garden, trotted after her when she planted her bulbs. Flopped next to her when she sunbathed. She passed away five years ago. Marmalade was already twelve years old.”

“I’m sorry….”

“We all pass away, eventually. I miss my wife something terrible, but Marmalade helps. He sleeps next to me. Course, I had to buy pet stairs so he could climb up on the mattress. He doesn’t jump anymore. He’s old in human years, about eighty-five.”

Voices murmur outside the door, and then Uncle Sanjay steps inside. He pets Marmalade, listens to his heart, checks his ears and eyes, but doesn’t lift him onto the table. He and Mr. Pincus glance at each other and nod slightly, sharing a silent, secret language. “How can we help today?” Uncle Sanjay says gently. “For the kidneys, I can give you—”

“Just the fluids,” Mr. Pincus says. “He’s drinking up a storm.”

“Of course, whatever will make him comfortable.”

What about medicine? What about weighing Marmalade? What about his kidneys?

“He’s still eating,” Mr. Pincus says.

“Good, good. Give him anything he wants.”

“He still loves chicken and salmon. And corn on the cob. Cantaloupe, too, in small amounts.”

“Just stay away from the dangerous foods—grapes, onions, chocolate—”

“I’m very careful,” Mr. Pincus says.

Uncle Sanjay prescribes special diets for skin or weight. But now an old, sick cat gets to eat anything he wants?

After Mr. Pincus and Marmalade leave, Duff and I clean the exam room, and Duff says, “That poor old guy. When Marmalade goes, I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’ll be so lonely—”

“When Marmalade goes? Why didn’t Uncle Sanjay give him medicine?”

“Marmalade’s getting up there in age.” Duff scrubs the counter harder.

“But his kidneys—”

“Sometimes, medicine isn’t the best way to deal with a problem. Sometimes, you just gotta help the cat feel better.” She rushes out to take a phone call, and I stand in the exam room, which suddenly seems smaller and darker than before. The wall clock has stopped at two-forty-five, and on the sink, the bottle of antiseptic soap is empty. A few strands of Marmalade’s orange fur still float through the air.

Chapter Seventeen
BRANDON

I
dream of old, skinny Marmalade. He’s sitting at the dining table, surrounded by plates of every kind of food—roast chicken, pumpkin pie, curried potatoes, mounds of rice, and filets of salmon. He’s wearing a bib, eating whatever he wants. But the more he eats, the smaller he gets. I frantically search for him everywhere, but he has disappeared. I wake up in a sweat. Stu is sitting next to the bed, his tail thumping on the floor. His brown eyes are saying,
Take me for a walk
.

“Oh, Stu.” I hug him tightly; then I get dressed and run out to the beach. My dream drifts away, but I can’t forget Marmalade, the way he purred in Mr. Pincus’s arms.

Monday morning at the clinic, a week after I first arrived, the waiting room is full, the phone is ringing, and a dog is barking in the kennel room.

“Hey, Poppy, you’re here!” Hawk pulls me toward the treatment room. “You gotta check out this pit bull. His name is Brandon, after Brandon Roy, who played basketball for the Washington Huskies. Stepped on glass at a construction site.”

Inside the treatment room, Uncle Sanjay is fixing the paw while Duff holds Brandon. We watch from the doorway. The dog’s back right foot has a big ugly bleeding cut with the skin hanging off. My stomach turns upside down.

Uncle Sanjay is pouring liquid into the wound.

“He’s getting the dirt out to prevent infection,” Hawk whispers. “He gave Brandon a local anesthetic to numb the area.”

Blood drips onto the floor. My legs turn to rubber.

Uncle Sanjay glances up at me. “You all right?”

I am not going to pass out. “I’m fine,” I say. The air thickens. I’m having trouble breathing.

“Come in and watch,” Uncle Sanjay says.

Okay, here I go. We step inside.

Uncle Sanjay smears liquid from a tube onto the flap of skin; then he presses the skin back onto Brandon’s foot and holds it there. “This is tissue glue. The army created it for soldiers in the field. If an animal is wounded, apply firm pressure, like this. Very important. If the blood is spurting, it’s probably coming from an artery, so you apply pressure above the wound.”

The room begins to shrink. Does Uncle Sanjay realize he’s making me even queasier?

“If it’s a steady flow, the blood is probably from a vein,” he goes on. “You need to apply pressure below the cut—”

“Hey, Poppy’s looking kind of white,” Duff says.

Hawk grins. “Yeah, she’s gonna faint.” I want to slap him.

Uncle Sanjay looks up again, clearly surprised. “Oh, my dear niece.”

Brandon begins to fidget and whine. Duff holds him tighter. She must see my worried face, because she says, “He’s mostly upset about being held. Half the time, that’s why an animal cries. Not because of pain. Some animals just hate being restrained. You only got so much time until they lose it. Hurry, Doc.”

“I’ve got it.” Uncle Sanjay wraps Brandon’s foot in a purple and gold bandage. “You wrap from the bottom
up; otherwise you cut off the blood supply to the paw, and the foot swells.”

Brandon leaves wearing a cone, called an Elizabethan collar, around his neck, to keep him from chewing the bandage off his foot.

I follow Uncle Sanjay into his office. “How do you do that? How come the blood doesn’t bother you?”

“Oh, I’ve felt sick many times, but after a while, I learned to be calm, inside and out. When you’re calm, the animal calms down, too.”

“But all the blood—”

“I look past the blood, past the damage. Once, in the late stages of my training, I saw a cow that had its eye gouged out. The eyeball was hanging from the socket. I pictured what I could do to fix what was broken. In that moment, I no longer felt queasy. I believe, in part, we feel faint when we feel helpless. We are stronger when we begin to see the possibilities, to see what we can do.”

I’m not yet sure what I can do. I see Shopsy going home covered in patches of bare skin, and I see the blood seeping from Brandon’s paw.

But then, right before closing time, Bremolo comes in for a checkup. He trots around the hospital, wagging his tail. Harvey is dressed up in a dinner jacket and pressed slacks, his white hair neatly combed to the side.

“The leg looks good,” Uncle Sanjay says.

“That old dog is doing so well,” Harvey says, grinning. “Runs around the house like he’s a puppy again. Doesn’t even notice that missing leg.”

Saundra pats Bremolo on the head and gives Harvey a fake smile. “You look nice. Going on a date?”

Harvey straightens his jacket and pats his hair. “Dinner at the Witless Cove Pizzeria with Liana Lopez. Taking Bremolo with me. Liana has a dog, too.”

I grab a sample bag of dog treats from the kennel room and hand them to Harvey. I’m smiling. “The dog’s name is Lulu. Here, this is for Bremolo to take on his date with her.”

Chapter Eighteen
DUCK ON THE LOOSE

M
y second Wednesday at the clinic, Duff grabs my sleeve and drags me into an exam room. Inside, Uncle Sanjay is talking to a man who looks like Santa Claus except for his Hawaiian shirt. He brought in a big cardboard box labeled
DOLE
, with pictures of bananas on the sides.

“Bananas?” I ask.

Uncle Sanjay presses his finger to his lips to shush me.

“I’m sure the poor fella was hit by a car,” the man
whispers. “He was wobbling at the side of the road, on his last legs, God bless his little soul. He let me pick him right up. Good thing I had the box.”

Oh no.

Uncle Sanjay ushers me over. He lifts a flap on the box and I peek inside. I’m looking at … a duck!

“Is that a geoduck?” I ask in awe, remembering the bumper sticker on the back of Uncle Sanjay’s truck:
GEODUCK FOR STATE BIRD
.

Everyone goes quiet. Hawk grins, like he’s holding in laughter. Duff stares at me.

“Uh, not exactly,” Uncle Sanjay says. “You pronounce it
goo-ey-duck
, and it isn’t really a bird. A geoduck is the biggest burrowing clam in the world.”

I blush.
A clam?
“Um, so, cool. What kind of duck is this?”

“A male mallard,” Uncle Sanjay says.

I’ve never seen a duck up close. The feathers on his head shimmer in green and gold. A ring of white encircles his neck like a string of pearls.

“What’s wrong with him?” I whisper back.

“We don’t know yet,” Uncle Sanjay says. “Perhaps a shattered wing—perhaps something worse.”

The duck isn’t moving. I wonder if it’s going to die.

“What should we do?” Duff whispers. “We could send him to the wildlife rehab center up in Freetown….”

“Not sure he’d survive the drive,” Uncle Sanjay says grimly.

Duff runs her fingers through her stiff, sprayed hair. “Ducks mate for life. He has a female waiting for him; you can be sure of that.”

My insides melt. A mate. Maybe babies, too. Another animal hit by a car, and the bad guys got away. I’m beginning to hate cars.

Santa scratches his head. “I found him near a big pond. Maybe his mate is still there waiting.”

“Let’s see what we can see.” Uncle Sanjay opens the box. I clutch the seaglass in my pocket.

Uncle Sanjay reaches into the box, but in a flurry of feathers, the duck takes off. Just like that, he spreads his wings and flies out the door and all the way down the hall.

“Cool,” Hawk says.

Stu whines. He’s probably thinking, Duck = food. But Duff’s holding his collar. “Oh, no you don’t. Ducks are not dinner for doggies.”

The mallard lands at the end of the hall and waddles around, quacking.

“Oh heck!” Santa says. “What do we do now?”

“Quiet,” Uncle Sanjay says. “We don’t want him to try to fly and hit the window. He could break his neck. We need to walk over there quietly. Grab his wings so he doesn’t fly.”

“We need a net,” Duff whispers.

“Where are we supposed to find a net?” Saundra asks, hands on her hips.

The duck waddles into the women’s bathroom. I tiptoe down the hall.

“Where are you going, Poppy?” Hawk whispers, but I’m already at the bathroom door, my heart pounding. I stare at the duck and he stares at me.

“You have to go home to your mate,” I whisper to him. “Your babies need you.”

The duck toddles over near the toilet, flutters his wings.

“Come on, don’t fly away,” I whisper.

I have only one chance.

I lunge forward and grab the duck, clamping my hands down over his wings. He’s heavy and strong. He tries to flap, but I hold on, making sure not to squeeze too tight. Every molecule inside me knows I can’t let go. If I do, he’ll fly into the window and die.

“Hold on, Poppy!” Uncle Sanjay rushes over with the box. “Drop him in here.”

I release the duck inside the box. My heart is racing. Uncle Sanjay presses down the flaps. “Well done, my dear niece!”

I let out a long breath of relief; my hands are trembling. Everyone pats me on the back, and even Saundra gives me a smile. I’m starting to glow.

Chapter Nineteen
MOONSHADOW