He came into the clinic at my hip, went to his bed in the corner of the waiting room, turned a circle on it, and lay down. I turned the lights on. I started the coffee.
Steve was on the filing cabinet in the back. He blinked at me with the yellow eye and the half-shut one. Marisol had started putting his food bowl on top of the cabinet rather than on the floor, and Steve had decided this was a reasonable arrangement.
I hung my coat on the hook in the back office. The crewneck was on the chair where it had been for three weeks. I'd been wearing it the morning he left and hadn't taken it home since.
I hung my coat next to it and went to the front.
The bell went off at seven-twenty.
I'd unlocked the front door at seven. I wasn't expecting a patient until eight-fifteen. The bell at seven-twenty belonged to someone who didn't have an appointment.
Joe Caldwell was through the door before the bell stopped.
He was holding his cat. One hand under his shoulders, one hand cupped under his hips—no carrier, because there hadn't been time. Marjorie. A big orange tabby, twelve years old, named after his late wife, the year she died.
The cat was in trouble. He wasn't vocalizing anymore, which was the wrong sign. His belly was the wrong shape under Caldwell's arm. His eyes were the eyes of a cat who'd been straining at a litter box since one in the morning and was, at seven-twenty, finished trying.
"Astrid."
His voice came out the way it does when a man has run from his car to a door. No fleece vest. No clasped hands at his waist. He said my name without a single second budgeted for pride.
"Joe."
I came around the counter.
"How long has he been blocked?"
"Since the night."
"Are you sure?"
"I checked the box at two. He'd been in and out of it for the hour before. By four, he stopped going to it. By six, his belly was this shape. I was at my clinic by six-fifteen."
"You tried to pass a catheter."
"I tried."
"Couldn't?"
"My vaporizer is leaking. I noticed it last week. I told myself I'd call the rep on Monday. I can't sedate him this morning, Astrid. I can't sedate him without putting him under in a room I can't breathe in."
He was looking at the floor of my waiting room.
"I drove him over. Hudson Valley is forty minutes. He doesn't have forty minutes."
I came around the counter the rest of the way.
"Joe. Back exam room. First door on the left. Lay him on his side. I'm right behind you."
He went.
I went to the back office, pulled a fresh smock on over my sweater, and came into the exam room in ten seconds. He had Marjorie on the table, on his side. Caldwell's hand was on his flank.
"Joe. I need you in the waiting room."
"Astrid."
"I have to sedate him, pass a catheter, run fluids, and pull a blood gas. I have a clean vaporizer, an IV pump, and a bench analyzer that's going to tell me what his potassium is in two minutes, which is what's going to keep him alive on the table. I can't do any of it with you on this side of the door. Go sit on the bench. Marisol is going to bring you coffee."
