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I’ll brief Maria later. I need to return to the kitten.
She has fleas, which I pick off her by hand. She barely flinches as I examine her throat, chest, and body.
“You’ll feel so much better here,” I tell her, stroking her tiny ear. She almost purrs, the faintest crumbly sound, but falls asleep.
My lead vet tech, Maria, enters the treatment space, wiping down her blue scrubs with a wet paper towel. One of our patients must have gotten her good. “How’s the kitten?”
“I picked off fleas, but when she’s more stable, we’ll want to treat her to get any eggs.”
Maria nods. “Poor thing.”
“Write up something for Mrs.Evers. She switched food and Bennie won’t eat. Just how to transition a diet.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, and I scared the new girl. Be nice to her.”
Maria peers at me over her glasses. She’s ten years my senior and great at handling the staff. “We already are. You, my friend, are the problem.”
I grunt in acknowledgment as Maria heads back to an exam room.
We’re nearing the end of the day. A quick look at the schedule on the wall monitor shows that there’s only a couple of vaccinations that the techs will handle unless something goes wrong.
I pull a tall stool next to the exam table where the Persian kitten lies on her side, her perfect little paws stretched out in an elegant cross.No telling how long she’s had to survive on her own, or how she got into this circumstance.
Humans don’t deserve these creatures.
The treatment space remains quiet. We don’t have any surgical cases in the recovery kennels today. It’s only the kitten with me in the long room of exam tables. I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest until my irritation starts to ease.
Todd, another tech, passes through to the storage room. He gives a quick nod in acknowledgment that I’m there, nothing more.
That’s the level of interaction that works best for me.
The kitten stirs, turning her white head to look at me. When I lean close, she lifts a paw, claws out, and gives a wee hiss. Now that’s an excellent sign.
“I had a feeling you might perk up once you were warm and fed.”
She stumbles to her feet, looking around. When I reach out to keep her from leaping off the exam table, she curls around my hand, biting my knuckles.
“I see how it is.” I laugh and pick her up. “You were waiting to see if I’m friend or foe.”
Now that she’s in the air, she clings to me, her blue eyes watching my face.
“Hmm. Should we see if you’ll drink?”
I carry her to the counter and fill a small dish with fresh water. “What do you think?”
She sniffs at the dish and takes a few delicate licks.
Good enough. She’s going to be fine.
I wait a moment until she’s finished drinking and wiping her whiskers, then pick her up. “Let’s get you in a kennel before you escape, then we’ll set up your flea bath.”
I walk her over to one of the larger cat cages, already prepared for her with a litter box, a scratching post, and a bed. She wanders her surroundings, sniffing, a paw reaching out to bat the fuzzy ball attached to the post.
I can finally relax. Amazing how they bounce back. I watch her a moment, and for some reason I think of Ensley’s mom. She died when Ensley was young, but I remember her. She had a fierceness to her, a tough layer beneath her loveliness and grace.
“Why, of all the cats I’ve seen, do you make me think of Sasha?” I ask the kitten.
