Love Saves the Day (38 page)

“But she’ll be okay, right?” Laura willed Josh to look at her, but his eyes stayed fixed on the wall. “You got Prudence here quickly and they’ll be able to … to fix her, won’t they?”

Josh’s hands rose to cover his face. “I don’t know. They’re still working on her. Nobody’s been able to tell me anything yet.” Josh rose and began pacing the room again. When he finally turned to Laura, his eyes were outraged. “Why doesn’t anybody
tell
you something like this? There should be a … I don’t know, a
manual
or a warning label that gets sent home with every cat, with a picture of a lily in one of those big red circles with a line through it. I didn’t know.” His voice was ragged. “I had no idea. I would
never
have let those flowers into our house if … if I’d …”

“You couldn’t have known, Josh,” Laura said, softly. “I had a cat growing up, and I didn’t know, either. You did the right thing. You brought her here, and that’s the best possible thing you could have done for her.”

Josh nodded, although he looked unconvinced, and came to sit by Laura once again.

The minutes ticked by, marked by an oversized clock above the reception desk, until Laura was so tense from the
ticktock ticktock
she thought she might scream and hurl the nearest blunt object at the thing. Twice she walked over to the reception desk and asked, in a hushed voice, if there was any word yet about Prudence Broder? The first time, the dark-haired woman—wearing blue
scrubs and a nose ring—pressed Laura’s hand and said, “I was sorry to hear about your mother,
mamí
.” Laura was unable to respond beyond nodding and leaving her hand in the receptionist’s for a moment. As she returned to her seat, a black-skinned man in a white
guayabera
walked in with a large green parrot perched on his shoulder.
“Hello, this is Oliver. Hello, this is Oliver,”
the parrot squawked. “Hel
lo
, Oliver,” the receptionist greeted the parrot in a cheerful, trilling voice, and the three of them—man, woman, and bird—disappeared through a swinging door into an exam room. The receptionist returned in time to welcome a large woman carrying a tiny dog of indeterminate breed, wearing a pink sweater and attached to a rhinestone-studded leash. “Dr. Luk is waiting for you and Pancake in exam room three,” the receptionist told the woman. “You can go on back.”

Laura rose and walked to the reception desk again. Was there anything the receptionist could tell them? Any news about Prudence at all? “Dr. DeMeola is with her right now.” The receptionist’s voice was so sympathetic that it made Laura’s heart lurch, certain the news could only be bad. “She’ll be out to update you as soon as she can.” Laura nodded once more and returned to her seat next to Josh. She tried flipping through one of the magazines in the basket next to her, but page after glossy page filled with photos of other people’s happy, healthy cats did nothing to ease the knot in her stomach. Finally, she gave up and tossed the magazine back into its basket.

“You never told me you had a cat when you were growing up,” Josh said suddenly.

“Well, she was our upstairs neighbors’ cat.” Laura smiled wanly. “But we were close. She … died. When I was fourteen.”

Josh’s long legs were stretched out in front of him, and Laura studied his jeans. They’d come home one Sunday afternoon to find Prudence sleeping comfortably on them where Josh had tossed them across the bed, and Josh hadn’t had the heart to make her move. There were a couple of snags where Prudence’s claws must have caught them. “I had a cat when I was a kid, too,” Josh said after a moment. “For about five minutes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was fifteen. I had my first after-school job at a Sizzler near our house, but I didn’t have my driver’s license yet. So my dad would come to pick me up at the end of my shift. One night we found this cat, sitting in the middle of the street. He had been hit by a car. He was just kind of wagging his head, you know? People were honking and honking at him, but he wouldn’t move. I got out of the car and wrapped him up in this blanket we kept in the trunk. My father drove to the nearest emergency animal hospital as fast as he could.”

Josh shifted slightly, leaning his head back to rest it on the wall behind their bench. “I remember holding this cat, his eyes were open and staring up at me, and he was panting so hard. He must have been in shock. The whole time my father was driving, I kept thinking,
Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die
. When we got to the hospital, the vet on duty examined him and said he could save the cat, but it would cost a lot of money and the cat would need a lot of looking after while he was recovering. My dad explained that he wasn’t our cat, and that we couldn’t take him home with us because of our dog. That’s when the vet said that maybe the best thing to do would be to euthanize him, so at least he wouldn’t suffer anymore.”

Josh fell silent. Laura didn’t know if the pity choking her throat was for the cat in the story, or for the boy Josh had been—the boy who was now a man and still didn’t understand why there should have to be such a thing as suffering in the world.

“But I thought,
no
. I thought if I could go home and call all my friends, surely one of them would offer to take him. I had a girlfriend, Cindy, and she had cats, and I thought maybe her parents would agree to take him. My father wanted to euthanize the cat while we were there, but I talked him into taking me home and letting me try. I thought I at least had to
try
.

“Of course,” Josh continued, “I couldn’t find anybody who was willing to take on the financial burden of some cat they didn’t know who might require all kinds of long-term care. I called everybody I could think of, but they all said no. I guess it was stupid of
me to think someone might take him. I was only fifteen, what did I know? My dad called the vet hospital and told them to go ahead and euthanize the cat. But they couldn’t do it without my dad coming in to sign some paperwork first. And my dad, who’d been working all day, was so angry. Here it was, nearly midnight, and he had to drive all the way back to the animal hospital. I was in my bedroom on the phone with Cindy, and my father came in and yelled at me for all the trouble and inconvenience I was putting him through, and to tell me how selfish I’d been.

“Cindy could hear him shouting. I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse. The cat was going to die. I’d made all this extra work for my father, and he was yelling at me. And my girlfriend could
hear
him yelling. You know how the most embarrassing thing in the world when you’re a teenager is for your friends to hear your parents yell at you.” Laura, who had only ever been yelled at by Sarah once, and never in front of her friends, nodded anyway. “When he left, Cindy said,
Listen to me, Josh. Listen to me. You’re a good person. You’re a
good person,
Josh, and you did a good thing. Don’t listen to what your father said
.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I ever came as close to hating my dad as I did that night.”

“I can understand that,” Laura said softly.

Josh looked up at her. “My parents were having money problems then, although they didn’t tell us at the time. That’s why he was working such long hours, why he was so tired at the end of his day. He worried about me so I could have the luxury of worrying about a stray cat.” He held her gaze. “I can see where you might think I was doing the same thing now, letting you worry about money so I can worry about other things. That’s not what I’ve been doing, but I understand how it could look that way.”

Laura was silent for a moment. Then she said, “You never told me that story.”

“No,” Josh agreed. “I guess I try to only tell you the good ones.” His left hand plucked at the folds on the sleeve of his sweater. Laura saw the glint of his wedding band as it caught the light. “There are a lot of stories you haven’t told
me
. I wish you would.”

Her chest and throat were so heavy with tears that wouldn’t
come out, she could hardly speak. She looked down at her own hands. “What if my stories aren’t good?” she whispered.

He laughed. The sound incongruous in the humid air of the waiting room. “What do you think, I got married so I could hear
interesting
stories for the rest of my life?” Laura lifted her eyes to his face and saw that he was smiling at her.

Josh slid closer to her on the bench, putting one arm around her shoulders and drawing her to his chest. She rested her head in the curve of his neck and smelled the familiar scents of his aftershave, of their home. “She’ll be okay, Laura,” Josh said, and Laura didn’t know if he was trying to convince her or himself. “Prudence is tougher than we give her credit for. We’ll take her home, and she’ll go right back to throwing things on the floor and bossing us around.” Laura tried to laugh, although it came out sounding strangled. She felt Josh’s hand stroke her hair. “We love her too much for anything bad to happen to her.”

“That doesn’t always matter.” Laura’s voice was still thick. “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

“This isn’t one of those times.” He kissed the top of her head, murmuring against her hair. “You’ll see.”

The door behind the reception desk swung open and a young woman with curly brown hair wearing a white coat emerged. “Mr. and Mrs. Broder?”

“Yes,” Laura said, rising quickly to her feet.

Josh rose, too. “How’s Prudence? Will she be okay?”

“We’ve done what we can for her. We had to induce vomiting for a while.” At the look of dismay on their faces, the doctor added gently, “It
is
very unpleasant for the cat, but it was necessary. What we want is to stop the toxins from the lilies from getting into her system and reaching her kidneys. We have her on an IV fluid drip right now, to flush everything out and give her kidneys some extra support. We also have her on a charcoal drip, to coat her intestines and help prevent any further toxins from being absorbed. We’ve drawn some blood, but we won’t get the results back until tomorrow.” She paused, the hint of a frown creasing her forehead. “Prudence is unconscious right now, which is unusual. We’re not sure
what’s causing it. I’d feel a lot better about her odds if she were awake.” She hesitated, then looked at them. “Generally, with lilies and potential kidney problems, we like to keep them here at least three days. There are also some additional tests we’d like to run, and that can get a bit expensive. If money is an issue …”

“Money’s no issue at all,” Laura said. “Do whatever you have to do for her. Can we see her?”

“Typically we don’t like to bring people back into the tech area.” The veterinarian looked at Laura and Josh, and Laura knew how much anxiety could be read in their eyes. “I’d feel a lot better, though, if Prudence was awake. Her vitals are shakier than they should be just from the lily toxicity. I think it’d be okay if one of you came back. Sometimes their moms can do more for them than we can.” Touching the sleeve of Laura’s jacket, she added, “We were all so sorry to hear about your mother, Mrs. Broder. Sarah was a good soul. Everybody here really liked her.”

“Thank you,” Laura murmured. Giving Josh’s arm one last squeeze, she followed Dr. DeMeola back through the swinging door and up a narrow flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was a large white room filled with kennels. Prudence lay in one of them, as still as something dead. Laura could barely even see the rise and fall of her abdomen as she breathed. Her front legs had been shaved for the insertion of drips and tubes, and the flesh that had lain hidden beneath her white socks was pink and vulnerable-looking. Laura couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Prudence without her little red collar, and the fur of her neck looked naked without it.

“I’ll leave you alone with her for a few minutes,” Dr. DeMeola said, unlatching the door to Prudence’s kennel and walking noiselessly out.

Laura crouched down to bring her head closer to Prudence’s. In a low voice she said, “Hi, Prudence. Hi, my sweet girl.” Tears rose in her eyes as she saw how silent and still Prudence remained. “The doctor says you’ll be just fine in a few days, and then you can come home. But we’d all feel better if you’d wake up and say hi to us.” She waited for a sign that Prudence could hear her, a tiny
meow, a twitching paw, anything. But Prudence remained utterly still.

Laura brought her face to the fur of Prudence’s neck, whispering into it, “I’m sorry, Prudence. I’m so sorry I yelled at you this morning. I don’t really want you to leave me alone.” Laura began to stroke the fur of her back, combing her fingers through the way she knew Prudence liked. “I couldn’t stand it if you left me. Please, Prudence. Can’t you try to open your eyes for me? Just a little? Josh and I love you so much. Please don’t leave us, Prudence. You don’t know how much of me you’d be taking with you if you did.”

Laura looked down at Prudence’s still, silent form, and thought of her mother, of the way Prudence had nestled in Sarah’s arms and given her the love Laura herself had always felt, even after she’d lost the words to tell her mother so. She had wanted to get past the wall of words Sarah had put up between the two of them, had desperately wanted to say something
real
. But everything she tried to say to her mother ended up coming out wrong. Why was it that, with a cat, issues of love and trust could be so straightforward? Was it because a cat could love you for your better self, the self you wanted to be and knew you could be, if not for the endless complications of human relationships?

Their moms
, the vet had said. Was she a “mom”—could she be a mom to the baby she was carrying? For she realized now that she wanted this child, even if she was pregnant only because of the two or three morning pills she now realized she had forgotten to take a few months back. She wanted her child and she wanted Josh, even if he never worked another day in his life. And she wanted Prudence. She’d lost the Mandelbaums, and Honey, and her mother. Laura couldn’t bear to lose one more thing that she loved.

It was Sarah who’d been a mother to both her and Prudence, who would have been a grandmother to this unborn child. It was Sarah who should be here right now, for all their sakes. It wasn’t fair … it wasn’t fair at all …