A Cat Named Darwin by William Jordan

Author:William Jordan [Jordan, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

9. Hospice Care

THE WEEKS PASSED. Our bond deepened, grew more subtle. Things were good. One afternoon at the beginning of March, I was sitting at my desk, writing and pondering, when Darwin came down the hall to my office. He walked slowly, tentatively, as if he weren't sure where he wanted to go, and while his movement appeared normal at first glance, something was not right. The sort of thing you don't recognize at the time but notice with shock later, in retrospection. He walked into my office and meowed softly, a sigh of weariness and melancholy. He wandered over to the window behind my chair and crouched to jump onto the sill, where he liked to stretch out and gaze down on the neighbor's garden through half-closed eyes. He tried to jump, but he could not get off the ground and fell back feebly.

He tried again, pawing weakly at the sill, his white booties soft against the surface of the wall. Then he sank slowly to the floor, his footpads leaving eight parallel smudges in long streaks on the flat whiteness of the wall as his paws slid slowly downward.

Such a small, quiet act. The mind's cold blue eye observed, taking notes. Whatever was happening to Darwin bore no resemblance to the gradual loss of weight and spirit that the feline leukemia virus was supposed to cause. I had prepared myself for that, primed myself to watch for the slow incursions on life, but this display did not match the medical prognosis. Electrified with panic, I ran down the stairs to the storeroom, pulled the transport box from the shelf, strode back up the stairs, and picked Darwin up. He offered himself limply, without spirit, and I placed him gently in the dark interior of the box. I knew then that whatever the matter was, it was serious.

***

Dr. Mader lifted Darwin up, laid him on the stainless steel examining slab, looked in his mouth.

"His gums are pale—not getting enough oxygen. Let's keep him overnight." With one needle he took a blood sample. With another he gave a shot of tetracycline. Then a young technician picked Darwin up and carried him into the inner sanctum of the medical room. Somewhere within, a cat mewled and a small dog yapped inside their cubicles of stainless steel.

I returned home to a lonely space. Darwin's water bowl sat on the kitchen floor and his food bowl rested clean and shiny on the kitchen counter. Everywhere I looked I saw his limp, listless body in the assistant's arms, the stainless steel door shutting behind them. The cold mind, the rational one, then rose from my body to observe my writhing emotions. Why do these images of Darwin come up, asked the blue intellect? Why does the brain produce clear images of Darwin when he is not here? Why does the brain produce such pain on the absence of a mere cat? The questions were now posted. Subsequent observations, subsequent cogitations might produce the answers.

At nine the next morning the telephone rang.

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