Ninth Life by Lauren Wright Douglas

Author:Lauren Wright Douglas [Lauren Wright Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594932724
Amazon: B0082YUXHQ
Barnesnoble: B0082YUXHQ
Goodreads: 1753509
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2011-11-14T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“Depressed?” I shouted at Emma Neely. “How can he possibly be depressed? He’s a cat! One of God’s chosen creatures. A day of tests, a hundred and eighty dollars in bills, and this is your diagnosis? Depression? Give me a break! I could have consulted a witch doctor for less. And maybe gotten the same results. I’ll tell you who’s depressed—I’m depressed!”

The patient favored me with a pernicious yellow gaze. Emma looked at me reproachfully. Ginny gave me a smoldering stare she probably saved for animal abusers. All this combined disapproval worked. I felt like a worm.

“Caitlin,” Emma said soothingly, “believe me, I know what I’m talking about. There’s not a thing wrong with him, physically.”

“But . . .”

“But logic dictates that there’s a reason for his aberrant behavior.”

“Hmmph,” I opined. “It could just be feline perversity, couldn’t it?”

“There’s no such thing,” Ginny said hotly. “There are only dumb feline owners.”

Emma gave Ginny a “better humor the client” look, and she subsided.

I didn’t understand. “Are you saying that Repo’s gone around the bend? Emma, cats just don’t get depressed.”

Repo did not dignify these remarks with so much as a twitch of a whisker. I noted, however, that he did arrange his ears in Stealth Bomber configuration—a sign of incipient bad humor. Not a good omen. I could now look forward to a really enthusiastic feline manicure performed on the back of my armchair.

“Take Repo back to his cage, why don’t you, Ginny?” Emma suggested. With a flounce of her braids, Ginny scooped Repo up and marched into the back room, doubtless to commiserate with him about the mental capacity of his owner.

“Ginny will take care of Repo,” Emma said. “C’mon into my office. We’re closed, so we can chat a little. And not about Repo, either. About you, and why I only see you once a year.”

I followed Emma’s white-coated shape into her office—a cubbyhole only big enough to contain her battered, secondhand desk and filing cabinet. She opened the filing cabinet and began to stuff manila folders inside, giving me time to compose my answer.

Why did she only see me once a year? I stood morosely, hands in pockets, looking out the window at the dark autumn sky. It was just eight o’clock, but all the light was gone from the day. Now it seemed as though we were in limbo, trapped in an eerie slate-colored world which was neither day nor night. The rain which had threatened since afternoon had finally begun in earnest, and slipped down the glass like separate streams of tears.

“It’s not just you, Em,” I told her, deciding on the truth. “I’m no good at . . . continuity. I don’t get around to seeing people as often as I should.”

She took off her white vet’s smock and hung it on a coatrack, then took a seat in the chair behind her desk. Running a hand through her curly hair, she looked at me levelly. “Well, I think it’s a damned shame. What’re you afraid of?”

Opening a drawer she plunked a bottle of Chivas Regal on the desk.

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