Other People's Pets

by R. L. Maizes

  A young veterinarian with a cartoon character’s round head and acne scars has just returned a cat to his owner. The vet wears the top of his blue scrubs inside out, the label visible and a thread trailing off a seam. After introducing himself to La La, Dr. Bergman scoops Mo into his arms. He has La La sit down and asks her what she’s feeling. “It could be that you’re allergic to something in the clinic,” he says, and he makes the unorthodox suggestion that he examine Mo in Zev’s car.

  As soon as La La exits the clinic, she feels better. She climbs into the back seat of her father’s car, while Zev gets into the front. He starts the engine and turns up the heat. When the veterinarian joins them, he carries a black bag. He listens to Mo’s heart and lungs, looks at her ears and toes, and pushes on her abdomen. “Well, Mona, you’re healthy,” he says.

  “It’s just Mo,” La La says. “I named her after my mother.”

  “A fine name.” Dr. Bergman puts away his otoscope. “We’ll give Mo her initial vaccinations today.” He writes what the cat needs on a prescription pad. “When you get home, call to schedule her spay surgery,” he says to Zev.

  “How much is that going to cost?” Zev asks.

  “We offer monthly payment plans.”

  “Monthly payment plans,” Zev repeats, drawing out the words as if they’re in a foreign language.

  A man steps out of the clinic, a husky limping at his side, and La La flinches, grabbing her knee.

  “Did you injure yourself?” the doctor asks.

  “No.”

  “Think carefully. You’re sure you didn’t hurt yourself?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The vet regards La La with renewed interest. “We just did surgery on that husky’s anterior cruciate ligament.”

  “English,” Zev says.

  “His knee.” Dr. Bergman follows the husky’s progress through the parking lot before turning back to La La. “Do you always feel what animals around you feel?”

  Just that week, she shared the thirst of a poodle chained outside a coffee shop, his fear of a passerby’s wide-brimmed hat, and the trembling excitement of a cat on a hunt. “I guess so.”

  “I’ve heard about animal empaths, but I’ve never met one,” the veterinarian says.

  Zev glances over his shoulder. “Animal what?”

  “You’re a remarkable young girl.” The doctor nods, agreeing with himself.

  Remarkable, La La mouths, the m like a kiss.

  “I’m glad you’re keeping Mo,” Dr. Bergman says. “I’ll visit you sometimes if it’s okay with your father. Bring a patient. To help with treatment, but also to allow you to develop your skills.” Clicking his pen open and closed, the doctor asks Zev, “No school today?”

  “I homeschool her.”

  “That explains it.” The doctor takes Mo inside for shots, forgetting his black bag on the seat. Ten minutes later, a vet tech brings the kitten back. She grabs the bag. “He’s been looking all over for this.”

  “What a nut,” Zev says, as they drive home.

  La La is sorry the appointment is over. She likes Dr. Bergman.

  * * *

  About once a month, Dr. Bergman stops by the house. When he calls to say he’s coming, La La tenses, her muscles contracting in anticipation of the pain his visit might bring. She’s felt the aching belly of a dog who ate a sock and the broken leg of a cat who tumbled from a window, and a rabbit with a respiratory infection made her wheeze. Nevertheless, she looks forward to seeing Dr. Bergman, to the treats he brings for Mo and the books for her, Black Beauty, Charlotte’s Web, Lassie.

  On one such visit, the doctor arrives with a dog who won’t stop scratching. “He has allergies,” the veterinarian says. The Weimaraner was the runt of the litter, and the breeder couldn’t get rid of him. His tail is docked, and his ears hang like flags on a windless day. The side of La La’s head and her ribs throb where the breeder kicked the dog. “He has to eat a special diet, duck and potato, no corn or wheat,” says Dr. Bergman.

  “They gave dogs leftovers when I was growing up,” Zev calls from the hall. He always stays close by when the doctor visits.

  “Add two fish oil tablets to his dinner,” Dr. Bergman tells La La before stepping out of the room. “Weimaraners make excellent watchdogs,” he says to Zev.

  Returning to La La’s bedroom, the vet scratches Mo under the chin. “Looking good, Mona,” he says. La La has given up correcting him.

  “Hell of a nerve dumping a dog on us,” her father says after Dr. Bergman drives away, though Zev agreed to take the Weimaraner and is already cutting a length of rope for a leash. La La names the dog Tiny.

  Mo and Tiny sleep with La La. On nights when La La thrashes with a recurring nightmare, her mother flying away in a silver spaceship that recedes until it isn’t even a dot in the sky, Tiny wakes her, nudging her ankles with his cold, wet snout. La La clasps Mo to her heart, the cat’s softness soothing her.

  * * *

  At the dining room table, from a book like the one she used in school, Zev tries to teach La La math. Explaining fractions for the third time, he breaks his pencil point. “Ask Dr. Bergman,” he says, shoving the book away.

  For her reading lessons, La La goes through the newspaper’s crime section, checking to see if their burglaries were reported. She reads wedding announcements and scans obituaries for funeral times, then looks up the addresses of family members in phone books. While families celebrate and mourn, Zev and La La rob their homes.

  Zev’s idea of physical education is to have La La climb through their dining room window and scale their fence. With Tiny beside her, she does sprints in the backyard, training for a time when she and her father might have to run.

  During his next visit, Dr. Bergman shows La La the crusty scales on a parakeet’s feet and describes how to treat them. La La squats to scratch her toes and notices the doctor wears one brown sock and one blue.

  Returning the parakeet to its cage, the doctor says, “After you treat the bird, clean out the cage to get rid of the mites.”

  “Blech,” says La La, but even as she says it, she can feel them crawling beneath the scales, feeding on the bird’s skin, their hunger no different from the parakeet’s or hers at dinnertime.

  “I’m pretty sure the bird doesn’t like them, either,” Dr. Bergman says.

  “They’re nasty to the bird, but nice to themselves.” La La wonders if all creatures are like that, taking care of themselves at the expense of others.

  “Well put.”

  With her finger, La La spells out the words “well put” across the top of her desk, adding a five-pointed star at the end. Then she touches her math textbook. “My father said you could help me.”

  The doctor scratches his ear. “I’m not really a teacher. At least not that kind.” But when he explains fractions, La La understands. “What does your father teach you in science?” he asks.

  La La thinks for a minute. She wants the doctor to like Zev. She remembers her father explaining how a crowbar works. Drawing a diagram, she presents it to the doctor. “We’re studying force and leverage,” she says, proud to have remembered the fancy words. In the hall, Zev coughs so hard La La wonders if she should get him some water.

  The doctor studies the diagram. Lines appear between his eyes as he reaches for his pen. Click, click, click, click.

  After the veterinarian leaves, Zev tears up the image of the crowbar wedged between door and frame. “He asks too many questions,” Zev says. “Maybe he shouldn’t come over.”

  “I like him,” La La says. “And no one else visits me.”

  Zev drops the shredded paper in the trash basket. “He’s so flaky, he probably doesn’t remember anything, anyway.”

  La La doesn’t think the doctor is flaky, not in the ways that count.

  * * *

  “She’s here. I smell her,” La La says, standing in a stranger’s master bedroom.

  Zev smells it too, the rose fragrance he bought Elissa every year
on her birthday. “It’s just her perfume.” Still, he can’t help imagining his wife lying on the enormous bed, reading the mystery on the elegant white nightstand.

  “It’s her.” La La remains in the middle of the room, though normally she stands watch at a window. She lifts her nose.

  Examining the contents of a dresser drawer, Zev says, “It’s not her.”

  La La pokes her head into a cavernous walk-in closet.

  “You’re in the way.” Zev pushes past her. Cherry-picks the most valuable pieces from a jewelry box. Elissa wore tie-dyed shirts and roughed-up cowboy boots, but the woman of the house owns high heels and designer silks. Yet who’s to say Elissa didn’t buy a new wardrobe to go with her new life?

  “We should leave her a note.”

  “No,” Zev says.

  “To let her know we’re not mad,” La La calls after him, as he exits the room. “We just want her to come home.”

  He catches La La moments later in the den, writing on a monogrammed pad. Dear Mom, she began, followed by three hearts.

  Zev snatches the pad. He tears off the top sheet, balls up the paper, and stuffs it into his pocket. “You’ll get us caught. Your mother doesn’t live here. Even if she did, why do you think she would want to come home? She knows where to find us.”

  “Maybe she has amnesia.”

  His daughter’s been watching too many soap operas. La La runs back toward the master bedroom.

  “We have to go!” Zev examines a photo on the desk. The woman in the picture—stiff, blond hair falling over a crisp pastel blouse—looks nothing like Elissa. He feels like smashing it. “Now!”

  In La La’s room later that day, her blanket, clothes, even the damp towel on the bed smell of roses. Zev bought the perfume to please Elissa, and occasionally she wore it to excite him. Her casual touches transferred it to his skin. Closing his eyes, he inhales deeply. When he opens his eyes, loss coats him like a tarnish no amount of polish can remove.

  His daughter knows better than to take items from homes. That’s his job. And they never keep anything that can link them to the burglaries. He’ll punish her, take away TV for a week and refuse to buy the expensive treats Tiny loves. Searching the room, he finds the bottle under her pillow. He’s about to put it in his pocket when he changes his mind. Removing the cap, he pumps a cloud above his head and lets the fragrance rain down.

  That night, La La has the dream, her mother soaring away, but this time the rocket fuel smells like roses.

  * * *

  In La La’s bedroom, Dr. Bergman assembles a set of anatomical models he says are being replaced in his office, though they look new. After they examine the leg on the canine model, Dr. Bergman has La La feel the bones in Tiny’s leg. He shows her how to exert just enough pressure on the skin, moving her fingers to the femur, fibula, tibia, and patella. The doctor’s hand is large; his fingers, rough and caring. The world grows smaller when he removes them.

  “Domesticated animals have survived by understanding humans. What’s more unusual is to find a human who understands animals,” the doctor says.

  He means her, and for once she feels like more than an outcast.

  “You have a gift,” he says, “and with a gift comes responsibility. For now, that means taking good care of Mona and Tiny, but there will come a time when you’ll have a chance to help more animals. Try not to let anything get in the way.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, the doctor looks toward the hall.

  La La wants nothing more than to take care of animals the way Dr. Bergman does. She can’t see anything stopping her.

  6

  FALL 2015

  After a sleepless night, La La tries again to make Clem understand why she has to help her father. “Zev will die in prison,” she says.

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit of an exaggeration?” He shoves khakis, cotton pullovers, walking shoes he can stand in all day, and a toiletry bag into a suitcase.

  When La La can’t bear to watch anymore, she practices her examination skills, running her hands over Black’s fur, checking his skin, feeling his abdomen, looking at his eyes and lids, stretching his lips to see his molars. Blue’s turn arrives, but he hops away.

  Clem jots the name of a motel on the back of a used envelope and holds it out to La La. She refuses to accept it, so he sets it on her dresser.

  “Don’t go,” she says, while he zips up the suitcase. “I’m sorry,” she tries, as he tucks his orthopedic pillow under his arm. He grabs his keys from the hook in the entryway. “We’re engaged,” she says, but he doesn’t seem to hear. And maybe they’re not engaged anymore. Her breath comes shallow and fast as he shuts the door behind him.

  In the bedroom, Blue sniffs the spot where Clem’s pillow used to be and whines. Black gnaws a shoe Clem left behind. La La curls up on the floor next to Black, her head on his flank. Why does she always end up with animals as her only companions? Clem’s actions seem cruel. She’s surprised by the depth of his anger. What has she done, after all, other than try to help her father?

  When she gets up, she surveys the closet, reluctant to spread out the clothes that remain. To fill the gap would be to accept that Clem isn’t coming back. She prefers to keep the hole and hope.

  Around lunchtime, she texts Nat, loads the dogs into the Mercedes, and drives to a park, where she sits on a bench cleared of snow. She unclips the dogs’ leashes. Blue takes off, and Black hops up beside her.

  As she waits for Nat, her cell phone plays “Honky Cat,” and again she lets Dr. Bergman’s call go to voice mail. Wrapping an arm around Black, she listens to the message. “You’re hard to reach. I shouldn’t be surprised. I remember how crazy vet school was. Maybe you and Clem want to join us for brunch on Sunday. Nothing fancy. Charlotte makes a mean meatless chili, and I’ve been known to bake fresh bread on the weekends. A break might be good for you. I’d love to hear how you’re doing, and of course the dogs and even Zev. I think about him more than you might imagine. Interesting fellow. Well, I’ve gone on too long. I hope you get this. Oh, it’s me, Ronald Bergman, you know, Dr. Bergman. Anyway, it would just be you and Clem and me and Charlotte. I better sign off; my vet tech is waving at me. I must be late for an appointment.” He forgets to disconnect and the message continues as he greets his next patient.

  There’s nothing La La would like more than to give Dr. Bergman good news about her progress. As it is, she’d rather he think she’s busy in the hospital.

  Nat shows up twenty minutes later with her leashed ferret, Casey. He sits on her lap, while Nat brushes his shadow-colored fur. “Sorry it took a while. I stopped at home. Casey could use the air.”

  “We broke up,” La La says, suppressing a smile, her emotions haywire from the shock of Clem leaving. If she starts to laugh, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to stop. Cars pass, their tires churning through wet streets. A girl in a green jacket tosses a tennis ball for a flat-coated retriever, and the ball disappears in piles of white. Though next to her on the bench, Nat and Casey seem miles away. La La scratches Black’s neck, the dog’s pleasure erasing the memory of Clem’s bulging suitcase, but not for long.

  The wind whips the pom-pom on Nat’s hat. “What happened?”

  La La examines the dirty, boot-flattened snow at her feet. “He found out.” Ever since they became a couple, La La worried Clem might leave her. Yet she feels as unprepared as if she never imagined it.

  “Not easy to keep something like that a secret,” Nat says.

  “It’s not like I want to be a burglar. I’d rather be in the hospital with you.”

  “I wonder.”

  “I have to help Zev. I know what it’s like to have someone give up on you. I know it even better now.”

  Nat sets down Casey’s brush. She fishes antibiotic ointment and arthritis medication from her purse and hands them to La La. “That’s all there was. You didn’t get them from me.”

  “Thanks,” La La says, relieved the hospital still throws the expired medications into a do
nation basket meant for shelters. She doesn’t know in what condition she’ll find animals and wants to be prepared.

  Cold spreads upward from the bench. When La La scratches Casey’s belly, the ferret climbs onto her shoulder. “Would Tank leave you over something like this?”

  “Tank might offer to help. Sometimes I think he misses the adrenaline.” Nat pulls her hat over her ears, the wind having picked up again.

  Darting over, Blue drops a tennis ball at La La’s feet. The flat-coated retriever and his owner aren’t far behind. La La lifts the ball, damp with snow and drool, and wipes it on her jeans. She hands it to the girl.

  “Your dog gets around pretty good on three legs,” the kid says.

  “You don’t need everything you’re born with.”

  The girl scratches Blue under the chin and runs off, the retriever following.

  When she’s out of earshot, Nat says, “You want me to tell you the truth, right?”

  “You’re going to anyway.”

  “I haven’t lived within a thousand miles of my parents since I was seventeen.” Nat worries a blemish on her cheek. “My father’s a perfect gentleman in public who’s in love with Wild Turkey in private, and I have imperfectly healed bones to show for it. Every time my mother sees me, she reminds me I’m responsible for ending the family line. Ask me, I’m doing the world a favor. Personally, I’ve found it’s better to stay away. I definitely wouldn’t risk my marriage and career for them.”

  “My father never hit me,” La La says.

  “No, he taught you to break into homes.”

  “I insisted.”

  “You were eight!”

  Tired, Blue collapses at La La’s feet. La La regrets getting together with Nat, who can’t seem to see beyond her own troubled upbringing.

  * * *

  At the kitchen table, Zev dismantles the duplicate monitor. Removing the one strapped to his ankle would interrupt the fiberoptic beam that travels its circumference, triggering an alarm at the monitoring company. But Zev read online about someone beating the device. Monitoring companies often ignore disruptions of less than a minute because they can be caused by accidents, such as banging the contraption against a tub or chair leg. A man who removed and reassembled the device within that time was able to escape without alerting authorities.