All God's Creatures

by Carolyn McSparren

  We both panted. I reached over with my free hand and popped my finger out of her ear, but neither of us moved. We were companions in exhaustion. She raised her head once to look at me as though to say, "This is your fault, sister," but then she lay back down and panted some more.

  Finally, I struggled to my feet and walked back to the gestation barn for the rope I should have used in the first place.

  By the time I came back, Peaches was up and breathing normally once more.

  The door to the farrowing barn had stayed open all this time. There were no other sows in residence at the moment, so we hadn't had any breaks for freedom.

  I reached out to loop the rope around her head, but she shook me off, trotted up to the door and walked inside. She turned her head, tossed me a single contemptuous glance, and disappeared into the shadows.

  I shut the door on her, put the rope back where I found it, left Lynn and Doug a note, and drove back to town.

  In every encounter I have ever had with pigs, the pigs invariably make me feel like the biggest doofus on the planet. Maybe I should stick to sheep. They make earthworms look like Einstein.

  On my way back I started laughing. I had about as much chance of changing Sarah's mind about where she was going to college, about seeing a psychologist or riding again as I did of dragging that pig into the farrowing bam. Morgan always told me to pick my battles. Maybe Sarah belonged at USC. Maybe God planned a better career for her than professional riding.

  Maybe I should butt out.

  Chapter 23

  In which we meet Lanier and Susan

  Until I finished school and qualified in the state of Tennessee as a full-fledged vet, Dr. Parmenter carefully kept me out of his personal life. The little I knew came from staff gossip overheard while I was cleaning cages after my classes at Southwestern, or during the summers when I worked for him.

  I knew he had married his wife, Irene, just after he finished vet school at Auburn, and that they had no children, although I gathered there was some tragedy in the past. He had Irene's picture on his desk in a silver frame, but she never even came to the office parties at the clinic. Dr. Parmenter had them catered. I never knew whether the choice was hers or his.

  I actually met Irene Parmenter in the reception line at my wedding. Yes, we had a reception line. My Mother would have had a cat fit otherwise.

  I recognized Irene from her picture. She was shorter than Dr. Parmenter, maybe five two or three, and partridge plump where he never seemed to have an ounce of fat on him. She had kind hazel eyes and a ready smile, and a wreath of hair. She must have been in her late thirties or early forties, but already her hair was so white she looked for all the world as though she wore a halo.

  She definitely deserved one. As I got to know her, I found that she was the financial brains behind the clinic, and smoothed Dr. Parmenter's way much the same way Morgan did for me. She had one other characteristic that I found fascinating. She had that politician's talent for giving everyone she spoke to her whole-hearted attention. Unlike politicians, however, she didn't forget they existed the moment she moved on. She could work a room with the aplomb ofAlice Longworth Roosevelt. She was Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, and lived well into her eighties as the doyenne of Washington Society. She is said to have remarked, "If you have nothing good to say about somebody, come sit by me."

  Irene Parmenter was much kinder. I liked her immediately, and I think she liked me back.

  Morgan and I invited them to dinner in our first apartment-the one furnished with Late Relatives and Early Attic. They reciprocated, and for the first time I got to see where Dr. Parmenter lived. Very, very nice. A twenties-vintage mock Tudor cottage right on Galloway Golf Course, a public golf course in Memphis, but a lovely one. The house was decorated with antiques and oriental rugs.

  It was obvious from the first moment I caught Dr. Parmenter's eye on Irene that he adored her.

  As is a requirement in Southern houses, she took me on a house tour after dinner while Morgan and Dr. Parmenter talked golf over coffee in the living room. Not the den. The living room-an actual separate room that was used for living, and not simply kept pristine in case the preacher made an unexpected call.

  We looked all over the upstairs, but she passed one door without opening it. As we started down the stairs, she said quietly, "That was our daughter Mindy's room. Hubert has never let me turn it into a study for him, although he could use one at home."

  So this was the tragedy. The loss of a child. But whether the child had died, or run away, and when, I had no idea. So the next day I called Patsy Dalrymple, who knew everything.

  "Real sad," Patsy said. "If there ever were a woman cut out to be a mother, it's Irene."

  "What happened?"

  "Cystic fibrosis. Doesn't usually happen on the first child. Of course they didn't do gene testing in those days. She died when she was twelve. It nearly killed Dr. Parmenter, and I thought for a while it would break up their marriage. The loss of a child so often does."

  "How awful for them."

  "Irene is even busier than I am. She takes art classes and volunteers at St. Jude and I don't know what all. Runs herself ragged. I guess it's how she stays sane."

  Plato was right-children should bury their parents, not the other way around. Although Dr. Parmenter had never given me an inkling that he considered me anything remotely like a daughter, I wondered if that was the reason he had mentored me so assiduously. And why he kept me at arm's length. Must be terribly hard to trust yourself to love somebody the same age as the child you lost.

  What with growing the clinic and a pair of pregnancies, Morgan and I didn't get together much socially with the Parmenters. It was one of those relationships that disappear like an underground river, only to reappear just as healthy when least expected.

  Irene called me one day out of the blue.

  My heart leapt into my throatwhen I heard hervoice. Being Irene, the first words out of her mouth were, "He's fine. We both are. This isn't bad news."

  I relaxed, and we chatted about getting together more often. She commiserated with me about Pride's death, but I didn't burden her with Sarah's reactions.

  Then she said, "Maggie, I need a favor, and if Hubert finds out I've asked he will fry me for supper."

  "Anything."

  She let out of a deep sign. "Good. Hubert is hunting for another junior partner."

  I laughed. Dr. Parmenter's search for junior partners had become legendary in the local vet community and probably across the country. They would come, fresh from vet school, stay six months or a year, then leave abruptly or be sent packing because they couldn't come up to his standards.

  "This time it's serious. He'll kill me for telling you this, but the doctors have told him he has to cut back. His eyes aren't as strong as they were, and he's developed some arthritis in his fingers. Since we don't have any children to leave the practice to, we need someone to buy at least a portion of it and take up the slack until he retires completely."

  I was afraid she was going to ask me, but she knew better.

  "We've been advertising and writing back and forth to several candidates for the last two months. We've narrowed the choice down to three possibles."

  She had said 'we'

  "The next couple of weeks we have scheduled each of them to come into town to interview, see the practice, and look at the city-each on a different day, of course. None of them knows about the other."

  "How can I help?"

  "I told Hubert we needed to take them out to dinner the one night they were in town after the interviews. He says if they can't feed themselves in a strange city on their own, he's not interested in them. He says he'll be sick of them by dinnertime anyway."

  "You want Morgan and me to entertain them?"

  "Not Morgan. Just you. Take each of them out to dinner, really get into the nitty-gritty of why they want the job, and give me a report. Verbal, of course. Hubert must never know we've done it."

  "Of cou
rse. Just give me the dates, names, and how to get in touch with them."

  "I'll write each of them and tell them to expect your call. Thank you so much, Maggie."

  "Just me? Not Eli?"

  "Just you, ifyou don't mind. Eli's lovely, but I don't know her well enough to ask a favor of her."

  When I picked up Dr. Steve Lansing the following Thursday, I decided that he had given up a career in the movies for vet school. The man was gorgeous. Six feet five of pure hunkdom with a degree from LSU and excellent grades and recommendations. I was worried he'd be an arrogant jerk, but he didn't seem even to be aware that the parking lot attendant (female) nearly drove my truck into a retaining wall because she couldn't take her eyes off him. We had a delightful time.

  The next morning I reported to Irene. "Sorry. He's not your guy."

  "Oh, why?"

  "On the surface, he's perfect. And I mean puuuuur-fect. His wife is a dental technician, so she has a portable career that makes enough money to sustain him until he builds a practice. He's knowledgeable about veterinary medicine, he loves small animals, and the old ladies in Dr. Parmenter s practice would drool over him."

  "So what's the matter with him?"

  "Daddy. Daddy is a big-time contractor in Shreveport who has promised to build Steve a clinic and set him up in practice after two years in the hinterlands of Tennessee."

  "No chance Daddy would consider Memphis?"

  "None. Daddy wants to be close to his not-yet-born grandchildren and is willing to pay for the privilege."

  "Well, nuts."

  "Absolutely."

  I must admit that when Dr. Marcia Callahan, D.V.M., Cornell, walked into the lobby of her hotel to meet me, I did something I rarely do. I took agin' her. That means I didn't like her. She was my height, slim, well groomed, a little horse-faced with a couple too many teeth, but her smile was pleasant and her grip was firm. She seemed nice, but some intangible struck me the wrong way.

  We had a pleasant enough meal, although she didn't eat red meat or drink anything with alcohol or caffeine. We didn't have dessert, because she didn't eat sugar either. Okay, so she wasn't a hedonist like me. She was also thinner. She was unmarried, thirty-four years old, and looking for a new challenge.

  "What was your last challenge?" I asked. I tried to keep my voice even, and either I succeeded, or she didn't have a sense of humor.

  "For the past six years I've been working with a pharmaceutical company doing research."

  Nothing wrong with that. I'd done the same thing the summer I met Morgan.

  As she began to speak about her research, for the first time her face became animated. Within ten minutes I knew what I'd picked up on instinctively. The woman did not like animals. That sounds strange for a veterinarian, but there are medical doctors out there who don't like human beings and dentists who don't like teeth. I doubt that she was intentionally cruel to any living thing, but I wasn't certain she had enough empathy to know whether she was causing pain or not.

  She would certainly not empathize with Dr. Parmenter's clients or their charges. She might splint little Suzi's broken paw perfectly, but fifteen minutes later she wouldn't be able to tell you whether Suzi was a Dachshund or a Corgi. She wouldn't see the point in answering questions from worried clients or reassuring them when they needed it. She would be highly productive and see lots of patients. At least once. I didn't know how many would return.

  In short, I didn't think she appreciated the role pets play in their owner's wellbeing.

  Working for Dr. Parmenter, she would be miserable and would lose him half his client base in six months.

  I spent the next hour discouraging her from private practice and suggesting she might be happier going back to research. We parted amicably. As a matter of fact, she thanked me profusely for my guidance.

  When I drove away from her hotel I realized I hadn't relaxed my shoulders in over two hours.

  "No way," I said to Irene the next morning. Then I told her why.

  "Oh, dear." She sighed. "I don't have much hope for the last one either. I think she may have psychiatric problems."

  Lovely.

  When I picked up Lanier Polman from her hotel, I could see why Irene might think that. She was dressed in a shabby denim skirt and a white blouse slightly frayed at the collar. Probably she was still paying off student loans. It was late October in Memphis. The temperature was running in the fifties after dark. She could have borrowed a coat, surely. She had to be freezing.

  Her color was high, and it wasn't simply the Florida tan she must have gotten living in Ocala. Her hands were constantly in motion, moving through her brown hair that could have stood a good cut, down her skirt, hugging herself.

  Her first words were, "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but I have to call my mother. She's looking after my daughter while I'm up here and the phone's been busy." I waited while she found a pay phone and talked for about five minutes. When she came back, she seemed even more agitated.

  "Something wrong at home?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "Everything's fine."

  I looked at the set of her jaw and heard the quiver in her voice and didn't believe her. I said, "Why don't we go have a glass of wine in the bar?"

  "Won't we be late for our dinner reservations?"

  "On Monday night? I didn't make reservations. We won't have any trouble getting in."

  She smiled, but she came with me, and when her wine was delivered, she took a single hesitant sip before she put it down and began to twirl the stem between her fingers.

  "Is your daughter all right?"

  "What?" She shied as though I had asked her whether she'd dismembered her mother before she left Ocala. "Susan, my baby, requires a lot of care." She took a deep breath. "You're really nice to do this, but it's not necessary. I could just have a sandwich sent up. I know your family must be waiting for you."

  "My family? They're at home with their father. They don't need me."

  She stared at me and then she burst into tears.

  I didn't have the first notion what to do. She grabbed the napkin off the table and buried her face in it. I could hear her choking on her sobs.

  "Stay right here," I said. "Don't you dare move. I'll be right back." I grabbed the nearest pay phone and called Eli. "I know you weren't supposed to be included in these little tete a tetes, but something's changed. Defrost a couple of pizzas and throw them in the microwave. We'll be there in thirty minutes."

  I strode back to the table and nearly dragged her to her feet. "Come on. This is no place for hysterics."

  "I'm so sorry."

  "Don't be. I'm taking us someplace where you can have hysterics in peace."

  I turned up the heat in the truck and offered her my spare windbreaker from the back seat. She shrugged into it gratefully.

  "I didn't think it would be this cold," she said.

  On the way out to Eli's, I kept up inane prattle about Memphis. Most of it was supposed to be funny. I could hear Lanier gulping and sniffling beside me, but she didn't seem in the mood to laugh.

  Eli, accompanied by Sweet Pea, her current Border Terrier, met us at her front door. "Pizza should be done in five minutes. Hey, Lanier, I'm Eli."

  More stammers.

  Sweet Pea gamboled around Lanier 's ankles demanding to be petted. Lanier knelt, rubbed his ears and cooed to him.

  Aha, I thought, this one likes animals.

  "Sit down, have another glass of wine, and tell us what's the matter. I might eat you alive," I said, "but Eli will protect you."

  It took some more prodding, but eventually her story tumbled out.

  "Your children have a father who cares about them. My Susan's father wishes she'd never been bom," Lanier said.

  A single mother? A fatherwho refused to admit paternity? "Surely not," Eli said.

  "That's what my mother said on the phone tonight." She dropped her head into her hands. "Susan has cerebral palsy."

  Eli and I exchanged glances.


  "The doctors weren't sure there was anything wrong until a couple of months ago, but I knew she wasn't normal. Geoff, my soon to be ex-husband, couldn't handle it. He walked out and is living with someone he met at Wellington at the winter horse shows."

  Once she started talking, she couldn't stop. "Geoffs a large animal vet." Her shoulders heaved with the effort of her breathing. She was close to tears and probably even closer to exhaustion, physical and mental. "The bills are piling up, and I can't find anybody to look after Susan except my mother who has osteoporosis and shouldn't even be picking her up, and I've got to get out of Florida where I keep running into people who-"She shuddered. "People just look at me with all this pity as though Susan were some kind of vegetable, and she's not. She's my baby and I love her and why can't he see that and love her too?"

  "Surely he does," Eli said.

  "He told my lawyer that he doesn't see why he should have to pay child support when the state looks after kids like her in nursing homes."

  We both caught our breath. "Bastard," I whispered. She didn't appear to hear me.

  "The doctors say Susan's CP is very mild-motor function, not her intelligence at all. I can't stick her away in some horrible home!"

  "Of course you can't," I said. "He's an S.O.B. Let your lawyer deal with him."

  She ran her fingers under her eyes and along her cheekbones. "I'm so sorry to dump this on perfect strangers. Dr. Parmenter doesn't want a basket case." She gave us a wintry smile. "I am definitely a basket case."

  "But how good a doctor are you?" I asked. "That's what he cares about. What are your qualifications for this job?"

  She stared at me as though I had lost my mind. Then she rallied, sucked in a deep breath, clasped her hands in her lap, and answered my question. "Degree and vet school at the University of Florida. I worked for Sea City in Ocala as a marine vet."

  "Wow!" Eli said, shoving another piece of pizza at her. "I don't think I've ever met a marine vet. What made you choose that?"

  Lanier relaxed a tiny bit. Eli and I exchanged glances.