Unlikely Companions

by Laurie Hess

  “Why don’t you make a public statement?” I suggested delicately.

  “I’m not talking to the press.” Simon shot back. “They’ve already decided I’m guilty.”

  He hung up, and my legs wobbled. I reached out for the wall, and Marnie stepped in to steady me.

  “You okay? When was the last time you checked your blood sugar? Have you eaten today?”

  “It’s fine, I’m fine,” I said. “I never forget that anymore.”

  Not since I’d helped Betty Frank off the floor a few years before.

  BETTY ENTERED THE examination room wearing her infant pet wallaby, Willie, in a BabyBjörn–like carrier on her chest. His eyes were closed, indicating that he was asleep. I smiled at his big, floppy legs sticking out of the carrier, and Betty sank down in the examination room chair and sighed, expressing a note of physical exhaustion common to new mothers.

  Wallabies are marsupials, in the same family as sugar gliders and kangaroos. Female wallabies have a pouch in which their babies nurse and grow. To help the animals adjust to living among people, I encourage wallaby owners to carry their pets in a similar front pack for several weeks, if not longer, until they are socialized.

  “Do we really have to do this?” she asked.

  “It’s a common procedure, and I promise he won’t feel anything. General anesthesia and a few hours to rest and recover.”

  We try to neuter wallabies like Willie when they’re young. Once they are full-grown adults, they’re much harder to handle. The largest species of wallaby can grow up to six feet tall. I’d not treated a wallaby of this size, but even the smaller ones have strong back legs that enable them to jump and a broad, long tail that they use for balance and support. Over the years, I’d been kicked around by a few.

  Betty asked, “Do you have any candy in here? I’m feeling a little woozy.”

  “I have some gum, but it’s sugar free,” I said as I turned around to grab a stick off the back examination table.

  “Your wallaby looks a little heavy,” I said while searching around for my pack of Orbit Wintermint. “Be sure you’re feeding him the less sugary stuff, too.”

  Wallabies are prone to developing a condition called “lumpy jaw,” a bacterial infection in the jaw to which sugary treats in an imbalanced diet can contribute.

  “Ah, here it is,” I said, retrieving the pack from behind a box of Kleenex. I turned around to hand Betty a stick, and she was sliding off her chair. The chair had wheels, and they were rolling out from under her and in my direction. I instinctively moved forward to catch her, but not in time. Bang! She fell to the floor and knocked her head. Willie, stuffed tightly into his front pack, felt and heard the thud of Betty hitting the floor and opened his eyes wide. His ears perked straight up, and he began to struggle to wriggle free, clearly aware that his “mama” was in distress. I panicked. What should I do? She appeared to be suffering from critically low blood sugar, a diabetic condition I was very familiar with myself. I quickly grabbed a syringe full of 50 percent dextrose—sugar water, effectively, the kind we administer to hypoglycemic and diabetic animals—but just as I was about to stick her, I stopped myself. I can’t inject Betty. She’s not an animal; she’s a person. I’m not that kind of doctor. I’d treated diabetes in ferrets, guinea pigs, and birds before and had even published papers about the endocrine disorder in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. I’d written about how diagnosing and treating diabetes in exotic animals was nearly impossible, as most exotics require minute—almost immeasurable—amounts of insulin to manage the disease, and it’s often hard to know exactly what dosage, based on their regular diet, they need. I looked down at Betty as I held the shot of dextrose in my hand, and though tempted to give it to her, I couldn’t pretend that I was a physician, legally licensed to treat people. So instead I did what I knew I could safely do: I filled a glass of water from the sink and got down on the floor next to her. I propped her head on my leg and stroked Willie to calm him.

  “Betty, can you hear me?”

  When she opened her mouth to speak, I said, “Drink this down.”

  “Thank you,” she said and lifted it to her lips, still shaky and unsteady. “I’m a diabetic,” she slurred. “This is what happens when you forget to eat.” Betty reached down and tugged at Willie’s fuzzy ears.

  “Mama’s okay, now,” she whispered. As she continued to massage his ears, his body seemed to relax, and he sank back down into his pouch carrier. After about five more minutes sitting on the floor, I helped Betty back up into her chair. When she assured me she was feeling better, I ran down the hall and fetched her a string cheese and an apple from my own stash in the kitchen.

  I’d sworn in that moment that I’d never put myself in a similar position, and mostly I’d kept to that promise.

  MARNIE GAVE ME an admonishing look and wagged her finger. “Don’t let me catch you lying to me.” She turned to Elliot. “Go get Laurie a string cheese out of the fridge, would you?” Marnie led me gently by the arm down the hall to my office.

  “Sit down and take five. Eat your cheese, and then call Hannah. You need your strength before the next confrontation.” She squeezed my shoulder and left me alone.

  I sat and ate my cheese, and then I dialed Hannah’s number, anticipating that the call would be forwarded again to voice mail. This time, she answered on the first ring.

  “Laurie, I assume you’re calling about the TV coverage,” she started right in. “And I should have warned you, but I really hoped he wouldn’t take it this far.”

  “He? Who? It wasn’t you who called this reporter?”

  “No,” Hannah firmly defended. “Did you think I’d called? I’m sure it was Dr. Barnes. He’s a cat and dog vet down the road. A real pill, between you and me. Makes everything his business.”

  “I’m confused. I thought you made the call. How did this other doctor get involved in this?”

  “He read about the recent glider deaths on the message board on Vets Connect. You do know all of your postings are public, don’t you?”

  “Uh, sure,” I shrugged. I hadn’t thought to make the postings private; I’d hoped that by casting a wide net within the community, I’d have a better chance of receiving help or at least a lead as to where the illness was coming from.

  “Dr. Barnes read your posts, so he knew that gliders were sick and dying in Bedford Hills, and then when he learned that sugar gliders were on sale at Winslow Mall, he called me. Asked me if I knew anything about it, if I’d treated any sick gliders on Long Island.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That I had not admitted any sick gliders to my hospital but that you and I were aware of recent events in the area and that we were working closely together to determine the source of illness and prevent any spread.”

  “Anything else? How did he link Sugar Buddies specifically to the glider deaths?”

  Hannah cleared her throat. “Laurie, I had no idea he’d go to a local reporter with this.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. She’d told him everything.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. There was no sense getting mad at Hannah. It had been only a matter of time before people started putting two and two together, just as I had.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Still, I can’t believe he’d go to a reporter with this. His accusations that the animals are malnourished and treated poorly just aren’t true. Unless you discovered something in the blood test results and films? Did you?”

  “No, nothing you hadn’t already identified. I explained to him that none of the sick gliders you treated had any signs of abuse or neglect, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was on his soapbox, insisting, ‘This is what happens when you breed these animals at mills and schlep them from place to place like circus animals. They get sick.’” Hannah paused. “I don’t agree with how he handled it, but the adoption operation does sound a little impersonal. Don’t you think?”

/>   “It’s untraditional, sure. But I don’t think we can call it inhumane.”

  “But—” she said cautiously.

  “But what?”

  “We just can’t ignore that these animals are dying.”

  “Ignore?” I shot back defensively. That sugar gliders were getting sick was all I could think about. Helpless animals were dying under my care nearly every day despite all my efforts to save them. I despaired at the image of Mathilda deteriorating at the bottom of her cage now.

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah retracted. “I shouldn’t have said it that way. I just meant that maybe we should consider whether some of what Dr. Barnes is saying might be true.”

  I felt that I was on the verge of tears again, but I willed them back. With measured calm, I said, “Until we determine the source of illness, we can’t point fingers. We need more information. Dr. Barnes doesn’t have the whole story. None of us do. But there are a number of vets across the country, including you and me, committed to figuring this out. If Dr. Barnes calls you again, kindly ask him to stop speaking to the press. Or I will.”

  “I’ll do it,” she conceded. “But Laurie, between you and me, aren’t you just a little bit suspicious of this company?”

  “I don’t know, Hannah. I just don’t know yet.”

  4:30 P.M.

  I CONTINUED TO play my conversation with Hannah over and over again in my head. Was Sugar Buddies in some way responsible for the dozens of sugar glider deaths across the country—what some of my colleagues were now calling an “epidemic”? What was I missing? Caught up in my back-and-forth thoughts, when I stepped out of my office and into the hallway, I didn’t notice Alan, our delivery guy, with a bag of bird food in one arm and Alan the degu in the other. I ran right into them. When we collided, the rodent dropped to the floor and went scurrying down the hall with its tail between his legs.

  “Degu down!” I cried and went running in his direction. I chased Alan down the hall until I caught up with him. I reached down and snatched him. When I straightened up, I stopped abruptly. Maxine, Georgie’s owner, was standing in the middle of the waiting room.

  “Doctor Hess,” her voice was shaking. “I’m sorry I didn’t return your call the other day, but I just didn’t want to talk any more about Georgie’s passing. But then I just saw the TV report about the company that sells sugar gliders from malls.” She began to tear up, and her cheeks flushed red. “I bought Georgie from a Sugar Buddies mall kiosk in Connecticut. Is that why he got so sick?”

  With my dark curls obscuring my face and an agitated degu struggling under my arm, I stepped forward and embraced Maxine. I wasn’t sure what to tell her, other than that, again, Georgie’s death was not her fault.

  6:30 P.M.

  I THANKED MAXINE for making what must have been, for her, a very difficult trip to the hospital and assured her that my colleagues and I were working as hard as we could to determine the cause of Georgie’s death, when I remembered my plans to meet Peter at the Gathering Hole, our favorite spot in downtown Mount Kisco. As we had been rushing out the door this morning, going in our separate directions, I’d suggested we meet there for happy hour, just the two of us, for a quick glass of wine in a cozy booth, before I returned to the hospital for another late night of monitoring Lily and Mathilda.

  “My treat”—I wrapped my arms around him before he got into his car—“for picking Luke up from school yesterday. And for being the most accommodating husband ever.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” he said with a wink.

  But now I was late. I hoped that Peter would be in a generous mood. I hurried out the door, crunching along the snowy path to the parking lot. After the initial roar of the ignition, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet it was in the car. No squawks, screeches, howls, or screams. In many ways, the sudden absence of noise was louder than anything I’d heard all day. I drove quietly along Route 117 to the Gathering Hole, allowing the silence to envelope me until I heard a familiar voice—my own—and it was clearly saying, “Laurie, slow down.” I backed off the accelerator and resumed the speed limit, arriving at our favorite downtown pub nearly thirty minutes late.

  It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dark interior, and I scanned the low-lit bar. I didn’t spot Peter there. I peeked into the dining room, and he wasn’t there either. As I pulled out my phone to text him, the receptionist approached me. “It’s Laurie, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’m looking for Peter, my husband.”

  She smiled. “He said you’d probably still be wearing your lab coat.”

  “Oh, jeez,” I said as I looked down. “I’m always doing this. Did he call?” I wondered if Peter was running late too. That would be a first.

  “No,” she said apologetically. “He was here and then he left. Said he’d meet you at home.”

  I’d done it again—I was too late.

  I FOUND PETER sitting quietly on the couch in the family room, wearing the same discontented expression he reserves for Brett and Luke when they push him too far. I immediately registered his disappointment on a grand scale. I approached him slowly.

  “I’m so sorry . . .” I started to say.

  Peter shook his head, held up his hand in protest, and said, “Stop.”

  So I did. I stopped short, in the middle of the living room, and continued to stand there until Peter motioned for me to sit down. I sat on the opposite side of the couch facing him and quietly waited. I thought back to a pre-boxing-match celebrity party that Peter’s company had sponsored a few years before. He had been so excited to take me along because rumor had it that Annabella Sciorra from The Sopranos would be making an appearance. Peter has always asserted that I resemble her, so we thought it’d be fun to do a side-by-side comparison. But before we had the opportunity, I received an emergency call from the hospital.

  “I have to take this call,” I had said apologetically to Peter.

  “You’re going to miss Annabella,” he said with a frown. “Can’t it wait?”

  I’d promised to return quickly, but the only place I could get a clear signal was outside the arena, on the street. Teetering up and down the sidewalk in my satin high heels and a red strapless gown, I tried to reassure the owner of a mynah bird whose blood vessel he’d nicked during a routine wing-feather trimming. He couldn’t get the bleeding to stop, and he was panicked. I explained how to apply pressure and cornstarch to the bleeding feather to get it to clot. By the time I returned to the cocktail party, nearly an hour had passed. I walked up and looped my arm through Peter’s, hoping he’d forgive my delay. He leaned into me and said in a curt whisper, “You’re too late.”

  He said the same words again now, and there was no arguing with him.

  “Laurie, we made a deal a long time ago that I wouldn’t nag you about your health or your long hours at the hospital, or even your pet family, so long as you also take care of this one—me and the boys. It’s about balance, about meeting in the middle, and tonight you didn’t meet me anywhere. You left me sitting at a table alone.”

  He stood up and walked toward the stairs. I could hear Luke in his room playing his upcoming recital piece on his piano keyboard. Peter turned back toward me and said wearily, “I know you have to return to the hospital.”

  “Just for a few hours,” I said, then added as a consolation, “but I can stay here for a while before I go back.”

  “The boys are already fed, and their homework’s nearly done. I told them you’d be coming home late, so why don’t you just go ahead. No sense telling them you’re home when you just have to leave again.”

  The piano notes of John Mayer’s “Dreaming with a Broken Heart” pierced me. In that moment all I wanted to do was climb the stairs and stand quietly behind Luke as he played so tenderly. I dropped my eyes to the floor. What Peter was saying was regrettably true. When the boys learned that I wasn’t staying to say good night and tuck them in, they’d be more disappointed than if they hadn’t seen me at all. I stayed planted on the co
uch in the family room until I heard Peter close our upstairs bedroom door. He was right; I’d lost the balance. School plays, soccer games, Peter’s business dinners—I had missed so many events since I opened the hospital that I had stopped counting. The years were rolling by, and if I didn’t start making more time for Peter and the boys, I would lose moments I could never get back. I stood up and only then noticed Dale on his perch in the corner of the room. He was so quiet, not his usual squawky self. He must be feeling the tension too. I tearfully slipped outside the door and drove the dark streets back toward the hospital.

  5

  UNRAVELING

  FRIDAY, 8:20 A.M., BEDFORD ROAD

  I was shivering in the car and willing the engine to hurry up with the heat. I took a long gulp of coffee and a bite of my egg-white sandwich before steering onto Bedford Road. I drove wearily toward the hospital, recalling Peter’s and my conversation from the night before. It was well after two in the morning when I’d finally slid into bed next to him. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was awake. Peter truly embraces the popular mantra of many married couples: don’t go to bed angry. He simply cannot rest until he feels some sense of resolve. So with his back to me, I began to tell him the story of Carl and Molly and their beloved ferret, Bandit.

  Molly and Carl did not have human children, but over the years they’d created a family of ferrets. Bandit, with his dark brown mask and a sable-colored, slender body, was now their only remaining child, and they doted on him endlessly, sparing no expense on his care. They traveled regularly to my clinic from their home in Manhattan, where ferrets are not legal (yet half-naked men dressed up as cowboys singing in Times Square are), for general checkups, dental cleanings, and nail trimmings. Typically Carl brought Bandit into the hospital, and they were always welcome visitors in the constant chaos of my day. He’d greet me with a big fatherly hug and a warm “How’s it going, kiddo?”