Unlikely Companions

by Laurie Hess

  6:00 P.M., DRIVING HOME

  I WAS NEARLY home when I answered a call from Simon in the car.

  “I just spoke with the chief distributor at Exotic Essentials,” he said eagerly. “I told him we were trying to pinpoint possible exposure to lead, and I asked him if he could look into how the mall kiosks were set up in Chicago, Detroit, Tulsa, and St. Louis specifically. Was there anything different, out of the ordinary, or special about how those kiosks are being run. Of course his first response was ‘I don’t think so,’ but he said he’d look into it, make a few calls.

  “I started thinking back to what you said about the bird that came into your hospital with lead poisoning from chewing on old metal toys in its cage. That’s when it hit me. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”

  “What?” I nearly shouted into the phone.

  “Like I said earlier, the cages on my transport trucks are all stainless steel. I know this absolutely because I order every single one of them myself from the same supplier I’ve been using for years. But,” Simon paused, “what I don’t order is the supply of cages that the adopted gliders go home in.”

  I stopped short at a red light. My stomach tightened. “What do you mean? What other cages?”

  “Remember when I said that the gliders stay in the transport cages until they’re adopted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whenever a glider is adopted from a mall kiosk, the new pet is sent home in a ‘take-home’ cage. They look just like the transport cages, only smaller—about two feet by two feet. All of the gliders adopted from Johnson Valley Mall would have gone home in a cage like this.”

  “And where do those cages come from?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “Exotic Essentials supplies them to all of the mall kiosks throughout the country.”

  I waited for him to continue, still holding my breath.

  “I called the chief distributor back and asked him what he knew about these cages—who makes and supplies them. Did he know what materials they’re made from, et cetera.” Simon said.

  “And?”

  “He couldn’t answer all my questions, but what he did know was pretty interesting.”

  “Go on.”

  “The cages sent home with newly adopted gliders are supplied by different cage manufacturers, depending on geographical location. And according to him, Exotic Essentials recently added a new cage manufacturer to its distribution list, one the company hasn’t used before.”

  My heart was racing. “Does he know where this new order of cages was distributed?”

  “He’s confirming that now. I’ll call you back as soon as I know more.”

  I couldn’t wait that long. I checked my rearview mirror for traffic before making an abrupt U-turn in the middle of the road. As I sped back toward the hospital, I thought back to when Maxine and Mr. Huntington had brought their sick gliders in. I recalled that they’d delivered them in their own travel carriers. But Bob had transported Lily to the hospital in a small wire cage and carried Mathilda in his shirt pocket. At the time, I’d thought this was Bob’s clever way to surprise me with his new baby glider. I tried to force the memory. Had he left the cage at the hospital? He hadn’t taken Lily home in it yesterday. If he’d left it behind, where was it now?

  7:12 P.M., ANIMAL HOSPITAL

  I FOUND LILY’S cage in the back storage room on top of a stack of pelleted ferret food. I hauled it down and rummaged around for a First Alert kit in the supply closet. With both in hand, I retreated to the nearest examination room. I’d used these over-the-counter kits before to test for lead on painted surfaces and steel structures before we remodeled our house, and I’d used them sporadically at the hospital to test for lead in metal toys. I removed the swab from the kit and rubbed it along the surface of the cage. I’d found one wire with small indentations, likely from teeth marks. I stood motionless with the swab in my hand and waited. Five, ten, fifteen . . . within seconds, the swab turned red, indicating that lead was present on contact.

  I dropped the swab and fumbled for my phone. My fingers were shaking as I dialed Simon’s cell.

  “It’s the transport cages,” I said, nearly out of breath. “They contain lead.”

  IT WAS SEVERAL days before the tests were conclusive. But we eventually discovered that in the cities where newly adopted sugar gliders had become sick and were dying, the take-home cages from the nearby malls were from the new cage supplier. And all of those cages tested positive for a PVC vinyl coating on the cage bars that revealed the presence of lead. Veterinarians treating sick gliders from these mall locations nearly all confirmed moderate to high levels of the toxic metal in the animals’ systems. The new supplier maintained it was not aware that the coating on the cage bars would be harmful to the animals, but it took full responsibility for the unfortunate deaths. On the urging of Exotic Essentials, they issued a nationwide recall of its cages and promised to take corrective measures, beginning with testing all of its current inventory for harmful lead in the cage bars. Exotic Essentials also pledged to test all of its cages for the presence of lead, regardless of the cage manufacturer, before issuing them to new owners.

  The national sugar glider association issued a statement to the wide veterinary community, identifying the metal as causing the “involuntary tremoring syndrome in sugar gliders” and acknowledging the efforts made by me and Hannah and other veterinarians across the country who tirelessly collated data to help pinpoint the cause of the mysterious illness. The president of the association also recognized Sugar Buddies for being “extremely proactive and supportive of the entire veterinary community in taking the lead in addressing and resolving this unfortunate situation for all affected sugar gliders.”

  At last Simon was vindicated.

  Back at the hospital we continued to populate pet message boards, urging owners of sick gliders to immediately remove the animals from their cages and seek treatment. I also posted the discovery on Vets Connect and encouraged all veterinarians to contact Exotic Essentials directly if they encountered any more gliders with symptoms indicative of lead toxicity—mild tremors, seizures, and partial paralysis. The wide community of veterinarians across the country began similarly to post on their hospitals’ social media pages that owners of sick sugar gliders should immediately replace their animals’ cages to reduce continued exposure and give their pets a fighting chance.

  The scattered distribution of lead-containing cages explained why only a small population of gliders in each mall location had become sick, and only after they were in their new homes. As they’re apt to do, the baby gliders began to suck and chew on the coated bars of their cages as soon as they were put into them. Little by little and day by day, they chewed away at the bars, ingesting the toxic metal with every bite. I understood now why in nearly every case of exposure, the animals hadn’t begun to show signs of illness until they’d been in their new homes for nearly a week. Lead builds up in the body over time, and animals don’t start showing symptoms of toxicity until their blood lead level reaches a certain critical level. This also explained why only the adopted animals became sick. The sugar gliders yet to find new homes remained healthy and safe in Simon’s larger, stainless steel truck transport cages. A glider didn’t get exposed to lead until it was removed from the larger mall population and placed in a small, take-home cage. Gliders adopted from malls in Chicago, Detroit, Tulsa, and St. Louis were seemingly immune because the cages in those locations came from one of Exotic Essentials’ older, trusted suppliers.

  I called Bob to explain why Mathilda had died. As always, he was gracious when he didn’t need to be.

  “I understand now why Lily got sick too.”

  Bob recalled that when he had first brought Mathilda home from Johnson Valley Mall, he’d moved Lily into the small take-home cage along with the baby glider.

  “To keep her company and help her acclimate to her new surroundings.”

  For several days the two gliders had snuggled togeth
er in the small cage and also sucked and chewed on the metal bars that would eventually make them sick.

  “After a few days, though,” Bob said, “it became clear that they were cramped. The cage was really too tight to house two active gliders, so I moved them both over to Lily’s larger cage with its many platforms and perches for them to jump and fly around.”

  That had been Lily’s saving grace. She’d been exposed to lead in the small cage, but not enough to suffer major organ damage. Mathilda, on the other hand, because she was so young and small, was more vulnerable. Even the slightest amount of lead in her system was too much for her body to handle.

  In addition to their public pledge to test every cage before it landed in the hands of a new glider owner, Exotic Essentials voluntarily offered to replace any animal that had died with another baby glider, should the owner wish or request one. I appreciated the company’s effort to right a wrong, but I also knew well that for most owners, cages are replaceable; their special pets are not. Still, I hoped that Maxine and the many others who had tragically lost their gliders would someday be able to move past their grief and give yet another animal a happy, loving, and safe home, which is all any creature wants.

  7

  LOVE WITHOUT RESERVATION

  THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY,

  10:00 A.M., HOME

  At last, I was stretched out on the family room couch, sipping a Diet Coke and mindlessly flipping through Health magazine. Peter padded into the room in his sweatpants. “Well, look who it is: doctor by day, detective by night. You’re not just a DVM anymore. You need to add PI to your list of credentials now.” He lowered his voice, pretending to sound like a serious newscaster: “The mysterious deaths of sugar gliders across the country has been solved. Lead poisoning.”

  I smiled and lightly socked him on the arm as he sank down beside me. It was finally over. I’d lost four too many baby gliders on my examination table, but at least Marnie and I had saved Lily. I could begin to restore balance in the hospital, and life could get back to normal, whatever that was.

  Peter propped his feet up on the ottoman, and Dale flew in from the kitchen and perched comfortably on his shoulder. “It’s nice to see you finally relax and take a little bit of down time,” he said while patting around on the couch cushions for the remote. “How long is this going to last?”

  “Five more minutes,” I groaned and pulled myself up out of my nest of soft cushions. “I’m going into the hospital—just for a few hours.”

  “I knew you couldn’t sit still for long.” Peter turned to Dale and said, “She’ll never change.” Dale chirped in agreement.

  “This is who you married,” I smirked as I tossed Peter the remote.

  “Yes, it is,” Peter said with a tone of playful resignation. “And you still owe me a date night.”

  “I made reservations at Via Vino at five.” I said confidently and then walked out of the room. “Oh, and don’t be late,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Hey, that’s my line,” Peter called after me as Dale mimicked, “DON’T BE LATE! DON’T BE LATE!”

  I had only made it as far as the driveway and was scraping ice off the car windshield when Katherine threw open her front door. I pretended not to see her and dug harder into the ice.

  “Good morning,” she called out across the lawn with a note of pleasantness I wasn’t used to. She cut across her driveway and approached me in mine. “You’re a local hero.” She smiled and put her hands on her hips.

  Flattery was not Katherine’s typical approach, and besides—what was she getting at?

  “Gilman told me all about it. The big pet mystery you just solved,” she said with dramatic affect. “Brett told Gilman about it at practice. Sounds very exciting. Like an episode of House, but for animals.”

  I hesitated for a moment while I stared at her perfectly white teeth.

  “Isn’t it funny.” She laughed at herself, “We’ve lived right next door to each other for years, and I’ve never really known what you do. Something to do with animals.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t realize you were so, you know”—she looked up as if she were searching for the words to fall out of the sky—“well respected.”

  I smiled coolly. “In some circles.”

  “Well, anyway,” she perked, “since you know so much about animals, I wondered if you could give me some advice about Gilman’s pet hamster.”

  I stopped scraping the ice. Was Katherine actually asking me for parenting advice? Was I hallucinating? “Um, sure,” I said with some hesitation.

  “He’s been begging me for a pet all year, so I finally gave in and got him one.”

  I thought to myself that a hamster was the type of pet you get for a younger child, not for an eighth grader. In fact, I recommend them often, along with guinea pigs and lizards, as great starter pets for little ones because they’re fairly low-maintenance, friendly animals.

  “Well, it wasn’t my choice”—she rolled her eyes—“but Gilman said he’d always wanted one, and since he hasn’t gotten as much attention in the house since I’ve had the baby, I thought, okay, whatever.” She shrugged again. “So, now we have a hamster.” She lowered her voice and leaned in. “But I don’t know the first thing about taking care of an animal like that. When I was little, we had dogs.”

  Now it was my turn to smile. Katherine wasn’t the perfect parent after all, and she was admitting it. I let her request hang in the cool air to fully appreciate the moment before I responded.

  “Well, hamsters are pretty easy,” I said finally. “They like to keep relatively cool, exercise daily on a wheel, and that’s about it. If cared for properly, they can live a long time.”

  “If cared for properly,” she repeated my words back to me. “That’s what I’m worried about.” She shifted in her fur-lined boots. “Maybe,” she hedged, “I could bring him into the hospital, and you could give me a few pointers?”

  I looked at Katherine and realized that I could say something like, “I’m sorry but I’m not accepting any new patients right now,” and snub her as she’d always done to me. Or I could accept her awkward attempt to finally make a friendly connection. I knew that Katherine could easily find the information she needed to care for Gilman’s new hamster online, but for some reason she’d decided to ask me. I did what Peter would nudge me to do—I stepped forward. Or rather, I stepped up.

  “Bring him by anytime, and bring Gilman along too. He should know how to care for his new pet.” Kids often listen to and remember instructions that come from me rather than their parents, either because of my authoritative lab coat or because I speak in a language that both animals and young ones understand.

  “Also, Brett could show Gilman a thing or two about how to care for his new pet. He had a hamster too. Now both of my boys have birds. Brett has Quinn, a cockatoo, and Luke has Lennon and Ringo.”

  “Lennon and Ringo, as in the Beatles?” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a throwback.”

  “Yeah,” I said, now rolling my eyes. “Long story.”

  “Gilman insisted on naming his hamster ‘Lil Ham,’” she grinned. We stood facing each other, and for the first time, I felt Katherine was regarding me as her equal—just two moms trying to do the best we can for our kids.

  “I’ll bring him in next week,” she said with new familiarity. As she turned back toward her house, she stopped herself. “You know, I envy you. I used to have a career. I had my own real estate business. I was the number one realtor in lower Westchester County.” I pictured Katherine in pumps, pearls, and lipstick, smiling widely on real estate signs up and down the neighborhood.

  “I never intended to give it up, but after I had Gilman I got comfortable staying home. I kept saying I’d go back to work someday. Well, obviously that never happened. I just had another baby . . .”

  “Taking care of kids is a full-time job,” I said, feeling obliged to say something. And it was true.

  “Oh, sure they keep me busy, but sometimes”—she looked ov
er her shoulder as if someone else in the neighborhood might be listening in—“I get really bored.”

  I was surprised by her sudden candor but also delighted.

  “Seriously, girl,” she said, lowering her voice again, “my idea of excitement is the Home Shopping Network and a bottle of wine. You should join me sometime.”

  11:30 A.M., ANIMAL HOSPITAL

  THE WAITING ROOM was peaceful and calm. Colette was sitting at the front desk writing up records while a handful of clients thumbed through glossy-covered magazines. Even Target and Stop were unusually low key. Stop quietly followed me with her big eyes as I approached the reception desk, and Target let out the equivalent of a sigh. Were they, too, feeling a break from the intensity of the past week, or were they sensing a shift in the weather? I’ve always said that animals would make the best meteorologists; they instinctively know when a change is coming, often long before we do.

  “Good morning,” I said as I approached Colette. “Any new calls to return?”

  “Here’s one,” she said and handed me a Post-it with a local number on it. “She wants a quote for how much it would cost to correct her rabbit’s overbite with braces.” She winked and added, “In hot pink, to match her teenage daughter’s.”

  “Did you tell her to call a traditional orthodontist?”

  “I’ll leave that to you.”

  I leaned in over the front desk. “What’s that you’re working on?”

  “Now that it’s finally calmed down around here, I can focus some attention on this.” She handed me a flyer. “The holidays are coming,” it read in big, red block letters, “and what better time to have an adorable photo taken of you with your exotic pet for a holiday card or gift? We will be hosting a professional photo shoot at the Veterinary Center for Birds & Exotics. If you’re interested, make a reservation with us in advance.”