Part 2
Sam stepped into the ditch, mud rising over the edges of his boots. The surviving kitten fit into one palm, his striped fur soaked flat against a body so cold that Sam could barely feel him breathing.
He tucked the kitten inside his shirt and started up the bank. June did not follow. She stood over the box, staring at the two still shapes left inside, then released a low sound Sam had never heard from her before.
He carried all three kittens back to the farmhouse.
The veterinarian later told him the others had probably been gone for hours. The surviving kitten had severe dehydration and would need warmth, formula, and feedings throughout the night. Even then, the vet warned, he might not make it.
When Sam returned home with bottles and a heating pad, June was waiting at the door to her enclosure.
Sam set up a crate in the mudroom, where the temperature stayed steady and June could watch through the inner gate. The kitten refused the bottle at first. His mouth was too weak to create suction, and every attempt seemed to exhaust him.
June paced until Sam opened the connecting panel.
“I kept her on the lead,” he told us. “I didn’t know what she meant to do.”
She approached the crate slowly, lowering her head until her nose touched the kitten’s back. He barely moved. June sniffed him once, then began cleaning his ears and face with long, deliberate strokes.
The kitten’s front paws twitched.
Sam wrapped him in a warm towel and tried the bottle again. This time, he swallowed.
For the next three weeks, Sam slept in a recliner beside the crate. He fed the kitten every few hours, weighed him on a kitchen scale, and called the veterinarian whenever the smallest thing changed. June remained nearby, grooming him through the open panel and allowing him to sleep against the warmth of her belly.
She had never raised young. As far as the wildlife center knew, she had never even been near kittens.
“She knew he was dying,” Sam said. “Maybe that was enough.”
He named the kitten Marlow after the creek running behind the property. As Marlow gained weight, his coat grew thick and his appetite became astonishing. Before long, he was climbing Sam’s jeans, stealing food from June’s dish, and attacking the laces of every boot left within reach.
June seemed more alert with him nearby. She watched him tumble around her enclosure and corrected him with a soft paw when he became too rough. At night, Marlow curled beneath her chin.
But the improvement did not last.
June’s body had been failing before she found the box. Within two months, she stopped finishing her meals. Her hind legs weakened, and even the low platform Sam had built became difficult for her to reach.
A wildlife veterinarian examined her and spoke to Sam in the careful voice professionals use when they know someone is listening for a different answer.
There was no treatment that would return what age had taken.
Sam brought June inside on her final morning. She lay on a blanket beside the mudroom window, where sunlight fell across the floor. Marlow, still small enough to fit between her front legs, pressed himself against her chest.
Sam sat beside them with one hand resting lightly behind June’s ears.
“She looked at me once,” he said. “Then she looked at him.”
June’s breathing slowed. Marlow stayed tucked against her until it stopped.
The wildlife center arranged for her cremation. A week later, Sam received a wooden box, the old photograph, and the brass identification disk that had hung beside June’s permit tag.
For several nights, Marlow searched the farmhouse for her. He cried at the enclosure gate and slept on the blanket where she had died. When Sam began driving again, the kitten refused to be left behind.
So Marlow became the road companion June could no longer be.
Sam had a harness made for him, secured a bed in the passenger-side storage area, and taught him the sounds of truck stops, air brakes, loading docks, and rain against the sleeper roof. Marlow learned to sit on the dashboard only when the truck was parked. He learned which diners gave Sam bacon and which ones sent scraps for the cat.
Before their first long trip, Sam fastened June’s brass disk to Marlow’s collar.
“That’s why he wears her name,” he said.
No one in our office spoke for several seconds. Marlow stood, stretched until his back bowed, and placed one paw on Sam’s knee.
Sam reached down to scratch his head. His right hand missed.
The fingers curled halfway and stopped.
Luke saw it. “How long has that been happening?”
Sam looked at the hand as if it belonged to someone sitting beside him. “A few months.”
“You’re losing feeling?”
“Comes and goes.”
“You’ve seen a doctor?”
Sam nodded. “More than once.”
The tire machine thumped in the bay. Luis called that they were nearly finished, but Luke did not turn away.
“What did the doctor say?”
Sam stared through the office window at his truck, its running lights reflected in the wet pavement.
“He said I shouldn’t be behind the wheel anymore,” he answered. “That load I delivered this afternoon was my last one…”
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