Part 6
The bag was where Lena said it was, with a clean shirt rolled too tightly beside Ruth’s toothbrush. She added Cal’s construction photographs, then took them out again. She was going overnight, not moving into someone else’s office. The binder belonged on the dry shelf she had cleared for it.
She checked the office windows and disconnected the little refrigerator. The animal rooms were empty and secured. Local staff would handle the remaining property checks; a trustee had the written list and the duplicate keys. Ruth left the list beside the telephone and locked the keeper entrance.
For the first time since Otis had arrived, she did not hear him moving on the other side.
Lena waited by the car with two coffees. She handed Ruth the one without sugar and opened the passenger door because the latch sometimes caught.
“Still does that,” Ruth said.
“Only when it rains.”
It had not rained that morning. Ruth looked at her daughter. Lena grinned, just a little, and went around to the driver’s side.
They followed the transport north. Ruth watched the back of Owen’s vehicle until a bend took it out of sight. She shifted forward in her seat. A moment later it appeared again, moving steadily along the ridge.
After twenty miles she asked Lena to turn down the air-conditioning. After another ten she asked to turn it up again. Lena did both without comment.
“You can tell me I’m being difficult,” Ruth said.
“I was saving it for something bigger.”
Ruth laughed. It surprised them both enough that Lena glanced across, then quickly looked back at the road.
The land changed gradually. The wet bottomland gave way to higher ground, scrubby pasture, a row of houses with new roofs. Ruth saw a garden center she had passed a hundred times without stopping. Outside it, someone was setting pots of chrysanthemums on a wooden bench. She had the strange thought that a person could buy one simply because she wanted it, without checking whether it was safe to plant near an animal enclosure.
At Haven Ridge, the transport went through the service entrance into a secured receiving area. Ruth waited where she was asked to wait. The intake supervisor, a broad-shouldered woman named Nessa, greeted Lena first, then Ruth. She had mud on one boot and a line of blue ink along the side of her thumb.
“Celia sent everything,” Nessa said. “We’ll keep you where you can see the moves. If you notice something about either cat, tell me.”
“All right,” Ruth said, and followed them into the keeper area.
Nessa showed them the adjoining intake rooms and the private, fenced exercise yard beyond. The permanent habitats were farther away, past another line of trees. Fern and Otis would settle here first, together and apart from the resident animals.
Ruth noticed the shade first. There was more of it than the photographs had shown. Then she noticed the gates. They moved almost silently. She waited for the double knock that belonged to an empty room ninety miles behind her.
Otis came out of his crate slowly, his body low. He sniffed the doorway, examined a corner, and turned back toward the place he had entered. The blue ball had been set farther inside. He looked at it without approaching.
Fern’s transfer took longer. Once inside her adjoining room, she stood with her head near the dividing mesh. Otis found her there. Their noses touched briefly through the barrier, and Ruth felt the muscles across her shoulders begin to loosen.
“We’ll let them settle,” Nessa said. “There’s a place you can sit.”
In the small staff room, a folding table had been set with water, sandwiches, and a bowl of bruised pears. Ruth took the chair nearest the door.
Lena picked up a pear.
“You eat those now?” Ruth asked.
“I’ve eaten pears for years.”
“You used to say they tasted like sand.”
“Sometimes they still do.”
They ate. Staff came and went, asking Lena practical questions about the cats, making room for her answers. Ruth listened to her daughter explain a feeding behavior without looking across for confirmation. She had heard Lena speak to volunteers at Hollow Creek. She had never noticed how often her daughter used her hands while explaining something.
Later, Nessa showed Ruth where the night observations would be recorded and gave her the number to call for updates. Lena was staying in temporary staff housing until her own place was ready. There was a guest room nearby for Ruth.
“I don’t need anyone watching me sleep,” Ruth said.
“Good,” Lena said. “Neither do I.”
That evening Ruth called her neighbor to ask if she could ride home with her the next afternoon. The woman had offered before the trip, when Ruth said she would probably not go. She told Lena what time her neighbor would collect her.
Lena nodded. “I can come over in the morning before rounds.”
“I’d like that.”
“Will your apartment be ready by then?” Ruth asked.
“Another week. They’re fixing a leak.”
“Where?”
“In the bathroom. A small one, Mom.”
Lena took out her phone. There was a little kitchen, a narrow porch, a window where she thought a table would fit. Ruth turned the phone to see the view beyond the porch rail.
“Is that a pecan tree?”
“I think so.”
“Find out. I could bring you the old nutcracker.”
In the morning, after the receiving team’s checks, the lions were given access to the private intake yard together. Ruth watched from the protected keeper area. Otis stood in the open doorway for a long time, considering the grass. Fern went past him with the impatient economy of an animal who had already inspected enough doorways for one week.
He followed her.
Ruth expected them to go straight to the nearest shelter. Fern crossed the yard instead, following the fence until she found a patch of ground that offered a view back toward the rooms. She lowered herself carefully, adjusted her bad hip, and stretched one foreleg into the grass. Otis settled beside her, leaving enough room to avoid being cuffed.
After a while he rolled onto one shoulder. The dark edge of his mane opened against the grass. Fern turned and worked her tongue over the fur behind his ear. He pushed his head toward her, then stopped moving.
Neither lion looked toward Ruth.
She stayed for another minute. There was a small stone inside her boot, pressing against her heel. She had been aware of it since breakfast and had kept thinking she would deal with it after the next thing, after the gate, after she knew what the lions would do.
Now she sat on the bench, took off the boot, and shook out the stone. It landed beneath a clump of grass on the human side of the fence.
Lena came along the keeper path carrying an empty bucket. “Nessa’s putting coffee on.”
Ruth put her boot back on. Across the yard Fern’s eyes were closed. Otis had one heavy paw resting on the edge of her foreleg, and she was letting him leave it there.
At the staff-room door Lena shifted the bucket so she could reach for the handle. Ruth took it from her. Inside, beside her daughter’s chipped green mug, someone had left a second cup with no sugar in it.