Part 5
“Let me sit there. You go lie down.” Martha waited while Tess completed the dawn entry, then took the chair her daughter had occupied through the night. Nothing in the notes suggested a sudden turn in either direction. Jonah was breathing more easily, but Naomi still wanted him watched closely, and Martha read the instructions without reaching for a pen to add anything.
Over the next days she learned to wait through the length of a drink instead of watching only for the first swallow. Jonah got up and remained on his feet. His attention began returning to the feeding point. Then, while Iris was eating, he pinned a corner of bedding with his paw, and Martha stepped out of sight to give herself a moment before recording it.
Tess’s updates brought help from Cedar Ridge. Two keepers arrived prepared to stay, overnight bags in hand, and asked to see Naomi’s care instructions. Martha showed them around. She had plenty to say about a troublesome latch; when one of them picked up a feed bucket with his left hand, she drew breath to comment on that too.
He carried it away without spilling a drop.
With Iris, the difficulty was a yellow sleeve. Whenever one keeper’s raincoat appeared, the lioness moved off. He found a darker coat and got on with his work, making no grand claim about having won her over. Later Martha checked the spelling of his name before she entered it on the watch sheet.
She thought she was ready for the reunion. Naomi had allowed the pair into the same undamaged room under observation, and Martha waited at the keeper barrier as Jonah reached Iris. His forehead went up under her jaw, insistently; the tongue over his ear made him lean harder. Iris moved her sore hip away, and he adjusted his approach.
There was no long, still moment for Martha to hold them in. Iris wanted to lie in her usual place, and Jonah went for water. Martha stayed at the barrier after they had separated to do those ordinary things.
The transport team returned after the damaged section was assessed. Grant showed them the intact high-side access they would use, and Martha listened to a departure being planned through a doorway she had never loaded an animal through. He had no estimate to give her for restoring the old route. She did not ask for one.
At her desk, she sorted what the receiving team needed from what belonged to her. The medical records and legal files went to their transfer boxes, their digital copies checked with Tess. A new binder held Ben’s construction photographs. His stiff work gloves defeated the sorting: for three days she left them in their drawer.
On the fourth day, Tess leaned over an old donation envelope on which Martha was writing. Martha covered the words, then drew her hand away. “I keep remembering things after I’ve put the files in the box.”
She had written about Iris’s dislike of a shovel scraping concrete near breakfast, and the way Jonah might wait for people to lose interest before trying new enrichment. There were the small accommodations for Iris’s hip: how she started at the left of a platform. In a thunderstorm, the two lions preferred squeezing into one shelter to choosing separate ones.
“It’ll sound like I’m telling them how to do everything,” Martha said. “They’ll have ways of their own.”
Tess took a clean sheet. “Let’s put it where they can read it.”
They worked at the desk together. Tess added the metal cart and the seam in the floor that made Jonah startle, something she had noticed while Martha was recovering from knee surgery. She wrote that Iris often came to investigate a new keeper once the keeper stopped making an effort to interest her. Martha asked about the cart, listened, and watched her daughter turn the paper over for more room.
On the eleventh morning after the flood, Naomi cleared Jonah for the journey, with monitoring and the arrangements she required. The receiving rooms were ready. Grant had checked the route, and the forecast gave them two dry days. Martha considered asking what it said about the third, then folded the care sheet and put it with the records.
They started early at the high-side access. Jonah paused several times on his way into the crate, looking back toward the room, but crossed the threshold. After the door lowered, he struck the floor with a paw and stood listening.
Iris heard him.
She came along the new route, reached her own crate, and backed away.
Martha had expected that much. They gave the lioness time and reduced the movement around the approach. Martha took her familiar place behind the barrier, where she had stood during the practice sessions, and the little piece of food was offered where Iris could safely reach it.
Iris advanced a step.
Then her gaze passed Martha and went toward the old room.
“She may need longer,” Martha said.
Naomi nodded from her observation position. They could pause and reassess before asking for more. Martha felt the possibility of another morning here open up so easily that she had to look down at her hands. Iris was hesitant; that was real. There would be no need to explain any other reason for waiting.
Tess came beside her. “Come over here with me a minute.”
“She’s used to having me here.”
“I know she is.”
Her daughter did not reach for the food. She stood where Martha could join her, beyond the viewing screen. They had discussed quiet pauses with the transport team; nobody was asking Martha to hurry the animal, and nobody was taking over her call.
From the first crate came Jonah’s low, restless voice. Iris turned her ears toward it. Martha could remain in the place the lioness knew, drawing her attention each time she moved or spoke. She looked at Tess waiting by the screen.
Martha put the unused food in its covered container and stepped away.
For a while she heard only Iris sniffing. Then came the scrape of a claw on the threshold. Martha could see the lioness stretch her head into the crate, bring one forepaw across, and wait with her weight divided between the old room and the new space.
She did not call.
Iris brought the other paw forward, shifted the stiff hip, and drew her tail after her. Tess and Grant confirmed that she was clear, and the door lowered.
Iris turned toward Jonah’s crate and settled at the end nearest him. Martha stayed behind the screen for the remaining checks. A few steps would have let her see their faces, but she kept her feet where they were. Tess rested a hand at her elbow until Grant said the team was ready.
There was plenty of work still to do. Martha carried supplies and handed over the records, Naomi’s medical file, and the two-sided sheet. Last came the blue ball, washed and packed among the familiar things the receiving keepers had agreed to use.
Tess put it in the equipment compartment, then turned back. “You can come with me. Grant’s driving them. We’ll follow.”
Martha looked toward the office. She had planned to stay and lock it, empty the freezer, sort the jobs that would remain when the transport was gone. Each one seemed suddenly capable of taking most of a day.
“I’d have to get a bag together.”
“The one under the cot?” Tess asked. “You packed it yesterday.”
Martha remembered the clean shirt and toothbrush she had put there without making any decision she would admit to. She took the office key from her pocket.
“Give me a minute to fetch it.”
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