Part 4
Diane’s knees bent before she chose somewhere to sit. She found a low feed tub behind her and lowered herself onto it, still holding the towel.
April stood over her for a moment, then disappeared down the aisle. She returned with a sandwich in a paper wrapper.
“Brett brought lunch for the road.” She put it in Diane’s hand. “We’ve missed the road. We can still eat.”
“I couldn’t.”
April sat on another tub and unfolded the wrapper herself. She divided the sandwich and gave half back.
It was egg salad with chopped pickle. Martin had hated the smell of it so thoroughly that Diane had stopped making it within a year of their marriage.
She took a bite. The pickle caught between her teeth, and she began crying with her mouth still full.
April reached for the towel but let Diane take it from her. She didn’t talk about Jasper’s chances. When Diane could manage no more, April finished what remained, sitting close enough that their wet sleeves touched.
They changed clothes in turns. From a cabinet in the office, Diane retrieved an old Velora sweatshirt with a bobcat stitched above the pocket. The seam beneath it had been repaired in small, irregular stitches. She remembered doing that at the kitchen table while waiting for a medication alarm.
The undamaged rooms were checked before Valerie agreed to keep the cats in them overnight. The ruined passage was isolated. During examination and treatment, Diane remained outside the access door, handing in what the veterinarian requested.
By evening, Jasper’s breathing had eased a little. Diane wrote the observation without improving the language.
Mabel took a small meal at her usual feeding point, then returned to the partition. She settled with her shoulder alongside the mesh. Diane recorded how much she had eaten and washed the feeding tool.
Outside, the water had left a dull band along the lower wall. Brett and the responders had redirected the worst flow away from the building, but the garden was buried and part of the apron was gone.
Diane went out once to look.
Jasper’s empty crate rested on temporary supports above an eroded hollow. From behind the cordon, she could see soil hanging beneath the edge she had swept that morning. Under the work lamps, the wet dirt looked smooth enough to walk on.
Brett came up beside her. One trouser leg had dried stiff with mud.
“Wait for the assessment before anybody sets foot beyond this.”
Diane kept looking at the gap. “I’m not walking out there.”
He started to answer, pressed his lips together, then held out the construction binder instead.
“April wanted the pictures somewhere warm. I’ve separated the wet pages.”
Diane took it. Dry paper had been tucked between the sleeves. On one page, behind the edge of a steel panel, a child held a level almost as wide as her body.
April, about twelve. Diane had remembered Martin in that photograph but not the girl beside him.
“She used to cry if water got in her shoes,” Diane said.
Brett rubbed at a patch of mud on his wrist. “Didn’t have much to say about it today.”
He headed back toward the temporary drainage. Diane carried the binder into the keeper room and laid it near the heater.
At ten, Valerie put an end to questions about a morning departure. Jasper would be reassessed after the night. Orsena had confirmed that his room and Mabel’s would remain available for as long as necessary.
Diane reached for the stack of blank feed sheets. For another morning, she would need them.
When she looked up, April was watching her.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Diane said. “I haven’t wished this on him.”
April carried the water pitcher to the sink. “No. You haven’t.”
“Then what?”
The pitcher touched the metal basin with a small clink. April kept her hands on it.
“I’m done rebuilding.”
Diane straightened. “Nobody asked you to rebuild anything.”
“You asked Brett what a replacement passage might cost.”
“I own a damaged building. Am I not allowed to ask?”
April turned from the sink. “I’ll help with Jasper. I’ll help pack and close and finish the records. But I won’t turn this into another year of trying to keep the place open. My job is still waiting.”
Through the wall came the scrape of a cat changing position. Diane listened until it stopped.
“You’ve wanted to work with animals your whole life.”
“That’s the job I took.”
Diane looked down at the feed forms. The top sheet had picked up a damp thumbprint.
April sat across from her, but she didn’t reach for the papers.
“There are times you ask me to stay,” she said. “Other times you tell me what will happen if I leave. I don’t always know how to answer the second one.”
“I never told you that you couldn’t go.”
“I know.”
The heater clicked off. Without its fan, they could hear Valerie moving in the next room.
Diane had imagined an unhappy office somewhere when she thought of April leaving: fluorescent lights, a desk, people who would never understand why a keeper checked a latch twice. But April was going to feed lions, supervise other keepers, learn a different building. Mabel and Jasper would be there.
Diane tried to smooth the damp form. It buckled under her palm.
“What do I put on the list when there aren’t any animals?”
April rested her elbows on the table. “There’ll be plenty to do tomorrow.”
“Not that tomorrow.”
Her daughter was quiet long enough that Diane finally looked at her.
“I haven’t figured that out for you, Mom…”
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