Part 6
Diane pulled the bag from beneath the cot and checked its contents, although she remembered packing every item. She slid the construction binder beside the shirt, stood holding the straps, then took it out again.
The photographs could stay on the shelf. She was going for a night.
She checked the office windows, disconnected the small refrigerator, and made one last pass through the empty, secured animal rooms. The remaining property checks were on a written list. A trustee had duplicate keys, and local staff knew when they were expected.
Diane set the list by the phone, then locked the keeper door.
She waited out of habit for a footfall on the other side of the wall. Then she put the keys in her bag.
April stood beside the car with two coffees. She passed over the unsweetened one and tugged the passenger handle twice before the door opened.
“Still haven’t fixed that?” Diane asked.
“It’s a wet-weather problem.”
Diane looked up at the dry morning sky.
April’s mouth twitched. She went around to the driver’s side before Diane could answer.
They followed the animal transport along the high road. Whenever Brett disappeared around a bend, Diane leaned forward until his vehicle came back into view.
Eighteen miles out, she asked April to reduce the air-conditioning. Twelve miles later, she wanted more air.
April adjusted the dial both times.
“You’re allowed to complain,” Diane said.
“I’m keeping a reserve.”
Diane laughed into the lid of her coffee. April glanced over, smiling, then returned her attention to the road.
The flooded bottoms gave way to stony pasture and oak ridges. A few houses had new roofs; others had tarps pulled tight beneath strips of lumber. Outside a nursery Diane had passed for years, a worker arranged chrysanthemums on a timber bench.
She watched the pots recede in the side mirror. She could stop there on the way home. She wouldn’t have to measure the distance from a new plant to an animal fence or look up whether fallen leaves might blow into an enclosure.
At Orsena, Brett drove through the service entrance into a secured receiving area. Diane stopped where April asked her to wait.
The intake supervisor came to meet them, a sturdy woman named Ingrid with mud along one boot and a smear of blue ink beside her thumbnail. She greeted April by name before introducing herself to Diane.
“We’ve reviewed Valerie’s plan,” Ingrid said. “I’ll show you where you can watch. Tell me if you see a response we should know about.”
Diane followed her into the keeper area.
The adjoining intake rooms opened toward a private exercise yard, securely separated from the resident animals. Beyond trees stood the permanent habitats. Jasper and Mabel would begin here, with familiar company and fewer new things to manage at once.
Diane studied the overhead shade. There was more of it than she had understood from the photographs. When Ingrid operated a gate, it moved with a soft mechanical sound.
Diane listened for the second knock. It belonged to a room ninety-six miles away.
Jasper emerged from his crate close to the ground. He investigated the doorway, a drain cover, the angle where two walls met. Then he turned back toward the crate opening.
His red ball waited farther inside. He looked past it.
Mabel took longer to come through. Once she reached her adjoining room, she went to the dividing mesh and stood there. Jasper crossed toward her. Their noses met briefly through the barrier.
Diane lowered the bag she had been holding against her ribs.
“We’ll give them some quiet,” Ingrid said. “Come sit down.”
The staff room held a folding table, a jug of water, sandwiches, and a bowl of bruised plums. Diane took the chair nearest the doorway. April washed her hands and chose a plum.
“I thought you wouldn’t eat those,” Diane said.
“I wouldn’t when I was seven.”
“You said the skins made your teeth feel strange.”
April inspected a soft spot before biting. “That still happens. I eat them anyway.”
Staff moved in and out. Someone asked April about Jasper’s feeding routine. She explained where he preferred to stand and what made him hesitate, using her hands to show the positions. She didn’t glance at Diane before answering the next question.
Diane unwrapped her sandwich and listened.
Later, Ingrid showed her the observation records and gave her a number for updates. April would use temporary staff housing until her apartment was ready. A guest room nearby had been arranged for Diane.
“I can find my way to bed without an escort,” Diane said.
April reached for her bag. “Then we both get an early night.”
That evening, Diane called the neighbor who had offered a ride home. The woman could collect her the next afternoon, just as she had proposed when Diane insisted she probably wouldn’t make the trip.
Diane told April the time.
“I can stop by before morning rounds,” April said.
“Please do.”
They sat outside the guest accommodation for a little while. April mentioned that work on her apartment would take another week.
“What work?”
“A bathroom leak.”
Diane turned toward her.
“A small one. They found it before I moved in.” April took out her phone. “Here. You can inspect the rest of it.”
There was a compact kitchen, a narrow porch, and a window with room beneath it for a little table. Diane turned the phone sideways and enlarged the view beyond the porch rail.
“That looks like a walnut tree.”
“I haven’t checked.”
“Find out. The old nutcracker’s still in the kitchen drawer.”
April took the phone back and looked at the picture once more before putting it away.
After the receiving team’s checks the following morning, the cats were allowed into the private yard together. Diane watched from the protected keeper area.
Jasper remained in the doorway, looking at the grass. Mabel passed him without hesitation, though she took care placing the right hind foot. He followed after she had gone several yards.
Diane expected the nearest shelter to draw them. Instead, Mabel traced the fence and chose a patch with a view of the intake rooms. She lowered herself in stages, adjusted her hip, and extended a foreleg through the grass.
Jasper settled beside her, beyond easy reach of a cuff.
After a while he rolled onto one shoulder. Mabel bent over him and groomed behind his ear. He pushed his head a little closer, then lay still.
Neither of them looked toward the keeper path.
Diane remained at the rail. Since breakfast, a small stone had been working against her heel. She had meant to remove it after the first gate check, then after the cats went out, then after she saw where they would settle.
She sat on the nearby bench and pulled off her boot. The stone fell into her palm. She dropped it beneath the grass on her side of the fence and put the boot back on.
April came along the path carrying an empty bucket.
“There’s fresh coffee inside.”
Diane stood. Across the yard, Mabel had closed her eyes. Jasper rested one broad paw over the edge of her foreleg. She had not moved it away.
At the staff-room entrance, April shifted the bucket to free a hand for the door. Diane took it from her.
On the table, beside April’s chipped blue mug, a second cup waited. Diane tasted it before she sat down. No sugar.