Chapter Twenty-Eight
MARC
The first thing I noticed when Cheryl called the room to order was that my hands stopped shaking.
They’d been doing it all week. Not visibly—I’d managed that much—but a low-frequency tremor underneath everything.
Present at three in the morning when I ran probability calculations that weren’t helping anyone.
Present in the clinic between patients when I’d catch myself staring at the wall, working out possible scenarios.
And present in the kitchen when I found myself chopping vegetables into unnecessarily small pieces because my hands needed something precise to do.
But now we were here. The committee was positioned.
The room was full, especially with the four additional participants who showed up because of a scheduling miscommunication.
Delaney had smiled and quickly added additional mats in ninety seconds as I recalibrated everything.
Three of the four were returning participants.
Doug, Sienna, Patty—in full yoga gear with a monogrammed mat bag—and Kevin, a new participant.
There was simply too much to manage for my nervous system to dedicate resources to falling apart. And being in motion was easier than waiting.
I took my position near the door—sightlines to the full room and eight seconds to intervene anywhere, Noble currently within arm’s reach, threat assessment running—and noted, professionally, that the room looked fantastic.
Delaney and Cheryl had created an ethereal and calming space that the participants really responded to.
Cheryl opened up with breathwork, and the room began to settle. Noble sat perfectly still beside me—until the tip of his tail gave a slow sweep against the floor.
I looked at him, but his attention wasn’t on me. It was on Mr Geraldi.
The tail began to move a little faster, and his muscles tensed. I identified the trajectory. Assessed the distance. Put both hands on his collar before he took off running.
Henderson, the orange tabby, had been a shelter resident long enough to have developed strong opinions about every surface in the building.
I’d known bringing him into the yoga class was a calculated risk.
Henderson had never met a horizontal surface he didn’t consider a sleeping option.
What I had failed to factor into my risk assessment was the specific appeal of a committee member’s back during child’s pose.
Ms. Kline was folded forward, arms extended, forehead touching the mat. Her back was objectively, a flat, warm surface.
Henderson had identified his target. Ms. Kline. Of course. He crossed the room, unhurried and certain of his path. The cat wasn’t told no often, and it showed with the confidence he exuded in every step.
I was already too late.
He gathered himself—front paws forward, a brief anticipatory butt wiggle—and jumped. Landed. Not surprising anyone, he circled once and settled, folding himself neatly along the length of her back like he’d done it a hundred times before.
Ms. Kline made a sound.
I ran through my options.
Option one: remove Henderson. Outcome: Henderson would resist. Disruption would be worse than the current situation, and either I or a volunteer might have cat scratches we may not want to deal with.
Option two: leave Henderson where he was. Part of animal yoga was for the animals to be free to do what they wanted. I just wished he’d chosen a different friend to curl up on.
Ms. Kline squeaked, and Henderson immediately lay down like he’d found his forever home.
“He’s chosen you,” Glamma announced, at a volume calibrated for a room much larger than this. “Cats don’t just sit on anyone. That’s good luck.”
Mr Geraldi turned toward her.
Glamma met him with a serene smile, and even though it seemed impossible, it was like she and Henderson had been in cahoots.
Ms. Kline tilted her head sideways, not quite far enough to see Henderson.
Henderson opened one eye and regarded her. Then he closed it again with the finality of a decision made—and one that would not be reversed.
“Is he … Can someone … um?” Ms. Kline asked.
“Well, we can look at it as therapeutic intervention,” Delaney said with a chuckle, stepping beside her.
Henderson, in the way that cats change their mind constantly, stood up, turned twice in a tight circle, and lay back down.
Ms. Kline went very still beneath him. Her shoulders lifted slightly with her next breath. Held. Then eased back down as her hands relaxed against the mat, and she incorporated Henderson into her pose.
“Okay,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. Her eyes closed again, and Glamma nodded her approval.
Mr. Geraldi uncapped his pen and began to take notes.
Delaney caught my eye over Ms. Kline’s occupied back. I gave a firm nod when she held up a treat bag and shook it.
Then Henderson opened both eyes. Josh smirked at me, and I was already internally creating comebacks to the sarcastic comments he’d make when the night was over.
Delaney held out her handful of treats. Henderson, now fully interested, stood and sprang off the committee member’s back. He landed clean, tail high, and ambled his way over to get the snack in Delaney’s hand.
Noble went rigid beside me. Eleven minutes.
I’d been counting. Eleven minutes before he began vibrating with barely contained energy.
His energy had built in steady increments with each passing second—muscles tightening, tail swishing intensely, and while I maintained my grip on his collar, he maintained his focus on Mr. Geraldi as if he had identified his person for the evening and was simply waiting for the right moment.
What I had not anticipated was that after spending the last four years working at the shelter—and throughout the time I’d observed Noble—that I’d completely misjudged his capabilities and constraints. He was a senior dog. He had three legs. His steering was aspirational at best.
What I had underestimated was his motivation.
One second, he was beside me. The next, his front legs had committed to going forward while his back end tried to keep up.
I tightened my grip on his collar, but he kept going.
I adjusted my stance, recalibrated, and applied more force.
And he still kept tugging me forward. This was a three-legged dog generating more forward propulsion than should have been mechanically possible.
“Noble,” I said, using the tone that typically resulted in compliance.
His ear curved toward me, and I knew damn well he heard me, and understood me, but the ear turned away, and so did he.
My shoes shifted half an inch across the floor.
Then another. I was losing ground. Rapidly. I tripped over my own foot. The floor rushed up to meet me. And there was no time to catch myself. As I laid sprawled out on the floor, Noble took the opportunity to run.
One second, he was contained, and the next, he was off like a heat-seeking missile. He reached Mr. Geraldi, who had his back turned, and then launched himself with everything he had.
Both front paws made contact somewhere around Mr. Geraldi’s lower back.
He had not known enough to brace for impact.
He wobbled. Caught himself. Wobbled again.
Each time it looked like he had stabilized, then Noble pushed a little harder, and gravity won Mr Geradi’s tenuous battle.
His arms flew out, launching his clipboard flying one way and his water bottle the other.
He performed a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation that I could only describe as a controlled spiral before his feet lost the battle with gravity and he went down.
Fuuuuck.
He didn’t appear to be hurt. But he lay there on the floor with a three-legged dog gleefully leaning on his chest, looking at him like he hung the moon.
My stomach didn’t just drop, it slammed into the floor below me.
The grant. The entire point of this visit.
And we had one animal use a committee member as his personal perch, and the other was knocked to the ground.
The room went silent.
Every variable I’d been tracking all week collapsed into one: Mr. Geraldi.
I jumped to my feet and ran to his side.
Each second it took to get there registered as an hour in my brain instead of seconds.
I kneeled, both hands on Noble’s collar, hauling him back while running a rapid visual assessment—head, neck, shoulders, breathing, responsiveness—no obvious injury. No disorientation beyond the fall.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
Mr. Geraldi stood. “It’s fine.” He looked down at Noble, who looked back with complete adoration.
Then he reached down and scratched Noble behind his ears.
Brief. Meaningful. Apparently, that was enough for Noble to sit still.
“He may stay, Dr. Kingsley,” he said before taking the clipboard and pen from the volunteer who had retrieved them.
I nodded, took a step back, and returned to my station.
Rutherford wound his way around participants, making them laugh when he licked their feet or knees. Three small chihuahuas, Butch, Hulk, and Tank were making the rounds to the delight of everyone, and Noble was now resting by Martha’s mat while still keeping his eye on Mr. Geraldi.
It was … going well.
Our new participant, Kevin, was having a blast. He’d arrived with no yoga experience, just optimistic energy looking for an adventure. He attempted every pose with full physical commitment but no center of gravity.
He was trying his best. Unfortunately, his best included making executive decisions mid-pose. I watched him shift from stable enough to ambitious in the span of a second.
Delaney had just corrected his tree pose and reminded him that he could modify any position. That he didn’t have to do the advanced pose until he was comfortable. Kevin disagreed and thought that he should work above his ability to challenge himself.
That had worked fine so far ...