Chapter 10 #2
“I’m not looking for anything permanent, if that’s what you’re asking,” I say. “I’m filling a gap. Dr. Fenn needed coverage, I was available.”
I can hear how it sounds. I’ve been using this framing for two years and it used to sound like honesty and now it sounds like something I’ve rehearsed. Which I have.
“I know,” Hanna says. “I did that for years, actually. Not locum work—but the same thing. ‘I’m just here because someone needs something. I’m just filling in.’” She picks up a piece of gauze from the supply table, sets it down. “Sometimes the gap you’re filling is your own.”
There’s a specific version of this sensation that I know: a true thing hitting a wall you built to keep it out. The wall holds. The true thing doesn’t go away. It waits.
It lands anyway. I don’t acknowledge it. I turn to the record I’ve been holding and make a note I don’t need to make, and Hanna, who doesn’t press, lets the subject turn.
We talk about the Elk Creek fire for a while, the smoke, the evacuation logistics, the animal welfare side that nobody plans for. Hanna is warm, and good at making people feel seen without making them feel exposed. I can see why people tell her things.
After Hanna leaves, I stand in the exam room and think: I am not a project. I am a professional making a professional choice to move on when my contract ends.
I think this twice.
The problem with Hanna’s observation is that it doesn’t leave me a good place to push back from.
She’s not wrong, exactly. The question is whether ‘the gap you’re filling is your own’ means something I should do something about, or just something that’s true.
Things can be true and not actionable. I’m a vet.
I know the difference between a diagnosis and a treatment plan.
I call the Morrison ranch back about the overnight livestock situation and am professional for the rest of the afternoon.
Dr. Fenn calls at five-thirty.
Recovery is on track. PT is going well. The hip is healing faster than expected. She’ll be back in four weeks, maybe three if the final PT assessment is ahead of schedule.
“The practice is in great shape,” I say. “Your clients are lovely.”
“They’re a good community,” Dr. Fenn says. “I was worried about the Morrison family—Duchess can be difficult. How have you been managing her?”
“We have an understanding,” I say.
This is true. Duchess decided in week three that I was acceptable, which involved twenty minutes of being sniffed and assessed and then a definitive head press against my chest that I chose to interpret as professional validation. I tell myself this. Duchess is a horse. I’m not reading into it.
“She’s a horse with opinions.”
“So am I,” I say.
Dr. Fenn laughs. “I’m glad you’re there,” she says. “Truly. I hope it hasn’t been too much.”
“It’s been good practice,” I say, and I mean it exactly as clinically as it sounds, and also it’s the least clinical thing I’ve said in weeks.
I hang up and write the date on the whiteboard above my desk: four weeks. Possibly three. The contract end date I wrote up there my first week is still in the corner in blue marker, and the math between those two dates is simple and I can do it in my head.
Three weeks. The clock has been running this whole time. I just didn’t look at it.
I also didn’t look at the fire rotation schedule, which I’ve been getting from the station as a courtesy because of the animal side of things.
It tells me that Grady’s crew is on standby through end of week and then the schedule is TBD pending containment.
TBD. I’m TBD. The Elk Creek fire is TBD.
The whole summer has become one extended TBD, and I am a person who makes decisions, and I should decide what my ‘D’ is.
The clinic is empty. The dog is in the apartment, probably asleep near the front door.
I should go up and check on him. I should eat something and take the dog for the evening walk and check the fire updates because the Elk Creek situation is still developing and the smoke yesterday came from the east, which means the wind shifted, which means something changed in the overnight burn behavior.
I should do these things.
Instead, I open my laptop.
The locum agency has sent me a match. It came in this morning, and I flagged it to read later.
I open it now. It’s a small-animal practice in Durango, Colorado.
Two veterinarians, one technician, strong volume in companion animals with some exotic casework.
Six-month position. Starting date is flexible but ideally within five weeks.
I read the whole listing. I read it the way I read Spokane, the way I’ve read every listing for two years—quickly, efficiently, with the professional part of my brain that knows how to evaluate a practice from its description.
The Durango practice is good. It’s well-run.
The case mix would be interesting. It’s exactly the position I’d pick.
The thing is, I know all the questions, and I know all the answers, and none of them are doing what they used to do.
I open the application form.
I have filled out a similar form six times in two years.
I know every field. I know the order and the length and which ones I can answer in my sleep.
Contact information. License number. State certifications.
Clinical experience summary. Availability dates.
The availability dates are always the thing that makes it real: I’m available, I fill in when, I attach my CV, I submit. Simple. Clean.
The cursor blinks in the first field, but I don’t type anything.
The dog has come downstairs at some point. I don’t hear him until he’s beside my chair, just standing there, the warm weight of him in my peripheral vision. He doesn’t put his head in my lap this time. He just sits next to me, looking at the door.
I look at the application.
I look at the door.
The screen times out. The cursor goes still.
The form goes dark and the reflection in the dark screen is someone I don’t entirely recognize anymore, someone sitting in a clinic that’s not hers, in a town she knows by name now, next to a dog who isn’t hers either, not closing an application she never started.
Someone who might want to stay this time.
I don’t close the laptop but I also don’t apply.
I stare at the dark screen until the dog puts his chin on my knee, and I close my eyes and let the clock run.
“Phoenix,” I say quietly. Just to say it.