19. Brendan #2
“Something with a snappy beat, possibly a drum line. I stood in the doorway for forty-five seconds, and you didn’t even notice me.
Doc, you notice everything, but you didn’t have a clue I was even there.
” She presented this as an attorney presenting evidence without making an accusation. “That’s never happened before.”
“People hum.”
“You aren’t people. You don’t hum.” She leaned on the doorframe. “I’m not asking about it, just noting it.”
“Your notation is noted,” I said, offering a grin I didn’t feel. She glared a moment longer before spinning on a heel and retreating to her duties.
I ate the sandwich and squinted at the imaging and refused to examine what humming meant or whether it meant anything at all.
It was Tuesday. Sunday had been good. That was the full extent of what I knew, and I was comfortable knowing only that much.
Without thinking, I turned my phone over.
The group chat had twenty-three messages.
Alan had created a poll asking everyone to rate my emotional availability on a scale of one to ten.
Marcus had voted seven.
Tasha had voted six point five, which was not one of the options. She had submitted it anyway, because Tasha would never feel constrained by designated options.
Alan had voted five.
From my brother, on a scale where ten was fully emotionally available, five was an act of genuine brotherly love.
I sighed into my phone screen, closed the chat, and went back to work.
The new monitoring footage Dr. Reyes sent was paused on my desktop.
I had watched it twice, replaying sections the second time around to confirm I’d seen what I thought I was seeing.
The pattern was there. I knew it. There was a clear behavioral shift in the hour preceding the episode.
I saw it in the quality of Marisol’s movements.
Something wasn’t in the diagnostic picture yet but was trying to be.
I grabbed my phone and called Dr. Reyes.
“The footage,” I said. “Can you get me the same window from the episode two weeks prior?”
“I can pull that today,” she said. “Are you seeing a pattern?”
“Maybe. I think so. We’ll see.”
After I hung up, I sat with the imaging and the footage and my almost-theory. I was so lost in thought that I nearly missed my phone buzz against the wood of my desk.
This time, it wasn’t the group chat. It was Adrian. He’d sent a photo of his afternoon proof, halfway through what looked like a tray of conchas.
Adrian: Tell me about the tapir. How’s she doing? How are you doing? It’s got to be frustrating, not knowing how to help her.
I looked at the text for a second. His simple words encapsulated exactly how I felt.
I was frustrated and frightened, though not for myself.
I was scared for the poor creature who felt miserable and couldn’t possibly understand what was happening to her.
I was scared her condition was more serious than we knew, and something worse than seizures might happen if I couldn’t untangle this knot.
I loved working with animals, but I really wished they could talk, if only to tell me what they were feeling.
My phone screen did that dim middle setting, the thing it did when I’d let it sit too long. That shook me from my spiral. I snatched it up and let my thumbs fly.
Me: She had another episode. I’ve been reviewing the footage.
Adrian: What kind of footage?
Me: Behavioral monitoring. They have cameras in the enclosure. They have cameras everywhere, actually. I’m looking at the hours before the episode.
Adrian: What are you looking for?
Me: I wish I knew. Something strange. Something that doesn’t fit. I’m hoping to find a pattern that shows up in the window before she shows symptoms.
Adrian: Is she eating?
My thumbs froze.
This was the thing about Adrian—he consistently asked the questions I hadn’t thought to include in the clinical picture, not because I didn’t care about it, but because my brain went immediately to the mechanism, while his went immediately to the animal.
Any decent vet would’ve started with his question.
It was almost as basic as, “Is your pet breathing?”
Me: Yes. Appetite’s been normal throughout, but you reminded me to double-check that, so thank you.
Adrian: Hmm. Still not scared yet. Clearly confused and uncomfortable, though. She needs you, Brendan.
Me: Adrian . . . wow. Who are you?
Adrian: I’m a pet owner. I know things.
Me: You specialize in bread, dogs, and dancing.
Adrian: And apparently tapirs. And calming vets. Add those to my CV.
As the last patient of the day checked out with Marcus at the front desk, Diane appeared in my doorway with her bag on her shoulder. She looked like she had something to say and was going to say it efficiently.
“I heard more humming, Doc,” she said.
“I wasn’t—”
“Earlier, between the parrot and the rabbit. It was something with a drum line again. I had no idea you were so into drums.”
“I don’t hum, especially not things with drums.”
“You hum now.” She shrugged without judgment. “It started about three weeks ago. It’s intermittent. I officially diagnose you with Intermittent Humming Disorder.” She shifted her bag. “I’m not asking about it, merely logging it for the record.”
“You’re logging it? I thought you were noting it.” My desk chair wailed as I leaned back.
“Sorry, I noted it. Marcus is logging it.” She pushed off the doorframe. “Go home before eight. You have a ferret who misses you.”
Without another word, she wheeled about, bag smacking my doorframe, and left. I listened to her say something to Marcus on the way out that made him laugh. Marcus almost never laughed during office hours. That might’ve frightened me more than the tapir situation.
The front door opened and closed, and the clinic settled into its end-of-day quiet.
I tried to refocus, hitting play on the tapir footage for the third, or possibly tenth, time.
There.
I nearly leaped out of my chair.
It wasn’t in her movement, exactly. Marisol moved the same way she always moved. Hers was the careful, grounded meandering of an animal who had been somewhere long enough to know its own terrain.
This was something smaller.
A quality of attention, maybe? I wasn’t sure what to call it.
In the brief window before the episode, she kept returning to the same corner of the enclosure, not urgently or with any visible distress, just repeatedly, as though something was drawing her back to a specific spot without her fully knowing why.
It was the kind of thing you only caught if you were watching for something that didn’t belong.
I jotted it down, pulled up the second footage file, and found the same pattern in the same window.
I picked up my phone and called Peter. He answered on the second ring, which for Peter was the conversational equivalent of sprinting to the door.
“Brendan.”
“Peter, I have something.”
I walked him through it all, the footage, the behavioral pattern, the corner of the enclosure, and the timing relative to the episodes.
He listened without interrupting, which was how Peter listened to everything, with almost myopic focus.
When I finished, he remained quiet for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“The pulmonary density readings?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“Send me the imaging.”
“I’ll send it tonight.”
Another pause.
“This is a reasonable direction, Brendan,” he said, which from Peter was the equivalent of someone else saying, “Holy Jesus-in-the-Manger, yes, absolutely, you’ve got it! Well done!”
“I’m not ready to call it a theory yet.”
“It’s a theory, Brendan, a solid one,” he said in the tone of a teacher correcting a stubborn pupil. “Send the imaging.”
After we hung up, I sent Peter the imaging from my desktop, killed the lamp, and drove home with Marisol’s movements still turning over in my mind.
Puck was waiting at the door. Gerald was on the windowsill.
I fed Puck, checked Gerald’s soil, and ate dinner standing at the island.
Puck sat on the counter and watched me eat with the unfaltering attention only a furry friend possessed.
“The tapir case is moving,” I told him. “Peter wanted the imaging.”
He dook’d.
“And before you start—yes, Adrian’s the one who reminded me to check if she was eating. You don’t need to look so smug about it.”
He dook’d again, differently, a bit lower in pitch. Then he turned in two complete circles and sat back down, which was his version of agreeing to disagree, which was the closest Puck ever came to conceding a point.
Out of sheer boredom—or stupidity—I checked the group chat one more time before bed.
Alan had added a new poll that asked, On a scale of Sunday Lunch to Actively Dating, where are we?
The voting options were: Sunday Lunch, Texting Daily (Promising), Something Is Happening, and Actively Dating (Confirm Y/N).
Tasha had voted Something Is Happening. She then added, Trying to Procreate, which earned several rounds of bawdy comments from the group.
Marcus had voted Actively Dating (Confirm Y/N) and had added a comment that read, Based on available data, I believe we are past the Something Is Happening threshold. The grocery purchase alone suggests intentionality.
Alan had voted Something Is Happening but had added a note, Upgrading to Actively Dating pending Saturday confirmation. Holding position.
I shook my head, failed to stifle a laugh, and closed the chat.