Chapter 4 #2
She looked at him in surprise and then chuckled. “Absolutely. Four o’clock. It’s a date.”
*
Funny, but when four o’clock came around the next day, Nelly jumped up from her desk and basically raced out, almost catching Dani by surprise as she stepped in. “Sorry,” Nelly muttered.
“Apparently you have places to go and people to see,” she quipped, with a smile.
“I do, indeed.” Nelly laughed. “Hate to say it, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking of for a while.”
“You go then.” Dani sent her off with a wave.
As Nelly raced down the hallway to the elevator, she caught it just at the perfect time, and she was quickly transported down to Stan’s. As the elevator door opened, Zander sat there, waiting for her. She laughed. “I was trying so hard not to be late.”
“Hey, I don’t think you’re late at all,” he said, with a smile. “Matter of fact, I think you’re doing just fine.”
“You think so?” she asked in a teasing tone. “And who knew that you would beat me here?”
“I finished a little bit early,” he admitted, with a smile. He motioned toward Stan’s area. “Shall we?”
“Yep, we sure should.” She stepped up behind him and pushed his wheelchair forward.
“Hey, I can do that.”
“I’m sure you can,” she replied, “but anytime I can take a load off, I will.”
“I’m not that sickly.”
“And you’re not that healthy yet either,” she argued.
He grumbled, “Okay, fine. I won’t argue that one.”
She chuckled. “You know I’m right.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean I want to feel that way.”
“Ooh, good point. I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”
“Good,” he said, now laughing. “And I’ll never feel bad when you are honest with me. You’re just too funny.”
“Hey, I’m quite thrilled with how my day is going. I got through it without any major calamities, got lots of phone calls done, got lots of answers I needed. It’s been good.”
“That sounds great. Now if only the rest of the day goes so well.”
“Are you expecting it not to?”
“Oh I don’t know. Life’s a funny thing.”
“It is, indeed,” she agreed.
As they stepped into the vet’s office, Robin looked up and smiled. “Hey, look at that. You want to visit with that otter again?”
Zander beamed. “Is he still here?”
“Nope, sorry, he’s gone home.”
“Oh, don’t tease me like that then,” he said sadly, “but I would love to have another animal in my arms.”
“We might manage that.” Robin stood and quickly came back with two baskets.
He looked inside one, and his heart melted. Five tiny kittens were inside, their tiny faces all curled in together.
“They’re beautiful,” Nelly exclaimed.
Zander had been given the other basket, filled with something else. She leaned over and studied them. “Are those foxes?”
At that, Robin laughed. “They indeed are. Somebody found them with no mom, so we’re doing our best to keep them alive.
” She pointed behind her. “I’ll be back out with feeding bottles in a minute.
” She returned quickly with several bottles, handed Zander one, picked up one of the baby kits and handed it to him, tucking it up against his chest and explained, “Feed it this way.”
“Oh my,” he muttered, his face completely enthralled.
Nelly looked up at Robin and winked. “This is such a great place to come visit,” she murmured. “Thanks.”
“We try hard.” Robin nodded. “It’s unpleasant to see the animals having a bad time like this, but sometimes we just need the extra help too.”
“Any time you want help, just ask me,” Nelly offered.
“I know. I know,” Robin murmured. “But, hey, you don’t always have the time to help either.”
“Right,” she agreed. “And we didn’t give you any notice that we were coming.”
“Better you come and don’t worry about the notice,” Robin replied, smiling. “Absolutely better to come just because.”
And, with that, everybody proceeded to feed the babies.
The basket of kittens on Nelly’s lap didn’t stop her from having a baby fox in her arms and a bottle as she nursed it gently.
“They are so adorable,” she whispered. She stroked the soft fur, watching as the mouth and throat worked actively to take in whatever formula was in the bottle.
“Does this happen often?” she asked Robin, who was helping with the feeding as well.
“Not often, no. Yet you can never tell from day to day who might come into the center needing help,” she pointed out. “These guys are definitely in need right now.”
Just watching the look on Zander’s face, Nelly could feel the magic in his heart.
But then she didn’t need any help with that either, as her own heart was rumbling along quite nicely.
When the last little one was full, she looked up to see if another one needed to be fed but found the final one being picked up by Robin.
“Now, what will you do with them?” she asked Robin curiously.
“We’ll take them back to their cages and let them digest this, which means usually they fall right asleep. They’re pretty young yet, so at the moment we’re safe from having them trying to run all over the place,” she added, laughing.
“Do you have a large-enough cage for when they get bigger?” Zander asked.
“We’ll have to start separating them soon. We’re looking for a rescue that can take them or somebody who can rehabilitate them back into the wild.”
“They are so beautiful,” she whispered.
“I agree,” Robin muttered, a soft smile on her face. “This part is when you really enjoy working here.”
“I guess there’s a lot of days when you don’t, huh ?” Zander asked.
“Only the days that I have to put animals to sleep,” she admitted. “Those are always the days that break my heart, each and every time.”
At that, Zander winced. “I don’t think I could do your job, just because of that.”
“And some days I don’t think I can either,” Robin admitted. “If the animal’s old and injured, and it’s a kindness, then it makes it easier, but it’s still not easy.”
“Right,” he replied, with a nod. “None of that kind of work would be, I imagine.”
“Nope. But it’s valuable, and that’s something that we have to hang on to,” she shared, with a smile.
“Just like your rehab job here is to get better, to do the best you can, and to move forward in life, with all this pushing you into your future,” she explained.
“And that’s your job, and nobody else can do that right now for you, and that’s important too. ”
He laughed. “Everybody here is so positive and always looking on the bright side.”
“That’s because we see so many stories like I do here in this office that aren’t so bright and cheerful, for both the humans and the animals,” she noted. “Just because you see the brightness around you doesn’t mean it’s always that way. So we try to hang on to the days and the times when it is.”
“I never think about the ones who don’t do well here,” he noted sadly. “I guess that happens too.”
“For more reasons than you can even think about,” Robin said.
“I’ve been here a long time, and I’ve seen people we thought would do phenomenally well, yet come down with some major illness that took them out, and we just didn’t have a clue what was even going on inside their system.
We’ve had people go back to hospitals for more surgeries and people who had to go into a hospital because a CAT scan showed things that weren’t part of anything we can do to help them,” she murmured.
“And it’s hard, and it’s difficult, but it’s still worth doing.
Anything that heals or reduces the pain is worth doing,” she reiterated.
Robin took the fox from Zander’s arms and said, “Now, you should go have your own dinner.” She gave him a bright smile.
“And what about your dinner?” he asked.
“Oh, I’ll get mine too,” she stated, “but my partner’s coming, so we’ll be up later.”
And, with that, Zander nodded. Everybody seemed to have partners.
Everybody seemed to have relationships here, and it really surprised him.
After seeing Xavier find a partner for himself here too, Zander felt the same opportunity wasn’t necessarily available for him.
Look at how well Xavier had done with rehab.
He was healed and healthy. As Zander slowly wheeled his way out of the veterinarian clinic, he felt a sadness pulling on him.
“I took you in there to make you happy,” Nelly murmured. “I wasn’t thinking you would come out sad.”
“Sad? Not necessarily. It was just something Robin mentioned about her partner and then seeing all the wedding preparations and all the laughter, and I don’t know how much of that is a normal and an everyday occurrence here,” he murmured.
“But it’s such an odd thing to realize that so many people here have relationships. ”
“And you don’t?” she asked.
“No, I don’t,” he said, with a smile in her direction. “Never thought in many, many years that it would be a thing for me.”
“And why wouldn’t it be a thing for you?” she asked curiously.
“Only because you never really understand that other people are probably doing better than you. You’re the one sitting here and judging the world because they won’t like you in your current physical condition,” he shared.
“When really it’s you judging them first, before they get a chance to even see you. ”
“Ah.” Nelly nodded. “We’ve seen so many relationships happen here that it’s not even something that I question anymore. Yet I guess for everybody new who comes in, it’s always an intriguing issue, isn’t it?”
“I would imagine so, unless they already have someone waiting for them, who is so happy to take them, to know that they survived whatever trauma they went through, and that the condition doesn’t even bother them.”
“I’m sure that, in some cases, it does bother people. I’m sure there have been a few instances where it’s been a less-than-happy outcome, and divorces have happened over it,” Nelly noted. “However, I would prefer to think that, in most cases, that’s not the norm.”
He frowned at her.