It was standing outside my office in a wrinkled county-issued button-down, holding Marmalade’s intake file like it had personally offended him.
My director did not sit.
He closed the door behind him and stayed standing, which is what people do when they want a conversation to feel shorter than it is.
“You put me in a bad position yesterday.”
That was his opening line.
Not good morning.
Not how’s the cat
Just that.
I had not even taken my coat off yet.
The coffee on my desk was still too hot to drink.
“I know,” I said.
He looked tired more than angry, which somehow made it worse.
Anger is simple
Tired means a person has already had this fight in their head before they ever brought it to you.
“You can’t pull animals off the list because a case hits you harder than the others.”
I stared at the file in his hand.
The note was paper-clipped to the front.
Big crooked letters.
Please don’t make him scared.
At 9:17, the phone at my desk rang.
I nearly let it go to voicemail
I picked up on the fourth ring.
“County Animal Shelter. Dr. Boone.”
There was breathing on the other end.
Not silence.
The kind of breathing people do when they are trying to sound fine before they ask something that might break them.
Then a woman said, “Yesterday an orange cat was surrendered. Old. In a blue carrier with tape on the side.”
I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles hurt.
And in the next breath, I realized saving Marmalade had only been the beginning
.
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