Page 140 of Full Contact

“Would you come with us?”

“Is Anna busy? If she’s not available, I can cover the—“

“Anna’s available,” he said. “I’d like the company.”

“I can come,” I said.

He hung the dish towel over the oven handle. “Good.”

Dr. Feld’s waiting room was small and overheated, and it smelled of disinfectant and the liver treats in a jar on the front desk. One wall had a corkboard covered with patient photographs. Across from us, a man in a fleece vest sat with a greyhound folded at his feet, its front legs crossed.

Behind the desk, the receptionist from the distribution list, Teresa, said good morning to Trier and Peaches by name. She looked at me and smiled. “You’re Mark.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’ve seen you in photographs.” She tapped her screen. “Go ahead and have a seat. She’s next.”

Peaches sat in her carrier on the bench between us, facing the mesh door with her ears forward, watching the greyhound. Trier kept his hand flat against the side of the carrier. Every few minutes, he slid a finger close to the mesh, and she turned away from the greyhound long enough to sniff it.

I had his phone. He’d typed out his questions the night before and handed me the phone in the car so I could read them. There were five.

“Do we have the December results?” I asked.

“In the folder.”

I checked the folder. The December results were there, two pages, with Dr. Feld’s handwriting in the margin. I put them back.

“I can get the spare blanket from the car,” I said. “If she wants something—“

“She’s comfortable on that one.” He nodded at the gray blanket under her. “That’s her favorite.”

“Do you want water? There’s a cooler by the—“

I was already looking for something else to check. “Mark,” Trier said. “I’d just like you to relax.”

I looked at him, and then at the phone in my hand, still open to his list.

Sitting back, I exhaled. Our knees touched, and I kept the question list open on my lap a few seconds longer. Then I locked the screen and handed his phone back to him.

A few minutes later, we were led to the examination room. Dr. Feld lifted Peaches out of the carrier and set her on the exam table. She had her tail wrapped tight around her feet and both ears turned sideways.

“How’s she eating?”

Trier covered the details. She finished breakfast every morning and most of dinner, with the last bites taken by ten. She was drinking normally.

“Any change in activity?”

“No. She still sits in the window two hours every afternoon, watching the pigeons.”

Trier glanced at me. “One more. When I travel, if Anna can’t come, can Mark give her the gel?”

Dr. Feld looked at me over her glasses. “Has she let you hold her?”

“She climbed into his lap at the emergency hospital,” Trier said.

“Then he’s most of the way there. Bring him in early some morning, and a tech will show him.”

The technician came to take her for the blood draw. Peaches went with her chin on the woman’s forearm, looking back at us over it, the same way she had in October. The door closed behind them.