I
Dog Days
(Lena)
This job is bittersweet.
You don’t sign up for this business unless you live, sleep, and eat challenges.
Because no girl in her right mind dreams of spending her Friday evening cleaning up puddles of puppy pee.
I mean, it’s not that Imind. The puppies are adorable, bouncy little balls of golden floof, still finding their paws when they’re not mouthing everything in sight. Who am I to judge them for not knowing how to hold their bladders yet?
At their age, I probably couldn’t either.
But I love my job, urine and all.
Maybe I’d skip janitor duty if I could. But you don’t get the sparkle in life without taking out the trash.
So, here I am, mopping and disinfecting until my arms hurt. It’s just before closing, and I’m doing my very best not to eavesdrop on Dr. Ezzie’s conversation like the shameless rat I am.
Easier said than done when her office door is cracked open.
And I was born curious. Came out of the hospital wanting to know everything about everyone, so yes, my ears perk up at the concern in my boss’s voice.
Not good.
I can’t quite make out the words, but I don’t need to when her tone gives away so much. That sad, clipped edge in her voice says the news she’s getting isn’t sunshine and rainbows.
I finish cleaning and flush the dirty water from the bucket down the sink in the back room. Even from here, I can hear the way Dr. Ezzie’s tone rises and falls in the background, this nervous rhythm with a slight hush that hints she’s trying so hard not to overreact.
My heart hurts.
It has to be about her folks again.
Last week, her elderly father had a nasty fall and broke his hip.
That’s what happens when people get old—just like animals—but it doesn’t make it suck any less. Dr. Ezzie came in frazzled this morning, straight from the hospital, trading one bone-white center for sick creatures for another.
Straight from looking out for her dad to looking out for us.
As for her mom ... well, I guess the jury’s out on whether she’s still allthere. The last time she visited, her mother didn’t recognize her.
The thought hits me with anxiety.
It makes me worry for my own mom one day, and mourn the way I’ll never get a chance to face love and frailty with my dad because he’s already gone. But that’s not the only reason I’m worried today.
Why does this feel like a bad omen for Pawsome Hearts?
We’re a small clinic. One of those scrappy family-run businesses that put the well-being of our furry, feathered, scaly patients above all else. Dr. Ezzie drives the whole operation.
She’s the entire reason I applied for a position here, and I’ve loved it ever since.
But if she has to quit to play full-time caregiver or just because the job becomes too much when she’s got so much on her plate—
I don’t know.
I don’t have a clue what that means for the clinic without its owner.
