Still, Miso looks worlds better than before, a little thicker and her eyes brighter, though they’re half-mooned with sleep. Miso lifts her head from the blanket, and the moment her eyes land on Camila, she lets out a small, gravelly meow.
“Hello to you, too,” Camila says with her heart in her throat.
As soon as the vet sets Miso down, she pads straight to Camila and climbs into her arms. Her purr starts immediately, deep and steady, rumbling through her ribs, and all her muscles relax. She presses her face into Miso’s fur without thinking. She doesn’t know how it happened, but somewhere between the first frightened glance and now, this small creature carved out a space for herself in Camila’s heart, as if it had always been there, waiting to be claimed.
“She’s ready to go home,” the vet says, sliding a packet of paperwork across the counter. “The stitches will need to come out in about ten days. Any local clinic can do that. Since she was a stray, she got a fresh round of vaccines. The only two things still outstanding, since we don’t test for them here, are FIV and FeLV, so make sure the vet you take her to runs those tests.”
“I’m sorry.” Camila frowns slightly. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Those are tests for feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukemia,” the vet explains gently. “They’re both pretty common in strays, so it’s just to be safe.”
Camila nods, pressing her face into Miso’s soft fur. “We’ll take care of it. Right, Miso?”
Miso meows, almost like she’s agreeing, and Camila smiles.
“Thank you,” Camila says, the words catching slightly as she gathers the paperwork and tucks it under her arm.
“Of course. Did you bring a carrier for her, or will you be needing one?
A carrier, right. She’d gotten one but somehow left it behind in her excitement to pick Miso up.
“I’ll need a temporary one. I have one, but I forgot it.”
The vet smiles and reaches into one of the drawers for a cardboard box, folds it into shape, and gently places Miso inside.
Camila mutters another quick “thanks” before turning toward the door.
The drive out of Lynnwood stretches longer than it should. Traffic crawls, then clears, then crawls again, and that only seems to agitate Miso, who’s yowling, loud and indignant.
At every red light, Camila leans over, slipping a finger through the air holes of the cardboard carrier. “I know,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. Almost there.” The promises stack up, whispered between stops and starts.
Somewhere past the halfway point, the cries fade, and that’s almost worse. At every stop sign on the way home, Camila opens the box to check on Miso, who stares back at her—sulking at the bottom of the carrier, glaring.
Camila had read somewhere that cats should be kept in a small space for the first few days in a new place, such as a bathroom or a closet, so she went out and bought everything she could think of to turn the walk-in closet in her home office into a cat haven. Food, toys, a scratcher, a cat tree, even a ridiculously fluffy bed shaped like a bowl of ramen that cost more than her own sheets. However, Miso wants none of it.
She steps into the closet, takes one look around, and looks back at Camila with an almost offended expression. Camila crouches nearby, rattling a toy that goes completely ignored. Miso sniffs the fluffy bed, but turns away, choosing to settle herself on Camila’s crossed legs instead.
Every time Camila tries to leave, Miso lets out a loud, broken meow that splinters something deep in Camila’schest, and she sits back down immediately, as if pulled by an invisible string.
Time loses its shape. It stretches, collapses, starts again. Miso’s gaze never leaves Camila, eyes half-lidded but sharp, tracking every shift of weight, every twitch that might signal she’s leaving.
Eventually, the quiet breaks with the low growl of Camila’s stomach. She exhales, glances at the door. She needs food. She’ll be two minutes, max.
“I’ll be right back,” she says as she sets Miso down on the cat bed. The promise apparently means nothing to Miso, who bolts out of the room, moving far faster than Camila thought possible for a three-legged cat fresh out of surgery.
For the rest of the night, Miso trails her through the house as she cooks and organizes. A quick search online suggests Miso might have separation anxiety. Camila understands that feeling well, so she lets Miso roam. The cat pads from room to room, sniffing corners, hopping onto chairs, brushing against Camila’s legs, rubbing against, well, everything. By the time Camila sits down for the evening, deciding she’s done enough organizing for the day, Miso curls up nearby.
On night one, Miso claims the entire bed, and most mornings Camila wakes to find Miso curled up on her chest.
Over the next few days, they fall into an easy rhythm. Miso refuses the closet outright, so Camila lets her roam when she’s home and mutters endless apologies on the mornings she has to leave for work, locking her in despite herself. There’s nothing Camila wants more than to take Miso to work with her, but the idea of a stray cat hairlanding on a hundred-year-old painting seems like an excellent way to get herself fired.
The ten days after surgery pass quickly, blurred together by unpacking, organizing, work, and daily inspections of the incision. Camila nearly forgets to schedule the stitch removal until a reminder slides into her inbox.
Thankfully, the clinic she first took Miso to offers same-day visits. Camila books the appointment immediately. After work, she loads Miso into her carrier and heads back out, bracing herself for the familiar chorus of complaints. The car ride is a full concert of protest, Miso meowing the entire way, until the complaints taper off into a grumble. Camila slips her fingers through an opening in her carrier and offers Miso her hand, and Miso presses her face against it.
Camila’s looking forward to this visit, nerves and all. She wants to thank the vet who helped them. The woman didn’t have to stay late that night, but did. Camila feels so shitty for not having properly expressed how much that meant. She isn’t sure what she would have done if the vet hadn’t been there.
At the clinic, she checks in, waits, and hopes they call for them soon because Miso is furious. The pets are no longer soothing her, and she yowls, claws scraping against the mesh in her carrier, trying to dig her way out.
