at the vet’s side.
Jim pushed it close to Einstein. “What do you think, fella?”
Einstein raised his head off the mattress again and stared at the dish. His
lolling tongue looked dry and was coated with a gummy substance. He whined and
licked his chops.
“Maybe,” Travis said, “if we help him—”
“No,” Jim Keene said. “Let him consider it. He’ll know if he feels up to it. We
don’t want to force water that’s going to make him vomit again. He’ll know by
instinct if the time is right.”
With some groaning and wheezing, Einstein shifted on the foam mattress, rolling
off his side, half onto his belly. He put his nose to the dish, sniffed the
water, put his tongue to it tentatively, liked the first taste, had another, and
drank a third of it before sighing and lying down again.
Stroking the retriever, Jim Keene said, “I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t
recover, fully recover, in time.”
In time.
That phrase bothered Travis.
How much time would Einstein require for a full recovery? When The
Outsider finally arrived, they would all be better off if Einstein was healthy
and if all of his senses were functioning sharply. The infrared alarms
notwithstanding, Einstein was their primary early-warning system.
After the last patient left at five-thirty, Jim Keene slipped out for half an
hour on a mysterious errand, and when he returned he had a bottle of champagne.
“I’m not much of a drinking man, but certain occasions demand a nip or two.”
Nora had pledged to drink nothing during her pregnancy, but even the most solemn
pledge could be stretched under these circumstances.
They got glasses and drank in the surgery, toasting Einstein, who watched them
for a few minutes but, exhausted, soon fell asleep.
“But a natural sleep,” Jim noted. “Not induced with sedatives.”
Travis said, “How long will he need to recover?”
“To shake off distemper—a few more days, a week. I’d like to keep him here two
more days, anyway. You could go home now, if you want, but you’re also welcome
to stay. You’ve been quite a help.”
“We’ll stay,” Nora said at once.
“But after the distemper is beaten,” Travis said, “he’s going to be weak, isn’t
he?”
“At first, very weak,” Jim said. “But gradually he’ll get most if not all of his
old strength back. I’m sure now that he never went into second-stage distemper,
in spite of the convulsions. So perhaps by the first of the year he’ll be his
old self, and there should be no lasting infirmities, no palsied shaking or
anything like that.”
The first of the year.
Travis hoped that would be soon enough.
Again, Nora and Travis split the night into two shifts. Travis took the first
watch, and she relieved him in the surgery at three o’clock in the morning.
Fog had seethed into Carmel. It roiled at the windows, softly insistent.
Einstein was sleeping when Nora arrived, and she said, “Has he been awake much?”
“Yeah,” Travis said. “Now and then.”
“Have you . . . talked to him?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
Travis’s face was lined, haggard, and his expression was grave. “I’ve asked him
questions that can be answered with a yes or no.”
“And?”
“He doesn’t answer them. He just blinks at me, or yawns, or he goes back to
sleep.”
“He’s very tired yet,” she said, desperately hoping that was the explanation for
the retriever’s uncommunicative behavior. “He doesn’t have the strength even for
questions and answers.”
Pale and obviously depressed, Travis said, “Maybe. I don’t know . . . but I
think . . . he seems . . . confused.”
“He hasn’t shaken the disease yet,” she said. “He’s still in the grip of it,
beating the damn stuff, but still in its grip. He’s bound to be a little
muddleheaded for a while yet.”
“Confused,” Travis repeated.
“It’ll pass.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’ll pass.”
But he sounded as if he believed that Einstein would never be the same again.
Nora knew what Travis must be thinking: it was the Cornell Curse again, which he
professed not to believe in but which he still feared in his heart of hearts.