Based on a true story

All names have been changed to protect the innocent.

John gave the screwdriver a final turn and tested the hose.  The drain line for the new garbage disposal was firmly in place. Yep, not going anywhere.

He plugged the garbage disposal in and nodded to Ava.  “Go ahead.”

Ava turned the faucet on and hit the switch.  The garbage disposal purred into life.

“You’re the best, Dad.”

At fifteen, Ava cooked dinner once a week and cleaned the kitchen twice a week, for which she received weekly allowance. Currently, that allowance was being saved for a school trip to New York. A working garbage disposal was very high on his oldest daughter’s priority list.

Ava turned off the disposal and shut off the water.  Her gaze snagged on the Band-Aid on his finger. “Did you cut yourself?”

He hid a scowl. The technical term for his problem was vasovagal syncope. He had no problem with blood 9 out of 10 times.  But that tenth time, his blood pressure dropped, his heart slowed, the world grew dark, and he took a dive wherever he was. The issue was hereditary. His father had to give blood lying in the examination bed because he would faint damn near every time. 

At 6 feet 4 inches and 240 lbs, when John fell, he fell hard.  He couldn’t blame his wife and three daughters for treating him like a precious glass statue every time he came near a tool or a blade, but it did get tiresome.

“It’s fine. It was a scratch and I put a Bad-Aid on it.”

Ava opened her mouth.

A piercing squeal rang somewhere deep within the house. A pack of eight-year-old girls sprinted into the kitchen, yelling nonsense and for some reason wrapped in long garlands of fake flowers. They dashed about the island, with Isabella in the lead, and stampeded back into the family room.

He looked at Ava.

“No clue,” she said.  “If you put enough little kids together, they become feral.”

“Your mom will be home any minute. Can you please go in there and make sure they are all in one piece?”

Ava heaved a sigh and started toward the family room.  “If I don’t come back…”

“The world will know of your noble sacrifice.”

“You are supposed to promise to avenge me, Dad.”

“That, too.”

She headed to the living room.  John got up, washed his hands, and wiped down the water around the sink with a paper towel. Watching seven 3rd graders wasn’t the plan.  The plan was to finish the report, but Laura had a last-minute client.

John draped the kitchen towel over the island. Three years ago, he had a stable job, they had a nice cushion in savings, and Laura’s hair cutting was a part-time thing. She did it because she enjoyed it, and because it brought it some extra money. Then Isabella needed emergency surgery. The economy stumbled, his entire department was eliminated, and nobody seemed to be hiring. Suddenly, his wife’s side gig became their primary paycheck.

He’d started his own consulting business, not because he wanted to but because he had no choice. Money began trickling in, at first sporadic, then more even. This latest job was for the state workforce commission. They were looking for a data scientist full time. It would be a dream position, fully remote, benefits, insurance, $110 K per year.  His report would be a foot-in-the door.

Laura had taken on more and more clients, trying to keep them afloat, and the salon owner, from whom she rented her styling space, had gotten progressively more difficult and passive aggressive. Yesterday his wife came in soaked in sweat again because the AC in the salon had gone out a week ago, and nobody was in a hurry to fix it. Laura had been trying to find a different place to rent in the same area to avoid losing her client list, but nothing had opened up.

He had to get her out of that salon…

John looked up.  Lily was standing by the island.  He almost jumped. His twelve-year-old was going through a goth-anime phase, and he never knew what she was going to look like. Today she wore a black tank top with a black frilly skirt. Her white hair – Laura had dyed it for her – was loose.  Her face was deathly pale, her lips were black, and there was entirely too much black eyeshadow around her eyes.  He’d been told it was called smoky eye.  She looked a bit like a panda.

Also, her irises were red. Blood red.

“Are those contact lenses?” Please be contact lenses.

“Yes. I can’t find Tubbs.”

Somehow, in all of the chaos of their lives, they ended up fostering cats waiting for adoption. He wasn’t even sure how it had happened; it just did. Currently, there were six cats in the house. Of them, Tubbs was the fattest and the laziest. A typical British Shorthair, he was given up for adoption when his owner moved out of the country.  Tubbs spent his days lounging about impersonating a grey, orange-eyed loaf of bread and yelling to be fed. He never went outside, even when the door was wide open.  He never hid when guests came over. He simply couldn’t be bothered.

“Did you check on the dining room chairs?”

“Yes.”

“The bean bag in my office?”

“Yes.”

“The couch upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“The cat closet?” They had turned a small storage room into a cat exclusive space. Three of the more nervous cats were there right now, and Isabella had been warned to keep the guests out of there.

“He is nowhere, Dad.”

Something thumped in the family room, followed by excited shrieks. Well, it was unusually noisy. When it was noisy, most of their cats hid, usually on the chairs under the table.  If he wasn’t in the dining room…

He crossed the kitchen and crouched by the breakfast table.  Two pairs of glowing eyes greeted him. Lux and Gary.  No Tubbs. Hmm.

John straightened and froze.

Outside the window, past the pool, a furry grey lump sat on top of the wooden fence. 

John blinked.  The lump was still there.

“Is that him on the fence?”

“Yes!”

On the other side of the fence lived two German Shepherds.  They were friendly and sweet, and there was a cat in that house, but John didn’t want to take chances.

How the hell did he even get outside? Why was he on the fence?  That cat had never climbed anything taller than a couch in his entire life.

“Lily, get the treat jar.”

She took off toward the pantry.

John opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the patio.

Tubbs shifted on the fence, rocking back and forth.

Don’t you jump.  Don’t you do it.

The trick was to look like he wasn’t approaching the cat.  John started on a diagonal course, moving slowly and looking straight ahead. 

On the fence, Tubbs gave him the evil eye.

“What’s going on?” Ava asked behind him. 

“Tubbs escaped,” Lily announced, brandishing the plastic jar with dry cat treats inside.  “Do you want me to shake?”

“Not yet.”

John angled toward the fence.  Tubbs rocked again but stayed where he was.

He chanced a glance at the house. Lily and Ava stood on the patio.  Behind them, seven little faces were plastered to the kitchen windows.  Everyone was watching.

Tubbs shifted.  The rickety old fence quivered a little. They had needed to replace it years ago, but the price of lumber had shot up beyond all reason. Dropping $7K on this stretch of the fence wasn’t in the budget.  Here is hoping it didn’t collapse under all that weight…

Don’t you cost me seven grand.

He was within six feet of the cat.  John kept his voice calm.  “Give it a shake.”

Lily shook the jar.  The treats rattled.

Tubbs perked up, his big orange eyes wide like dollar coins.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!” Lily called.

Tubbs swiveled.

“Treat time!” Ava announced in a sing-song voice.  “It’s treat time!”

Tubbs scooted around, listing on the fence like a ship in the storm.

“Yummy, yummy!” Ava said.

“Mmm, delicious treats! I’ll eat them all by myself.” Lily waved the jar.

Tubbs gathered himself for a mighty leap onto the grass. The fence board snapped under his weight with a crack. A jolt of adrenaline hit John, and he saw things unfold in excruciating clarity, as if the world had slowed down so he could take it all in.

A small chunk of the board broke free and tumbled to the ground.

Tubbs lost his balance, his leap aborted, and tried to flip his stout body to stay on the fence.

His hind leg slid into the space between the broken board and the one to the right.

Tubbs flopped down, suspended from the fence by his wedged leg.

The world restarted. Tubbs flailed on the fence, upside down, screaming for his life.

Damn it!

John lunged and grabbed the cat.  Tubbs writhed in his arms, claws out, all of his seventeen pounds caught in blinding panic.  John clamped the cat to him and desperately tried to free the wedged paw.

With a terrified yowl, Tubbs sank his fangs into the heel of John’s left palm. Pain lanced his hand.  John swore.

“Stay still, you little shit!”

The smell hit him, a metallic, horrible smell that squirmed through him, bringing nausea in its wake.

He looked down.

His hand was drenched in bright red. It was all over the cat, his wrist, and running down his forearm.

So much blood.

#

Home. Finally.

Laura stepped out of the car, resisting the urge to sit down right there on the steps before the front door.  So tired. With the AC out, the day just dragged on and on, and then Clara, for no apparent reason, decided to persistently offer her clients coffee from Starbucks and then act like a victim when they declined. The first time she had done it, Laura laughed it off.  By the third client, she was no longer polite.

She had to figure out some other place to work. And soon.

A piercing scream came from somewhere within the house. It didn’t sound like the usual kind of kid scream.

Parent anxiety was the best energy boost. She cleared the few feet between her and the door in a blink and threw it open. The living room was empty, except for one little girl with dark hair.  One of Isabella’s friends. What was her name?

“Courtney?”

The little girl’s lip trembled. She opened her mouth and wailed, “I want to go home!”

Oh my god.

“What’s going on, honey? Are you hurt?””

Courtney shook her head and sobbed.

“Where is everyone?”

Courtney pointed at the window behind them. The backyard.

A chorus of sharp squeals came from the patio.

Laura tore to the kitchen. 

Somewhere deep within the house Isabella screamed, “… right away! Come right away, my dad needs help! Help! He’s going to faint!”

Laura flung the French door open. The porch was filled with screaming children. She pushed her way through them and saw John slumped over by the fence, deathly pale, shaking and clutching at his hand. Blood stained the fence boards.  It was everywhere, on the wood, on John’s hands, on his clothes… On the fence, Tubbs hung upside down, yowling his head off.

Laura sprinted across the yard.

“John! Are you okay?”

His lips were blue.  Her husband shuddered and opened his mouth.

“Get… the cat.”

“What?”

“The cat.  Get the cat.”

Tubbs screeched like a banshee, all claws and fur standing on end. If she tried to grab him with her bare hands, he would slice her to ribbons. She yanked her shirt off.

“Ava, cat carrier! Lily, first aid kit!  Now!”

She threw her shirt over the cat, wrapped him up like a burrito, and jerked the cat bundle straight up.  The paw slid free. Tubbs flailed in the bundle, trying to claw through it.

Ava ran up with a cat carrier, set it on its end, opening pointing up, and pulled the door open. Laura shoved Tubbs into the carrier butt first. He tried to wedge himself against it, but she pushed him in, shirt and all, and slid the door shut.

One down. 

Laura whipped around. Lily thrust the medical kit at her. Her eyes were blood red. 

Laura yanked the antiseptic spray out and turned to her husband.

“Let me see.”

John shook.  “It’s fine.”

“Give me your hand.  Don’t look at it.”

“I said… it’s fine.”

She grabbed his hand.  There was so much blood she couldn’t even tell where the wound was.

If he collapsed, there was no way she could lift him.

“Lily, I need water.”

Lily took off.

“We’re going to sit down, honey.  Right here, hold on to me and just slide down the fence.”

He grabbed onto her.  His knees buckled.  John slid to the ground, his back propped by the fence boards.

Lily returned with a gallon jug of distilled water from the pantry.

“Don’t look,” she told John.  “Close your eyes.”

“It’s fine.” There was a little more growl to his voice.  He was coming out of it.

“Pour the water,” she ordered.

Lily splashed it onto her father’s hand. The blood finally cleared, and Laura glimpsed two perfectly round puncture bites dripping blood.

Sirens blared.  She barely noticed them.

“That’s it, just keep pouring. … That’s good.”

Laura pressed the gauze over the wounds, pulled it off, and drenched John’s palm in antiseptic spray.  It kept bleeding. Was there some kind of major blood vessel in the hand?

She clamped a fresh piece of gauze over the wounds.

John met her eyes.  He was still looking green, but a little bit of his normal color slowly returned to his face.

“It will be okay.  We got this. We’ll fix this right up.  It’s just two small, tiny punctures.  Very tiny. Like can barely see…”

“Laura?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I love you.”

Oh. “I love you, too.”

“I’m not one of our children. I’m a grown ass man, and I’m older than you.”

She blinked.

John picked up the corner of the gauze and peeled it off his hand. Two small red drops swelled in the punctures, but blood was no longer gushing.

Laura reached for the first aid kit and plucked a Band-Aid. It was black with cute little moons on it.

“It was a family variety pack.  These are the only ones we have left.”

“That’s fine. I’ll survive.”

She pressed the bandage over the punctures.

They looked at each other.

The French door burst open and two paramedics, two policemen, and some firefighters stampeded into the yard, with Isabella in the lead.

“He was over there!”

The leading paramedic, a compact, athletic man, barreled at them and came to a halt.

Laura realized two things: one, she was covered in blood and two, her shirt was in the pet carrier, wrapped around Tubbs. She looked down.  There were bloodstains on her lacy bra.

“Did you call 911?” she asked.

Isabella opened her mouth.  Nothing came out.

“Injury?” the paramedic asked.

John raised his hand and showed them his cute moon Band-Aid.

Nobody said anything.

In the carrier, Tubbs let out a blood curdling howl.

#

“Hi, my husband is here with our cat. Tall guy, dark hair?”

The front desk assistant nodded. “Second door on the right.”

“Thank you.”

Laura walked down the hallway.  Trips to the emergency vet were never fun. Just seeing the building filled her with anxiety.

Of the seven girls who’d come over for the sleepover, only Courtney insisted on going home. The rest of them holed up in the game room upstairs. She ordered pizza and left Ava and Lily in charge.  After John’s department was eliminated, they had downsized to one car.  They decided to divide and conquer:  Laura would drop John and Tubbs at the vet ER, deliver Courtney to her parents, and then swing back to pick him up.

She tried the door.  It opened and Laura stepped into the small room.  John sat on the bench, leaning on the wall behind him, his eyes closed. Tubbs was nowhere in sight.  The vet must’ve taken him back for X-rays.

John opened his eyes and glanced at her. She sat on the bench next to him.

“How did it go?” he asked. “Were her parents upset?”

“No. We got to CVS on Hunter, and she started crying again because she decided she wanted to go back to the party.”

John sighed.

“I brought her back,” Laura said.

“Of course, you did.”

They sat quietly.

“At least Isabella doesn’t cry that much,” John said.

“No, she just calls 911.”

He cracked a smile. “Can you imagine that phone call? They sent everybody. And I mean, everybody.”

“There is a hysterical child on the other end screaming that her father is bleeding and going to die. They must’ve thought you cut your arm off with a chainsaw or something.”

John chuckled. “Flip that light switch off.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She reached up and turned off the light. Her eyes took a second to adjust and then she saw green crescent shapes fluorescing weakly. “What is that?”

“My Band-aid glows in the dark.”

The tension she’d been carrying hit her all at once. Laura snickered.

“Woo…” John waved his hand around.  The crescent shapes floated.

She laughed.

The door in the back wall swung open, a vet in the scrubs silhouetted against the light.

“Hello?”

Laura scrambled to turn the light on. The electric bulbs lit up, revealing the female veterinarian holding Tubbs in a towel. Judging by her expression, she suspected they were up top no good.

Laura cleared her throat. “How bad is it?”

“He’s fine.”

The two of them stared at the vet.

“Like fine fine?” John asked.

The vet nodded.  “Yep. Nothing’s broken, no cuts, no injuries. He was very good. Who is a sweet boy?  You are.” 

She scratched Tubbs’ chin. The jerk purred like a runaway bulldozer.

The vet turned to John.  “You should get yourself checked out. Cat bites are deep, and they drive a lot of bacteria into the wound.  That’s why these babies get so many abscesses when they fight.”

Laura put her head on John’s forehead. Hot. Oh no. 

Ten minutes and $400 later, they packed Tubbs’ crate in the back seat.

“It’s almost 7:00. The urgent clinics will be closed. We’re going to the ER.” Laura slid into the driver’s seat.

“It’s a $1000 charge.”  John buckled in.  “We’re going home.”

“You’re not the one driving.”

“We can’t afford it.”

“We can’t afford a hospital stay when you develop sepsis either.  Buckle in. We are going.”

“It’s going to take all night.”

“We’ll go to the standalone by Target. They don’t get a lot of traffic.”

“It can wait till tomorrow. If I still feel bad, I’ll go to urgent care.”

She gave him and sharp look and gunned it out of the parking lot. “Fatal mistake.”

“What?”

“You just admitted you feel bad. We are going to the ER.”

His expression went flat.

“John, it’s worth a thousand dollars.  I would pay all the dollars so you don’t get an infection.”

“I broke the fence,” he said.

“What?”  What did the fence have to do with anything?

“I broke the fence when I sat down. I heard it snap. It will cost…”

“I don’t care. I don’t care and I don’t care. Today was very stressful, and I need you to be okay. Please be okay, or I swear I will lose it.”

The ER was predictably empty. They filled out a bunch of paperwork, and John went back. Laura stepped out, got the carrier with Tubbs out of the car so he wouldn’t overheat, and sat on the bench outside the door.

Minutes tickled by.  She texted the kids and got two replies from Ava and Lily. The pizza had arrived, and they put a movie on. All was well.

She tried to read, she watched some reels, she tried to read again…

The door swung open, and John emerged.

She opened her mouth.

A familiar paramedic walked out of the ER service entrance. The three of them looked at each other. The paramedic shook his head and walked off behind the building, to the parking lot.

“That man must think we are unhinged,” she muttered.

“We are unhinged.  But it doesn’t matter.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“I have a mild fever. They cleaned the wound and sent in a prescription for antibiotics.  I got a tetanus shot.  Apparently, I’m lucky that the asshole bit my palm rather than my finger and that it bled a lot. I could’ve had serious problems.”

She slumped on the bench.  It was suddenly too much.

He sat next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Baby?”

“Yes?”

He kissed her hair. “I’ve got the job.”

“What?”

“The work force commission job.  I sent in the preliminary findings this morning. They didn’t wait for the full report.  I got an offer from Brian twenty minutes ago.  I took it.”

She just stared at him.

“We can fix the damn fence,” he said.

She brushed a kiss on his lips. “You are ridiculous, you know that?”

He grinned and squeezed her to him. “Yes, but you love me anyway.”

“I do.”

“That’s good because you’re not going to like this next part.”

Anxiety shot through her.  “Tell me.”

“I can’t, in good consciousness, inflict this cat on anyone else.  He’s violent. We’ll have to adopt the jerk.”

She laughed softly.

In the carrier, Tubbs rolled in the shirt. It was soft and it smelled like his human.  He settled deeper into the folds and purred.

THE END