Page 73 of Anywhere with You
Cara pinched me. “Such a romantic.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
I made bacon and eggs for breakfast, my specialty. Cara ate two helpings and told me that I was beautiful.
She insisted on helping clean up, even though I cooked. I let her dry the dishes as I finished washing them, then put a dollop of bubbles on her nose, which somehow evolved into foreplay.
Cara had just said, “We should walk to the springs before it gets too hot,” when my phone rang.
“Now, I don’t want you to worry. Everything is fine,” Mom said, which is probably the least comforting thing anyone had ever said to me.
“What is going on?” I asked, moving away from Cara, who looked concerned at the sound of my voice.
Suddenly, every sound and movement in the house was too distracting. I went outside.
Mom went on with her forced-calm voice, “Badger had a little seizure. He—”
“A little seizure! What is a little seizure?” I closed the door and sat on the nearest rock.
“It’s okay, Honey. We’re at the vet now, and they’re doing a full workup. I wasn’t even sure if I should tell you until we had the results because it just happened once, and Badger is doing just fine now.”
Her voice didn’t waver from its calmness, and that somehow made me angrier. “Obviously, he is not fine. What did they say? What could’ve happened? Did he get hurt? Did he hit his head?”
“No. He was with me in the garden all morning. I checked him for ticks, for bites, anything I could think of. Some dogs just have seizures, so there may not be a cause, but if there is, Dr. Bob will find it.”
I stood there, berating myself for trusting my beloved Badger to the care of someone named Dr. Bob, and more than that, for leaving. What if Badger was really sick? What if he needed me, and I wasn’t there? God, what if he died?
I took a breath and held it. I wanted to scream at Mom, but I’d spent my teen years doing that, and I’d promised us both that I was done behaving like a child. And even while my heart was racing and my stomach turning, I knew that she wouldn’t let Badger come to harm any more than she would me, if she had the power to stop it.
“Honey?” Mom asked. “Do you want to stay on the phone, or do you want me to call you when there’s news?”
I didn’t know. What I wanted was to be there, to be the one demanding answers from the vet, to be holding Badger. I imagined him there, shaking with a seizure, not knowing what was happening.
“Honey? I…oh wait, here he is now.” Mom spoke to the vet, and then I heard the noise increase as she switched to speakerphone.
“Go ahead,” she told him.
“Hello, Ms. Singh. Badger is doing well now. His toxicology labs came back with one alarming sign, which is good, actually. It means there’s no serious injury. Badger just needs to stay away from onions.”
“Onions?” I asked, while Mom gasped.
“Onions! Oh my Lord, he was digging in last year’s onion bed. I didn’t even realize. Oh, Honey, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
Dr. Bob went on, “It’s nothing you could’ve known to look out for. Not a lot of dogs will ingest onions on purpose. Certainly not raw. And most will have only a slight stomach upset, if anything. Badger just seems to be particularly sensitive to the chemicals in onions, and particularly attracted to them. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the way it goes sometimes.”
“But he’ll be okay?” Mom asked, sounding teary.
“He’s just fine. You can take him home now. Just make sure he gets plenty of water, and keep him inside as much as you can.”
There was another shift in the sound levels as Mom turned off speakerphone.
“Honey,” she said.
“It’s okay, Mom. You heard him. There is no way you could’ve known that Badger has a self-destructive love of onions.”
I was half laughing, half crying.
Mom must have held the phone close to Badger. I could hear his happy panting breaths.
