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Apollo

Streetlamp lighting pulses weakly, and inconsistently, against the dark. Though daylight savings sped the clocks forward a few weeks prior, the sun has already set.

My car sits in a parking lot, idling. The lot being otherwise empty, the suggested parking lines were ignored, and the car is angled sharply toward the light source. In park, the taillights illuminate a never-ending succession of exhaust plumes escaping the muffler. I watch them from the rear view mirror.

For a moment, I’m back in Mongolia in the dead of winter, when the entire city releases unnaturally lit fumes into the air. Like now, we worried about our ability to breathe properly. Pollution collects in even the healthiest lungs, giving everyone an asthmatic wheeze and rattle. Fits of coughing were common. Those years ago, in Mongolia, people still stopped to stare when a coughing attack struck. But, in those times, we would walk closer to the person, to be sure they were okay. Not anymore. Lately we have learned to move away from each other. Especially if there is coughing.

A tightness forms in my stomach. I grind my teeth. The streetlamp flickers.

I am not in Mongolia. I am parked on the south shore of Massachusetts. I feel shame for these emissions that escape my idling car. I kill the ignition.

The internal dashboard temperature gauge reads 24*F.

Too cold.

I turn the ignition back on.

It’s been two-hours since the lab technician unlocked the door to the urgent care, slipped outside into the cold, locking the door behind her. She wore a heavy coat, hair swept back, her hands gloved. She slowly approached my car and, as we’d agreed upon moments earlier over the phone, I did not get out of the vehicle to greet her. Instead I rolled down the passenger window and unlocked the doors.

My dome light illuminated the car’s interior automatically.

“Hello, Danielle?” A greeting and a question.

“Yes, hi.” My response.

She’s moved closer to the car but does not touch it. She leans down so we can see each other at eye level.

“So this is the little guy, Apollo?” She gestures toward the black carrier in the passenger seat. In it, my cat has stopped howling. Perhaps the cool air from the open window has calmed him. Or distracted him. Maybe he’s in too much pain to notice.

I explain, again, what happened suddenly while I was working at my computer on the evening of my first day in full isolation. The vet technician carefully opens the passenger door. Reaching toward the carrier, she mutters, “oh, this is serious.”

She awkwardly takes the handles of the cat carrier, careful not to touch my vehicle. I resist the urge to help her.

Lifting the cat, an off-white liquid escapes through the meshed front of the carrier. It drips on the car’s seat, the door frame and then the ground. Vomit.

“He puked. In the car. Oh my god, I’m sorry. I — I — he gets car sick. I had no towels. I don’t — I’m sorry — he. Oh. I — “

My seat belt is tight against my chest. I’ve leaned forward toward the technician.

She has managed to get him out of the car. I lean back against my seat.

“It’s fine. I’ll take him inside and the vet will call to talk to you. I’d tell you to go to a bar and get a drink because it’s going to be a long wait….but….” She shrugs, “COVID.” She closes the car door and begins to walk back toward the urgent care.

I want her to hug me and tell me it will be okay.

I want to go inside and sit with my terrified and very sick cat.

I want to do something. Anything.

I can feel my heart beating in the knot that has become my stomach. My cheeks are raw from my chewing on them. Tears prick the corners of my eyes.

Last night, the governor of Massachusetts has banned large gatherings, closed the schools, and made all restaurants take-out only.

I stay in the car.

***

Midnight has come and gone. I’ve reclined my car’s seat and my feet are elevated, pressed against the glass of the windshield. I am not asleep, but I am not fully awake. I’ve determined to use every remaining ounce of my phone’s battery scrolling through social media, as I have done, unceasingly for most of the past five-hours.

My phone rings. I sit up straight in my seat.

It’s the vet. Calling from inside the building.

Apollo is not well.

The veterinarian hands the phone to another technician who rattles off a series of instructions and information. I blink my eyes furiously, struggling to concentrate. Surgery. $7,500. Payment plan. Serious.

I can’t stop rubbing my face.

I fumble about on the seat, trying to sit up. My wallet has slipped from my pocket and lodged itself against the door. I drop the phone.

“Shit!”

I free the wallet and unlatch the opening. I stare at my various credit and debit cards.

The knot in my stomach tightens.

I read the numbers of my credit card over the phone.

“Would you like to see him before his surgery tomorrow?” She asks.

“Oh my god, yes, please, yes. Can I? How? Oh please, yes.”

“Well, we aren’t supposed to.” She hedges, “but, as long as you’re quick…”

Soon she’s at the door to the clinic, releasing the lock.

I jump out of my car and she hands me the carrier, steps back inside the clinic. The corners of her mouth turn upward. An almost smile. Then she bolts the door closed.

I sit on the cement in front of the clinic and unzip the top of the carrier.

Inside is my cat. Dopey from drugs. The vomit is cleared away. Wires are attached to every appendage, different colored liquid flows into, and out of, each of them. His head is encased in a plastic cone.

My chest heaves.

I begin to weep.

“Hi baby,” my voice quavers.

He stirs and turns his head toward me. His pupils are abnormally large. His eyebrows furrow. His mouth forms a meow but there is no sound.

I consider, for a moment, walking away from the clinic and taking the cat home. As though, returning to the safety of my space of isolation, I can walk back time to six-hours ago before he became critically ill. Maybe we can lay on our uncomfortable couch together and I will stroke his head and we can binge watch episodes of Modern Family because the news is too overwhelming. Maybe we can pretend together for a moment that everything is back to normal, and the world hasn’t completely changed. Maybe if we run away none of this will be real.

Inexplicably, I start to sing.

This cat. Adopted while I was still married, he snuggled on my lap as I divorced. This one constant, ever-present comfort. He accompanied me to postings abroad in various conflict zones, my sense of safety amid chaos. This very special cat, who I brought home to Arizona to keep my mother company as she slowly died from cancer. My Apollo. I need him now.

My song ends. I’m still on the cement. The cold seeps through my jeans, my coat.

I reach in and stroke his fur.

Our world is in crises and I am scared. I want to bring my cat home and reclaim the comfort he’s always brought me.

But that is not how this crisis will work.

That is not how this life will work.

I tell him I love him. So much.

I stand up, turn and knock on the glass. The technician unlocks the door. I hand Apollo back to her. She says they’ll call me in the morning.

I climb back into the car and drive the empty streets toward home, and the unknown, in silence.

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