O CAT!, the suite

It turned out that Sam had seen this cat very often before, when he comes home on his scooter, he sees it racing up the lane below. So have I, now that he reminds me of where I have seen him.

I know what is wrong with him, although I don't know his fate.

I called as the vet's office said I could, and I learned little. They were still examining him and doing tests between scheduled appointments.

"Il est du coin?" I asked.

"Oui. Ils doivent être vos voisins."

"Ils sont dans la même rue?" I felt like I was asking for State secrets.

"Oui."

"Quel numéro?" I must have been pushing it.

"Le 14."

"Mais ce sont les voisins à côté, les X!" She confirmed that it was the very family named.

"Vous préférez peut-être que je vous laisse les contacter?" She said that, yes, they did prefer to wait to contact the owners until they had more conclusive information to offer them.

"Je pensais seulement qu'ils pourraient apprécier de savoir que leur chat est trouvé. Ils se font peut-être des soucis pour lui," I hesitated, to give her the opporunity to say, "Yes, of course they might like to know that. Why don't you go ahead and let them know," but she didn't. To cover my intent, I picked right back up, "mais, bien sur que je vous laisserai gérer." They must know what they are doing.

I mean, what if I went to the neighbors, told them I had found their cat injured and taken it to my vet across town, that he seems to have been injured fairly badly, and they jumped in the car and raced over and -- what? -- insisted on taking him away in his condition?

Better leave it to them. The poor thing howled in pain at every right turn and curve in the road.

"Je vous rappelerai un peu plus tard pour avoir plus de nouvelles." She said that would be fine. I waited an hour and a half to learn that the X-ray had showed a fracture to his hip.

"Ca a du être une voiture," she said, referring to our earlier speculation. She had wondered if he had fallen into our garden when I told her how difficult it is to get in from the street. It is entirely walled in, and the cats have to jump through the metal pickets in the wall and gate. It didn't seem likely that he had done that in his condition. It now didn't seem likely, from his X-ray, that he had fallen.

"Mais, il y avait du sang. Qu'a-t-il pour éxpliquer le sang?

"C'est assez important," she said, referring the gravity of his injuries. "Il a du essayer de rentrer chez lui mais ne pouvait continuer et est resté chez vous."

"Sans doute, mais je ne sais pas comment. Ce n'est pas facile de pénétrer notre jardin de la rue." Sam told me later that there is a little hole in the fence, over near where I buried Chloé, behind the rhododendron I planted last summer, the terribly pathetic one on which they gave me at a fire sale price and that is now doing nicely, like we knew it would, over next to the wire fence between our garden and Christian's empty chicken house. That's still not an easy feat for an injured cat. Even one who has probably crossed our garden before, without my knowing it.

"Je dirai à ses propriétaires que c'est vous qui l'avez amené ici," the technician was still talking. "Ils sont en traine de venir. Ils passeront peut-être vous voir."

"Oui. Oui, dites leur, s'il vous le plait. Ils nous connaissent."

I waited for the bell to ring at the gate last evening and again today, but no one has come to tell us how he is and what they can do for him. Maybe they think I hit him and didn't have the courage to say so.

Maybe they will come this evening.

Or tomorrow.
....