The Insulin I Carried to My Mother’s Door

Why I didn’t call anyone

People ask me why I didn’t call the sheriff. A woman let herself into my apartment and took my animal.

I’ll tell you the truth. You don’t send a deputy to your own mother’s house over a cat. Not in our county, not in our family. It would have been the only thing anyone ever remembered about any of us.

People ask why I didn’t just drive over right then. I almost did. I had my keys in my hand.

But I had been awake for twenty-five hours. I have seen too many people in my emergency room who drove when they shouldn’t have. And my mother, when she is in the middle of being right, does not hear one word anybody says. If I went over there exhausted and shaking, it would turn into a fight on her front porch, and Tucker would still be on her floor.

At noon my sister called. I almost didn’t answer, and then I did.

“Megan,” Kristen said, “Mom says you haven’t fed that cat in days. She says you’re never home and he’s living in filth. I’m not taking sides. I just want to know what’s going on.”

I could hear her boys fighting over something in the background, and the television, and her trying to sound like she wasn’t already halfway on Mom’s side. I know that voice. I have used it myself.

“Did she tell you he’s diabetic?” I asked.

There was a long quiet on the line. “He’s what?”

“He’s diabetic, Kris. Two years. He gets insulin twice a day, and she took him without it.”

“She didn’t say anything about that.” Another quiet. “Are you sure? She sent a picture. He looked so skinny.”

“He’s skinny because he’s sick. That’s what diabetes does to a cat. Ask Dr. Lindgren. Ask anybody.”

“Well, why didn’t you ever say so?”

I opened my mouth and nothing came out, because it was a fair question, and I didn’t have a good answer. I had never told any of them. It had never seemed like anybody’s business but mine and his.

“Are you coming to supper tonight?” Kristen asked. “It’s Wednesday.”

“I don’t know yet,” I said, which was the truth. “Kris, if you see him, look at how much he’s drinking.”

After we hung up, I called Dr. Lindgren’s office.

“One missed morning dose won’t hurt him much,” the vet tech, Jenny, said. “But if he misses tonight’s too, and he’s drinking like that, you need to check his sugar and his ketones, and you need to get him to us or the emergency clinic if he stops eating.”

I set two alarms. I slept four hours in my scrubs on top of the covers.