The Insulin I Carried to My Mother’s Door

The drive

At 6:30 that evening I took the insulin out of the refrigerator door and put it in a little cooler bag with an ice pack. I packed his meter, a fresh vial of test strips, the lancets, his notebook, and two cans of his prescription food.

I drove the eleven miles out of town to the house I grew up in, a brown split-level on the county road with my dad’s old basketball hoop still on the garage. Every light in the house was on.

My sister’s minivan was in the driveway. So was Aunt Carol’s gold Buick, and my cousin’s pickup.

Wednesday supper.

My mother has made Wednesday supper since my dad started driving long haul twelve years ago. Pot roast or chicken and noodles, whoever wants to come. I used to go every week. I had not been in a while, because Wednesday is one of my work nights. That night I had called off.

I sat in my car for a minute with the engine running.

Through the window beside the door I could see some of them at the table, passing bowls. My mother at the head, where my father sits when he is home. Aunt Carol in her church sweater. Kristen and her husband, Josh, and their two boys.

And on the braided rug by the heat register just inside the door, I could see an orange shape.

Tucker.

He was lying stretched out along the rug, the way cats lie when they are hot. Except it was October and he never lies that way. He wasn’t moving.

I turned off the engine, picked up the cooler bag, and got out of the car. My legs felt like they belonged to somebody else.

The door

So that is how I came to be standing on my mother’s front step at five minutes to seven, holding up a little gray insulin pen so she could read his name on the label.

“Mom,” Kristen said again, coming around the table. “What is that?”

My mother didn’t answer her. She was still reading the label.

“It’s his insulin,” I said. “He’s diabetic. He has been for two years. He’s had a shot at seven every morning and seven every night since the spring before last. He’s thin because he’s sick, Mom. Not because I starve him.”

The whole table had gone quiet. Aunt Carol had a roll halfway to her mouth.

“You never told me that,” my mother said. Her voice came out smaller than I had ever heard it.

“You never asked.”

I stepped past her. I didn’t push. I just walked into my childhood living room in my sneakers and knelt down on the rug by the register.

Tucker lifted his head when he heard me. That was all. Just lifted it, and then laid it back down.

“Hey, buddy,” I said. “Hey, Tuck. I know. I’m here.”

His fur felt dry. His breath had a sweet smell, like nail polish remover. Anybody who has worked an emergency room knows that smell. I unzipped the bag and took out the meter.

“What are you doing?” Aunt Carol said.

“Checking his sugar.”

I pricked the edge of his ear with a lancet, the way I have done a few hundred times, and touched the strip to the drop of blood. He didn’t even flinch, which scared me more than anything. The meter counted down from five.

It read 487. I heard Aunt Carol say something under her breath that sounded like a prayer.

Normal for a cat is under 150. On a good day, with his shots, Tucker runs about 200.