Past the Size of Dreaming

A really big secret can keep you warm on cold nights, stifle hunger, drive shadows back. The best secrets make you feel safe. You could use this, you think, but not using it is what keeps you strong.

Deirdre Eberhard changed the water in the last cat kennel in the row, petted the cat and spoke softly to it. It had to stay at the clinic until its wound healed, but it was lonesome for its owner. "Not much longer," Deirdre told it. She closed the cage door and straightened, pressed a hand into the small of her back and worked her knuckles against her spine.

Her vet technician, Angie, had gone home for the day; the kennel aides, high-school kids named Bob and Nikki, had left hours earlier, and her partner, Doug Rosenfeld, hadn't even stopped at the clinic today. He did all the large-animal doctoring in their practice, caring for cattle, llamas, horses, reindeer, and the occasional ostrich, and he mostly worked out of his van at the ranches that spread out around the tiny Oregon desert town of Artemisia. He only came into the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays or when there was an emergency.

Even the most forlorn dog on the premises had stopped howling and lay with its nose on its paws, its shining eyes watching Deirdre. All the animals had fresh food and water and clean litter or paper. The exam tables had been cleaned and had fresh mats and towels on them for tomorrow's patients. The autoclave had finished its last run of the day, and the washer and drier their last loads. Everything in the surgery was sterile and ready for the procedures she'd do tomorrow.

All done. Just one final mugful of coffee in the coffeemaker, and a piece of sunset to watch. She rinsed out her mug, refilled it, cleaned the coffeepot and set the coffeemaker to start again tomorrow morning, then headed out the back door to the desert.

Her clinic was a cinder-block building on the edge of town. She had a green resin Adirondack chair by the back door, under the shade of an overhang, where she sat between patients and wrote up her charts. After work, she sat and watched the quiet. She set her mug on the cement apron that wrapped around the building and leaned back in the chair, which was still warm from the day's heat.