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The ride to the hospital is shaky and Spot doesn't get any better--Delia continuously holds his belly and presses her lips against his head, likening it to balancing a box of biscuits on her nose where every tilt, lilt, or falter would make a drastic mess. Even when she removes her mouth from his crown to lick her lips, Spot snarls and his fur bristles, and when she's gone even longer than that he thrashes in his car seat and starts biting his belts again.

Delia looks out the window and it feels like the neighborhoods are repeating themselves as they saunter by. Marcie keeps looking back at her and Delia keeps waving her off. Delia keeps asking about Marcie's arm but Marcie keeps shrugging it off, saying she's had worse; doesn't even need another sani-wipe.

Spot's eyes are what most concern his mother. They make deliberate sweeps of the van and they recognize nothing, and this agitates him further. Even his mother's caresses, her hot breath coursing over his crown, soothe him less and less. Delia rubs his belly under his shirt, but he only tolerates it.

"Maybe he's hungry," Delia suddenly says, her free paw pulling the front of her dress down.

"Don't!" Marcie barks, "Don't," she says quieter, "Do you really want to put your boob where this happened?" she asks as she throws her arm back.

"I thought you've had worse," Delia says. "Are you saying that you haven't?"

"I'm not saying that this...tantrum...of Spot's is any special case. It's not, he's probably constip--he's something. We'll be there soon."

Delia's hand doesn't stray from her bra. "I just thought it'd be a distraction, I--"

"Ma'am, you are not breastfeeding that set of jaws while I'm in the vehicle. You are going to sit down and restrain him and keep every part of yours away from his mouth," Marcie growls, her knuckles pronounced as she grips the steering wheel. Delia could see her glaring at the road through the rear-view mirror. "We are almost to the hospital, it's going to be another couple minutes, tops, we're going to get your baby fixed, we're going to drop you off at home, and everyone is going to have a good night with their families because this is nothing new! Am I clear?"

Delia pulls her dress up and cups a hand over Spot's nape, the other low on his tummy. She stares straight forward and watches the traffic ahead, watches the road and its yellow line, sees the sky now overcast and glimpses of grey clouds on the horizon, and soon can't help but note as the yellow stripes skirt past the van faster and faster.

Marcie has both hands on the wheel and is sitting free of the back of the seat, she brakes hard and turns sharply which makes Delia fumble for her seat belt. The metal buckle half is stuck in the seat, and so as she keeps her hand around Spot's nape--pulling on which doesn't pacify him so much as paralyze him--she jams the other paw down the bench seat and fishes around its metal underpinnings. As her foot pushes against the sliding door as her sitter makes a hard left, she asks if they're going a bit fast, but this falls on deaf ears. Only a minute later does Marcie answer, and it's a brief, focused assurance that it's "just to be on the safe side."

The buckle is wrapped around a clasp under the seat, and Delia ducks down to force her entire forearm into the seat, her view of the road completely blocked while she massages Spot's nape to varied reactions from him. When she pulls his nape it sometimes seems like a pause button, and the snarl he was working on resumed immediately after she relaxed her grip. Other times it seems to genuinely pacify him, which for all of Marcie's abrupt driving is desperately needed compensation.

Delia untangles the belt and pulls it out, then lays the receiving buckle over her lap and one-handedly works to thread the metal hook through it. Her eyes dart from her lap to the road again; she braces herself against the front seat with her foot when Marcie brakes for a red light. Out the hole in the back of the driver's seat Delia sees the otter's tail thump with impatience.

"Could have called an ambulance but they would have taken just as long to get out to us. Traffic's awful," she grumbles. Then she scratches her arm.

In the district surrounding the hospital there are many eateries and businesses; their bright sky-high signs cast a meek light that does not help to see, only to be seen. On the darker nights they shine like a hazy guiding star saying "Come, eat, there is room at our inn," and people flock to them in droves to eat and wait out the dark. Save for the faint yellow lines of the city's myriad roadways, these eateries are the only touch of color for a rather grey area; they are freckles and birth marks on the coat of Mother Nature shaven clean for development. Skeptics would call them scabs.

The van follows the sluggish flow of traffic like one of many blood cells pumping through these clogged, hardened streets. Sparrows flitter and cheep with each other on a ledge at the top of the hospital, watching with every pulse of the stoplights the vehicles surging through the streets, and one van of many vans flows toward them. Come this way, come--ease your worried heart and fevered head.

Marcie stops the van in front of the wide automatic doors and barks back at Delia who is struggling to unbuckle a very nip-happy pup. Spot, you bad puppy, what did your mother tell you about helping her help you? You're never going to get better if you make her job this hard; if you would sit still for a minute the vet's going to make you all better. Spot doesn't relent, so she unfastens the entire seat and takes it with her; Marcie parks the van. Delia hurries inside.

Rows and rows of chairs are filled with furries tonight who sit with all sorts of ailments and all sorts of demeanors. Some are happy just to be here and soon to be served, some wonder and wonder aloud how this could be an emergency room when there's so many sick people right here in the lobby. It's an unpleasant cacophony to the ears, the coughing and complaining--even the wistful wondering--and Delia holds the carseat close to her despite its twitches and snarls. Despite this, she rests her paw on his head and starts rocking him.

Marcie marches through the lobby and is soon two paws and a head over the front desk, babbling rapidly why her employer's infant is the most important of all the sick puppies in the waiting room, of which Delia counts three others. She intends the pun, thank you very much, and keeps scratching her arm. The receptionist gives her a pitying look--she's a nice girl like Marcie--but the sitter has to understand that there was this big wreck out on Y-96 and they're currently dealing with some very bad cases. Two cats and a rabbit are this close to seeing their grandparents in the clouds. Marcie, on the other hand, the college otter girl with a loving boyfriend and a chance at a promotion at the local video store, will not have it, and keeps pointing back at her boss and her baby as if they were proof positive, bona-fide, yes indeedie abso-positively the pinnacle of rescue cases. The doctor to save this boy would be the doctor with his centerfold in the new medicine magazine, and all the college girls studying medicine would have him up in their doorways, the smartest doctor in the world!

The Dalmatian turns red between her spots as Marcie keeps pointing at her and more and more people keep looking her way. Delia, however, is not a conspirator on this pitiful pity caper and instead away to the wall, where stock framed paintings of flowers hang intermittently to say hey, it's okay my sick houseguests; those wilted petals and malaise are merely a phase. Please sit tight and enjoy a magazine of marginal interest.

Spot thrashes at her and catches her muzzle with stubby claws; she grabs his fat arm and pulls it away with a sigh. Anxiety rests in her throat like stomach acid; she swallows it away but it lingers like the stains on these waiting room walls; they're old from the smoke of Delia's mother's generation where flavor country was a click, flick, and strike away and no one knew of its fleeting and caustic kiss.

There is no smoking in the waiting room--they have other diseases to share as they cough, hack, and sneeze between their bemoaning and sighs. Delia snatches Spot's nape when he bites at his leg again and continues to stare at the wall until suddenly she is called and Marcie crashes through an underbrush of legs and coats to pull her from her seat.

"Come on, come on!" she implores, giving Delia hardly the time to grab the carseat's carrying handle as her other paw is wrested from her. "They have a slot and they have a slot now; the doggie doctor is back and he's not involved with the interstate crash. Cats and rabbits, you know? Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

Delia hardly has the time to apologize to the furries whose knees she bruises as the car seat wiggles and thumps into them as she hops over paws, loose children, and even a sleeping skunk. Is Delia sorry for hitting them or is she sorry for this line jump? They don't know as she throws the word out in pawfuls like parade candy. Mother and Marcie run through the old checker tile hallway behind a black bear nurse with a permanent scowl around three corners and past patients with IV stands that walk in a stumble with whatever life they've in them at this difficult time.

The doctor's a Dalmatian, tall with good posture, gold-rimmed glasses, and expert-trimmed fur. In other cases he'd be handsome, but right now he is the savior of Spot and therefore her Messiah on high. Delia reverently cradles the carseat and respectfully nods when he sees her. Spot is three fangs into his footpaw and the doctor, who regards this female in the egg yolk dress with the twitch of a grin, loses all lackadaisy when her puppy barks at him.

"Come with me now," he says, "Your friend may wait in the lounge."

Marcie protests but Delia casts a cautionary gaze upon her, reminding her that yes, she is a dutiful sitter who makes her boss proud, but she is also a good girl and will wait when she is told. The otter stomps back with the nurse in a huff. Doctor Dalmatian nods to Delia and they hurry to a room where, with great trepidation, Delia surrenders Spot to the doc. He holds the carseat like a hot cauldron, holding it out to his side by the handle and away from his leg, watching with a laser gaze as the puppy watches his mother with abject terror as she gets farther and farther away.

"Severe separation issues," he comments, adjusting his glasses by the temple.

Delia nods with no words, fidgety now that her paws are free. The doctor places the seat on the treatment table but does not unbuckle him; he watches. He watches with his chin in his paw and he watches, scratching the scalp along his jawline as Spot flops his heavy head toward Mother, reaches for her, then bats for her. He claws for her, kicks for her, and squawks for her and when he does not get her, he shrieks. Spot, don't you know that these people want to help you?

The doctor calls for a blood sample and as the nurse is en route, he pulls a cone from the cabinet and carefully, carefully puts it around Spot's neck. It's a bit of a surprise for Delia and she admits to the doctor it's a little funny, a little embarrassing that her pup needs that restraining brace, but the doctor ensures her that this is perfectly normal. Diseases like Spot's are perfectly normal.

The nurse is the older black bear they'd followed, and she regards Spot with disinterest as she folds his ear open and again, he screams. The bear raises an eyebrow at Delia as if this is her fault, then takes the puppy's temperature. However, after she reads the result, she puts another safety tip on the thermometer and takes his temperature again. Doctor Dalmatian takes interest and a step toward the nurse. Delia leans forward in her seat, paws on her knees as the nurse keeps touching his head.

The numbers return and the nurse flashes the screen at the doctor, who takes a sharp breath and turns to Spot's mother. There are rapid footsteps outside the room and down the hall, the flash of security badges and radio chatter that pricks the doctor's ear. It distracts him for merely a second.

They will need to be separated, he says, because the child is in critical condition. A fever this high requires immediate attention; a fever this high poses significant risks for the child's brain. He doesn't want to frighten Delia with this load of information but he does want to make it clear of the stakes. No, ma'am, he doesn't know the odds; it's too early to tell, but it's good that you found it and brought him in right away.

Incongruous with Delia's fright, the nurse lumbers across the room to call intensive treatment. Delia's scalp burns; sweat oozes like lava from her pores and over the million strands of her fur stiff like icicles now melting. She quakes, turns her head to her boy who rasps with every open-maw breath, her puppy who looks blindly with dilated, engorged eyes, and takes a sharp breath.

"Call me," she whispers to the doctor, "as soon...as you know."

The nurse helps her out of her chair with a free paw and hangs up the phone to walk with her. Delia is much shorter than the bear as they trudge side by side; the pads of their footpaws paff on the checkered tiles past patients that shamble and hang off their IV tubes. A distant commotion brings the Dalmatian's chin off of her chest, just in time for her to see several paramedics and a couple security guards rushing a thrashing and growling gurney toward them. The voice coming from the center of the gaggle is chillingly familiar.

"Someone got in a big ol' fight in the waiting room," the nurse commented, pulling Delia with her to the wall. "She got a couple bites in, too."

The gurney flies by and the otter upon it is strapped down, struggling, and a popcorn machine of profanity. When she sees Delia she does not make eye contact but looks at her as a single entity, like a parent she's disappointed or a professor who's returned a bad paper of hers. Delia's seen the look, and it only deflates her further to see her sitter, thrashing with the same hearty rage her son had, vanish around a corner.

Delia walks to her van alone, keychain jangling from her paw and too exhausted to be confused. Instead, she would drive home slowly, she would call Marcie's mother and then her own mother, and then she would fall asleep on the couch cradling Spot's blanket and laying on her phone.