“No, I’m good,” he said, shaking his head. Thinking he was just being polite, I held the bag out until he sheepishly admitted, “Actually, I ate three of those suckers on the way over, and I’m a little full now.”
I laughed as I bit into the sugar-covered circle of fried dough and chewed thoughtfully.
“How’s Howard doing?” he asked, as he avoided my gaze.
“Good,” I said with a mouthful of donut. I picked up the coffee and drank before speaking again. “The techs are with him now, and they said the doctor will come out as soon as she’s examined him.”
“How are you doing?” he asked, looking over at me. I swallowed hard and looked away.
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, trying to keep my tone light as the reality of the situation began to settle in. I inhaled sharply and looked down as I fought back tears. I set the coffee cup down as he spoke again.
“Seriously, how are you doing?” he asked, as he slid an arm around the back of my chair and leaned in closer. “You don’t have to fake it with me. I was there. I saw your house.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I whispered, as I leaned forward, wrapping my arms around my waist and choking back a sob. The bag of pastries fell off my lap, and a donut rolled across the floor. Blake reached out and grabbed it before kneeling down in front of me.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he reassured me, as he rested a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all going to be all right.”
“You don’t know that!” I cried. “My cat is hurt, and I just lost my home! And on Christmas!”
Blake wrapped his arms around my body and pulled me close as he rubbed my back and repeated over and over that everything was going to be okay. I remained tense and closed off as he rocked me slowly and murmured reassurances. Slowly, I relaxed into his embrace, and after a few minutes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder as he held me.
“Ms. Fowler?” the tech called from the door. “You can come see your boy now.”
“He’s alive?” I asked through tears, as I lifted my face from Blake’s shoulder.
“Oh goodness, yes!” the tech laughed. “He’s a little singed in places, and he inhaled a good deal of smoke, so his
voice is a little ragged, but he’s mad as hell, and I’m pretty sure he wants to see his person.”
“That’s Howard,” I said, nodding as I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath. Blake stood up and offered me a hand.
“I’ll just wait out here,” he said. I nodded and followed the tech to the back of the clinic, where Howard sat inside a large wall cage staring angrily at the wall and growling anytime someone walked by.
“Hey you, why are you so mad?” I asked quietly. At the sound of my voice, Howard whipped his head around and began mewing pathetically. That set off another wave of tears, as the tech unlatched the door to the cage and let me reach in and pick my scared cat up and hold him in my arms. Much like I’d done with Blake, Howard rested his head on my shoulder and mewed softly as I held him to my chest whispering, “You scared the hell out of me, fat man! Why didn’t you come when I called?”
The doctor came over and gave me the rundown on Howard’s condition, telling me that it was probably best if he stayed in the clinic overnight so that they could monitor the effects of the smoke he’d inhaled. If all of the readings were normal by tomorrow morning, I could take him home with me. I nodded and thanked her as the tech came over to administer Howard’s medications. He protested weakly as I put him back in the cage, but the tech gave him a pain shot, and soon he was asleep.
Back out in the waiting area, Blake sat thumbing through an old copy of Sports Illustrated. He gave me a questioning look, and I nodded.
“Okay, good, he’s going to be all right,” he said, as I sat down next to him. “Do you have someplace to go? Family? Friends? I’m happy to drop you off.”
“I…I…I don’t know where I’m going to go,” I said quietly, before I began crying again. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s all good,” he said, draping an arm around my shoulder. “Why don’t I take you back to my house and you can get a shower and something to eat, then we’ll figure out what to do next?”
“Are you sure?” I asked tearfully.
“Absolutely,” he said, standing up and offering me a hand. “Let’s get you a shower and some breakfast, and then we’ll figure out what to do after that.”
An hour later, I emerged from a steamy shower to find that Blake had left a well-worn flannel shirt, sweats, and a pair of wool socks for me on his bed. He’d taken my soot-stained clothes and tossed them in the wash, and when I emerged from the bedroom, I’d found him singing along to Christmas carols as he flipped pancakes and tended to the bacon that was under the broiler.
“How about a nice, hot cup of coffee?” he asked, as he passed me a steaming mug and gestured to the cream and sugar sitting on the counter.
“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” I said, as I added cream and sugar before taking a sip. “But thank you.”
“No problem at all,” he said, as he hummed along with Johnny Mathis. “I’d hate to see you spending the day alone. Speaking of which, if you’re up for it, you’re welcome to accompany me to my parents’ for a Christmas Day celebration the likes of which has never been seen.”
“Oh, I don’t want to intrude…” I said, trailing off as I imagined the way my own family would deal with having a stranger suddenly thrust into the family gathering. I shuddered to think of how my mother would give someone the cold shoulder, and couldn’t imagine how I’d cope with that after everything that had happened today.