without this choking resentment and regret filling the back of her throat.
In the waiting room, Meg stared blankly at a magazine page, unaware of time passing. Eventually the door at the far end of the room clicked open. A portly nurse called her in to a room, and before she was ready, they plunged needles into her arms and placed her feet into metal stirrups. She clenched her eyes shut so tight that blood vessels burst along her corneas. As the drugs coated her veins, she saw sunrises and their painfully bright streaks of color that she’d pretended to finger-paint from her mother’s minivan window as a girl. The nurse hushed her and wiped the streaks from her face with a scratchy tissue. Later Ben picked up her favorite pad thai, and she ate a few bites to make him happy. She slept deeply that night and didn’t speak the next day about her terrible dreams.
But part of her stayed back there. Part of her was still sitting in that Minneapolis waiting room two years later, staring through a magazine at a mass of swarming cells that changed, shape-shifting in every second from embryo into cancer, from animal to death to baby to mother.
“You don’t like kids,” she had whispered into the magazine as the cells multiplied and mutated in front of her eyes. “Jata is the only child you want.”
8 Months before Hatching
A nd I listed off everything—the listlessness, the redness in the gums, his temperature, all after the recent laceration. I was like, it’s an infection, right? And the dude’s like, did you get the temperature from the SAM report?” Gemma wiped her forehead with an arm. “And I was like, no, I put a rectal thermometer in the Gila monster’s butt. Come on.”
Meg laughed as she dragged the biohazard bin across Jata’s exhibit.
“Yeah, and he didn’t even laugh.”
“He’s an intern.” Which pretty much explained everything.
The two of them were on a serious cleaning binge. They’d already been through three exhibits that morning, and the best part about doing maintenance detail with Gemma wasn’t even how focused or efficient she was—it was that she was fun. She just got it. Lately Meg had realized she even preferred working with Gemma to being alone with her animals.
Meg shoveled the piles of white dung into the biohazard bin while Gemma trimmed up the peeling bark on one of the palm trees, mainly so it didn’t end up as part of the dung in a few more weeks. Jata liked to sample things.
“How come we never get keeper interns?” Gemma asked. “Antonio gets to make his do all the worst stuff. We could have them on vomit and poop detail and get them to collect all the rat carcasses in the traps.”
“I’d rather have them fill out our paperwork.”
“Check our SAMs.”
“Take our training classes.” Meg sighed. She wrapped the shovel in a fresh garbage bag, put it back in the cart, and grabbed a rake. “But then how would we torture the newbies? There’d be nothing left to haze them with.”
Gemma grinned. “How’s the lagoon look to you? Do you want me to top it up?”
“No. She hasn’t been swimming much lately.”
Meg walked over to the beach area and looked at the clear, filtered water in the concrete pool. It should have been murky with dirt and sloshed over the nearby ground. The pool was deep enough for Jata to fully submerge and long enough to swim a mini lap, but unless Meg dumped a bag of minnows in the water, she usually just lay in the shallow end. Recently, though, she hadn’t even been doing that. She was depressed, lethargic, and Meg couldn’t figure out why. Jata wasn’t even making a fuss about being in the restraint box while they cleaned the exhibit. Antonio had been a jerk about her behavior the other day, big surprise, and his words circled her mind— death watch —but she shook them loose. What did a microchip-happy vet know about the behavioral patterns of Komodos, let alone her Komodo? Not a goddamn thing, as far as she was concerned.
In the waiting room, Meg stared blankly at a magazine page, unaware of time passing. Eventually the door at the far end of the room clicked open. A portly nurse called her in to a room, and before she was ready, they plunged needles into her arms and placed her feet into metal stirrups. She clenched her eyes shut so tight that blood vessels burst along her corneas. As the drugs coated her veins, she saw sunrises and their painfully bright streaks of color that she’d pretended to finger-paint from her mother’s minivan window as a girl. The nurse hushed her and wiped the streaks from her face with a scratchy tissue. Later Ben picked up her favorite pad thai, and she ate a few bites to make him happy. She slept deeply that night and didn’t speak the next day about her terrible dreams.
But part of her stayed back there. Part of her was still sitting in that Minneapolis waiting room two years later, staring through a magazine at a mass of swarming cells that changed, shape-shifting in every second from embryo into cancer, from animal to death to baby to mother.
“You don’t like kids,” she had whispered into the magazine as the cells multiplied and mutated in front of her eyes. “Jata is the only child you want.”
8 Months before Hatching
A nd I listed off everything—the listlessness, the redness in the gums, his temperature, all after the recent laceration. I was like, it’s an infection, right? And the dude’s like, did you get the temperature from the SAM report?” Gemma wiped her forehead with an arm. “And I was like, no, I put a rectal thermometer in the Gila monster’s butt. Come on.”
Meg laughed as she dragged the biohazard bin across Jata’s exhibit.
“Yeah, and he didn’t even laugh.”
“He’s an intern.” Which pretty much explained everything.
The two of them were on a serious cleaning binge. They’d already been through three exhibits that morning, and the best part about doing maintenance detail with Gemma wasn’t even how focused or efficient she was—it was that she was fun. She just got it. Lately Meg had realized she even preferred working with Gemma to being alone with her animals.
Meg shoveled the piles of white dung into the biohazard bin while Gemma trimmed up the peeling bark on one of the palm trees, mainly so it didn’t end up as part of the dung in a few more weeks. Jata liked to sample things.
“How come we never get keeper interns?” Gemma asked. “Antonio gets to make his do all the worst stuff. We could have them on vomit and poop detail and get them to collect all the rat carcasses in the traps.”
“I’d rather have them fill out our paperwork.”
“Check our SAMs.”
“Take our training classes.” Meg sighed. She wrapped the shovel in a fresh garbage bag, put it back in the cart, and grabbed a rake. “But then how would we torture the newbies? There’d be nothing left to haze them with.”
Gemma grinned. “How’s the lagoon look to you? Do you want me to top it up?”
“No. She hasn’t been swimming much lately.”
Meg walked over to the beach area and looked at the clear, filtered water in the concrete pool. It should have been murky with dirt and sloshed over the nearby ground. The pool was deep enough for Jata to fully submerge and long enough to swim a mini lap, but unless Meg dumped a bag of minnows in the water, she usually just lay in the shallow end. Recently, though, she hadn’t even been doing that. She was depressed, lethargic, and Meg couldn’t figure out why. Jata wasn’t even making a fuss about being in the restraint box while they cleaned the exhibit. Antonio had been a jerk about her behavior the other day, big surprise, and his words circled her mind— death watch —but she shook them loose. What did a microchip-happy vet know about the behavioral patterns of Komodos, let alone her Komodo? Not a goddamn thing, as far as she was concerned.
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