The Last September: A Novel

“Eli?” I said, more to myself than calling for him.

He must have bolted away from me at warp speed, because I could see him, more than a block away, standing on the lawn of an imposing brick house, doing some kind of battle with a German shepherd. Eli loved animals, so it was hard to work out the nature of this interaction, whether it was playful or antagonistic. From where I stood, I could see he had his hands on the dog’s head. The dog itself was tensed, haunches higher than its shoulders, as if it were trying to wrest something from Eli’s grasp.

“Brett,” Eli yelled. “Help me out here!”

I should have run, I know. But it was hard to conjure the motivation to get into a fight with a hundred-pound dog. My steps may have picked up a little bit, but tentatively. Halfway there I could hear the dog growl.

“Eli,” I said. “What are you doing? Leave the dog alone!”

By the time I got there the owner had emerged from the house. Eli wouldn’t let go of the dog’s head, and I saw that he actually had a legitimate reason for what he was doing: the dog had a kitten in its jaws. When the owner—a frazzled gray-haired man in a plush bathrobe—grabbed its collar, the dog spat the kitten onto the ground at Eli’s feet. Eli knelt to scoop it up, holding the ball of fluff protectively to his chest. The kitten was soaked—shiny with the dog’s slobber, encased, as if it had just been born. I didn’t see how it could be alive.

We walked away from the house and sat down on the curb. Eli rested the kitten on his knee to examine it for damage. It was still coiled into the shape of a half-moon, and to my surprise it opened its eyes and blinked at Eli. I could see the imprinting taking place, from both directions, two sets of blue eyes refracting sunlight and each other.

“I think she’s okay,” Eli said. God only knows how he’d determined its sex. Maybe a lucky guess. Eli pulled the cat back to his chest, cradling her, wiping her clean with his shirt, and I knew there would be no found kitten signs posted around the neighborhood. He placed her back on his knees and she shook herself off, little whiskers making themselves parallel, reclaiming dignity. Eli stroked her with a brisk kind of gentleness, and she arched her back into his palm.

“Look,” Eli said. “People think we domesticated animals with food. But really, it’s our hands.” He drew her back to his chest, two fingers scratching under her chin, her eyes half closed in newfound bliss. “Cats might be able to clean each other,” Eli said, “but they can’t do this. It’s people, we’re the only ones who can pet and stroke and scratch bellies. That’s why they love us. They can get their own food. But we’re the only ones who can pet them.”

“Hey,” I said. “Eli. Did you ever think maybe you should be a vet instead of a human doctor?”

Eli smiled, his eyes still on the cat. “When I was little, that’s what I wanted to be. A vet. We had this girl who used to take care of us during the summer, Sylvia, she was so great with animals. I always said my plan was to be a vet and marry Sylvia.”

I reached over and touched my fingers to the kitten’s head. Her fur was still spiky with dog slobber. She opened her eyes and glared at me with an adult cat’s disdain.

“Maybe you still should,” I said. “Be a vet. You love animals so much.”

“I like people, too,” Eli said. “I want to help. More than just animals. You know? The world.”

“Well,” I said. “What you just did was brave. Saving this kitten. That was helping the world.”

Eli smiled. “Maybe I’ll do both,” he said. “After Harvard Med I’ll go to vet school. Open up a whole family practice—people on one side, pets on the other.” We stood up and started walking back down Ninth Street, the idea of a hike abandoned.