Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat - By David Dosa Page 0,65

a clue as to where this was going. Perhaps he realized that he was rambling. He stopped himself and looked at me.

“Today, for our anniversary, I brought her a dozen red roses and a piece of her favorite pear tart from that excellent bakery downtown on Federal Hill.”

I glanced over and saw the unopened pastry box on the bedside table along with the vase full of roses.

“I walked into her room and said, ‘Happy anniversary,’ like so many times before. I sat on the bed and bent over to give her a kiss on the forehead.”

He paused. “In her eyes all I could see was terror. Dr. Dosa, I was a stranger to her. She just started screaming….”

It was as if all the air had left the room.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he continued. “I tried to kiss her and she just kept screaming. I put my hand up to comfort her and she slapped me in the face. Then she got up and ran out of the room.”

I could see the red mark on his left cheek. We settled into an uneasy silence. Finally Frank spoke.

“Doctor, I don’t want my wife to live in fear like this.”

I looked at Frank. He had stopped crying. His expression was fierce, as determined as hers must have been back in the camps. I understood now why he had wanted to tell me the story of his marriage.

“Will you help me, Doctor?”

Deep in my soul, I knew where he was coming from—and I knew where he was going. His heart was broken; there was nothing left. They had survived; they had come this far and now he was alone. I put myself in his shoes and for a moment, I thought of how easy it would be to break a cardinal medical oath and do what he was asking.

“No,” I finally said. “I can’t help you with that.”

There was another awkward silence that I finally broke. “Mr. Rubenstein, your wife is terminally ill. Physically, she’s been doing better lately, but when her time comes, we can put her on hospice and just make her comfortable.”

“How long does she have?” he asked me.

“Mr. Rubenstein, only God knows that.”

He allowed my answer to sink in. I wondered what he thought of God. Maybe God no longer existed for someone who had experienced so much horror. “Doctor, in my mind my wife died today.”

He gathered his things from the bed. “Please just make whatever is left of her comfortable and don’t let her suffer anymore.”

“You have my word, Mr. Rubenstein.”

Frank gave me a halfhearted smile and stood up. He crossed the room quickly and then went out into the hallway. I followed him as he passed his wife seated at the nurse’s table at the front of the unit. He didn’t give her a second glance and she did not see him. Maybe she was fixated on the black-and-white tabby cat that had left his perch at the window and had come to the front desk to inspect all of the commotion.

When he got to the front door I buzzed Mr. Rubenstein out of the unit with my ID card. As he left he turned quickly and grabbed my wrist. He looked me in the eye.

“Thank you for all of your help over the years,” he said. “I know I haven’t always…”

His speech trailed off and tears sprung to his eyes again. “Please just make her comfortable, Doctor.”

I nodded and he smiled grimly through his tears. Then he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.”

LEONARDO DA VINCI

GEORGE DUNCAN LOOKED AT HIS MOTHER THROUGH tired eyes. Only a few hours before, he had been 300 miles away on the job in southern New Jersey; his work as a bankruptcy liquidator frequently took him away from home. His day had started uneventfully. Then at four o’clock he had received the call he had always dreaded.

“George, your mother is not well,” Mary had told him. Usually he was the one to call her—so much so that when he saw the Steere House number on his cell phone he knew it wasn’t good. “I think you’d better come up here as soon as you possibly can.”

Instantly, he regretted having left his mother. He had spent almost every minute of the previous weekend’s Thanksgiving holiday in her room. It was clear to him then that her health was in steep decline. But Monday had come calling, and with it his work responsibilities. His mother’s chronic illness and frequent hospitalizations