“Everything is fine.” She laid a hand on Kevin’s shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gesture, and forced a smile. “This is Tyler Jackson, and he’s here to have some fun with Kevin and me, right?”
Kevin made the barest of nods, but Tyler, to her surprise, broke into a grin and crouched down at the boy’s level. “That’s right. As long as that’s okay with Kevin. Can I come with you guys?”
The boy’s eyes widened. He clearly hadn’t expected to be consulted. “Um, yeah, it’s okay I guess.”
“Thanks, I’ve been looking forward to it.” He straightened and offered a hand to Dylan, who smiled and returned the gesture. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. I’m Dylan, by the way. If you want to wait a bit, I can give you a guided tour myself. Otherwise Dani knows the place pretty well, and I’m sure she can show you around.”
Dylan was famous for getting caught up in his work; if they waited for him they might never get to see anything. “I think we can manage on our own, right, guys?”
“Sure,” Kevin agreed, no doubt eager to get on with it. She glanced at Tyler, who nodded his assent.
“All right then, let’s get started. Dylan, where would we find that baby possum you were telling us about?”
“In the main treatment room, in one of the cages on the back wall. Just don’t take him out—he’s little but his teeth are sharp.”
“We’ll start there then, thanks.” She opened the half door that led to the office, then led the way through the back door into the heart of the rehab center. Kevin trotted at her heels, with Tyler bringing up the rear.
“Wow, this is like a real doctor’s office.” Running over to the long stainless-steel table, he eyed the tubes and dials of an anesthesia machine. “Do they do surgery on alligators and stuff here?”
“Um, maybe?” Dani usually helped with the fund-raising side of things, not the hands-on, messy stuff. “We can ask Dylan on the way out, or I can call my sister later. She’d know. She volunteers here a lot. In fact, she even trained that panther I was telling you about.”
“Cool!”
“That is pretty cool,” Tyler agreed, making his way toward the bank of cages Dylan had said the possum was in. “I’ve never seen a panther close up.”
“Dani says panthers and tigers are cousins. Do you think that’s true?”
“It is. All cats are related in some way, even house cats.” Tyler had Kevin’s full attention now. “My little girls have been begging me for a kitten. Maybe I should ask if they have a spare panther here. What do you think?”
Kevin giggled, his nostrils crinkling. “Not a good idea.”
Tyler scratched his head in mock confusion. “No? Not the same thing?”
“Uh-uh. You had better get them a regular kitten.”
“You’re probably right. Oh, well.” Dylan pointed to a cage just to the right of where they were standing. “Hey, I think I found that baby possum.”
Kevin rushed over, his earlier nervousness forgotten. “Oh, wow, look how small it is! He’s really funny-looking!”
Dani joined them, peering over Kevin’s head at what looked like an overgrown rat with an extralong pink snout. “Whoa, he is pretty unusual. But he’s just a baby. Maybe he’ll get better looking when he grows up.”
“How come he’s all alone in there? Where’s his mom? Is she in another cage?”
Dani winced. “No, it’s just the baby that is here. That happens sometimes. But they’re going to take good care of it, don’t worry.”
“But what happened to his mom?” His voice rose in pitch. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know for sure, honey, but she—she probably died. Most of the baby animals they get here are brought in because the parents aren’t there to care for them anymore.”
“So he’s an orphan?”
Tears filled his eyes, and Dani felt her own welling up in response. What on earth had she been thinking, bringing him to see orphaned animals? “Yes, he is. But he’s going to be okay. Dylan and the other workers will make sure of it. And as soon as he’s big enough they’ll let him go, back in the wild.” Maybe knowing there was a happy ending waiting for the possum would help smooth things over.
“They’re going to abandon him? On his own? That’s mean. Mean, mean, mean!” Kevin stomped his foot with each word, his face scrunched up to the point his freckles were running together. “I hate this place. Take me home. Now!” And with that he ran out the nearest door.
* * *
Tyler grabbed Dani’s arm as she started to chase after the boy. “Is it safe out there? All the animals are in enclosures, I mean?”
She tugged, trying to break his grip. “Yes, of course it’s safe. But he’s upset. I need to go to him, and explain—”
“Fine, but let him have a minute to himself first. He’s upset, yes, but he’s going to be even more embarrassed for crying in front of us. Give him a little time to calm down. Trust me.”
She kept her eyes on the door, but stopped trying to pull away. “One minute, but then I’m going after him.”
“We’ll both go.”
Dani ran her hands through her shoulder-length dark hair, frustration and regret clear as day on her face. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot. I just thought he’d like to see cute baby animals. Everyone likes baby animals, right?”
It seemed like a rhetorical question, but he nodded anyway.
“It never occurred to me that he’d focus in on them being orphans. Of course, it should have.” She began pacing, her walking shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor with every step she took. “How could I be so stupid? So heartless? Bringing him here would be like taking a burn victim to a bonfire, for heaven’s sake.”
“Now, it’s not quite like that...”
“Yes, it is. He’s an orphan. He lost his mother not that long ago, and his father might as well be dead. And what do I do? Take him to see a bunch of orphaned animals. Then, to make it worse, I tell him all about how they’ll be let loose. ‘Abandoned,’ I think is what he called it.”
“Hey, you couldn’t have known he’d take it that way. We’ll talk to him, make sure he knows that no one is going to abandon him.”
“It was still insensitive. I should have known better.”
“News flash, princess. You can’t always have all the answers, or get it all right. Not when it comes to kids. Yeah, you screwed up. You’ll fix it. And then probably do something else to mess up, and then fix that. It’s how the whole thing works.”
She stopped pacing just a foot away from him and stared at him. She was close enough that he could smell the scent of whatever fancy shampoo she used, something girly.
“You know, I’m not sure if I want to thank you or smack you.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not trying to make you feel better, just telling you the truth.”
“Which is that I screwed up, but it’s not a big deal because I’ll probably do it again?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
She cocked her head, as if trying to judge if he was serious. Which he was. If he’d learned anything since his girls were born, it was that it was impossible to predict what would set them off. And that making mistakes was par for the course. That they were doing okay was more a statement about their resilience than his own