Unsaid: A Novel by Neil Abramson Read Free Book Online Page A

elimination (what he would call in his most pompous tone, and with a sheath of test results in his hand, “the differential diagnosis”). He then communicates his conclusion to the waiting family while checking his watch frequently.
    Thorton is not a bad vet—I imagine that he often reaches the right medical conclusion—just not a particularly nice person. He turns away clients who blanch at his estimates (50 percent due at the time of service) or question the necessity of a costly liver scan for a dog with normal liver enzymes. I know this about Thorton because these clients invariably ended up at my door and then stayed long after.
    I think the thing that bothered me most about Thorton was that he always left the families to their grief before the tears came. Joshua never did that and, more often than not, added his own. I’d like to think that my own clients believe Joshua trained me well at least in this respect.
    Sally Hanson is one of Thorton’s techs. I dealt with Sally only infrequently over the years, but I saw her around town. Once you meet Sally, it’s hard to forget her. She is one of the few African Americans in our “community,” and at the age of thirty-six, with high cheekbones, dark copper skin, and a tall, slim build, she looks like she got off at the wrong train station for some Ann Taylor photo shoot and just never left.
    I don’t know how or why Sally decided to work for Thorton, I just know that she did. I try not to judge, lest I be required to justify my own conduct to whoever controls access to points beyond. Circumstances and context can often explain a great deal.
    I can’t think of any reason why I should be able to see Sally now,but here she is before me, running into the operating room to give Thorton a surgical clamp.
    “Finally!” Thorton, short, fat, and bald with sausage-like fingers and glasses much too large for his head, shouts at her. Between them on the OR table is a large golden retriever with a silver muzzle who has been opened up for some type of thoracic surgery. I’m guessing the surgery isn’t going well.
    “Damn it, Hanson, what do I need to do to get you to give me some suction here,” Thorton yells. Sally immediately complies, but the cavity quickly fills again with blood.
    Out in the crowded waiting area, Sally’s son, Clifford, sits quietly drawing on the sketch pad in his lap. Clifford looks like he is nine or ten. He’s even more beautiful than his mother, with his giant brown eyes, long eyelashes, and rounded features.
    Although I can’t see what he is drawing, Clifford’s pencil strokes are not the hesitant stray marks of a doodler. With his tongue extended from the side of his mouth in concentration and his brow furrowed, he draws as if his subject is evanescent and he must get the image out of his head and on the paper as quickly as possible.
    It takes me a moment, but I finally understand what is missing from this waiting room. There are no barks, whines, yeows, or screams coming from the dogs and cats waiting for treatment. Where there otherwise should be the noise of panic, fear, and hurt, there is only stillness and the scratch of a pencil point against heavy sketch paper. When I look more closely, I see that every animal eye in the room is focused on the boy and his pad of paper.
    Besides the boy, the only other person in the waiting room without an animal is an older woman with starched white hair and a nervous habit of chewing on her thumbnail as she paces in front of the reception desk. That must be her dog in the OR.
    As I watch, a drastic change comes over the boy. He stiffens in his chair, drops his pencil, and then grimaces in pain. The dogs nearest him begin to howl.
    The boy slowly rises to his feet, places his pad on the seat, and moves toward the operating room. Dr. Thorton nearly knocks the boy over in his rush to get to the surgical supply cabinet located on the far side of the reception area. The boy doesn’t appear to register