Rats!
by Michelle Hulan

Danny and I are in the waiting room of a wild animal hospital. He’s playing it cool, considering. He’s sitting in his seat, swinging his legs, his toes barely grazing the terrazzo floor, and staring at the animals in rehabilitation near the front window. There’s a shallow water tank with a small family of turtles in the front, a hawk with a broken wing, and two pigeons in the cage against the wall. He turns to me and asks how much longer. I lean back in my chair. It’s hard to tell. There’s only one other person here—a grizzled woman in her seventies if I had to guess. “Excuse me,” I say to her. “Do you have the time?”