She holds the carrier on her lap the whole time, though the plastic corners must dig into her thighs, though there are perfectly good chairs beside her. She will not set him down. From inside the mesh window a small gray face presses forward, and she keeps two fingers hooked through the grate so he can feel her there.
She is bored. I can tell by the way she reads the same laminated poster about heartworm twice. She does not know that this boredom is the whole treasure of it: a warm animal breathing against her knuckles, the ordinary Tuesday smell of antiseptic and wet dog, the ticking wall clock, the nothing-yet of the waiting room.
The cat is furious and trembling and alive, and she keeps whispering the same three useless words to it, the way you whisper to something you love that cannot understand you and does not need to. He kneads the towel. She feels the small hot pinpricks of his claws and she winces and she does not move her leg.
When the door opens and a voice says their name, she stands so carefully, gathering him up, checking twice that the latch is closed. Twenty more minutes of her afternoon, spent worrying over a creature who will be cross with her the whole drive home.
I would give back everything I no longer have for one dull hour in that chair, holding a warm weight that trusts me, reading a poster I don't care about, waiting for a name to be called.
Hold him a little longer than you need to, in the car, before you start the engine. He won't mind.
And neither, I promise you, will you.