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three of them waited quietly for another
ten minutes as Mama Cat strained. "When will it come?" Chloe
said.
    "I'm going to have to help with this last
one."
    Jennifer had set a tray of things she might
need at her side. She washed her hands and dried them, pulled on
some sterile blue nitrile gloves, and knelt beside the cat to
gently help pull out the final kitten. It emerged suddenly, a tiny
still form in its fetal membrane.
    Chloe clutched Owen's arm as Jennifer broke
the sac, peeled it off, and wiped the kitten's face with a soft
clean cloth, using her little finger to clean out its mouth. "Is it
going to be okay, Dad?"
    "I don't know, love."
    "Hopefully." Jennifer held it in one hand and
rubbed its body with the towel until it gave a plaintive little
cry. She finished wiping it dry, then tied off and cut the cord and
laid the kitten beside its exhausted mother.
    She offered Mama Cat some water and food, and
set the adult cat's dishes back outside the box where the kittens
couldn't reach them.
    "There you are. Six healthy kittens. You can
have a closer look as long as you don't touch them."
    Chloe didn't wait to be told twice. She was
on her knees by the box immediately, gazing down at the tiny mewing
bundles of fur. "They're so adorable, Dad. I want to keep them
all."
    Owen chuckled and ruffled her hair. "One,
cocoa puff. If the cat's owner agrees."
    "What if we can't find the cat's owner? Can
we keep the mother and a kitten?"
    "We'll cross that bridge if we get to
it."
    "I wish I could pick them up."
    "In a few weeks," Jennifer said.
    Owen rested a hand on the wall and smiled as
the tiny creatures crawled close to their mother, little mouths
seeking sustenance.
    The miracle of life never got old. He'd been
mesmerized when his daughter was born, a life-changing experience.
Since then he'd watched numerous animals give birth, including
hundreds of goats. It would be easy to become blasé about birth
when the does were having kids all the time, but it was always a
magical thing to see new life come into the world.
    Now he understood why Jennifer had been so
determined to qualify as a vet and spend her life working with
animals. He loved that part of his job. He'd have probably enjoyed
being a vet himself if he'd bothered to consider a career when he
was younger, instead of wasting his time chasing girls and going to
parties.

Chapter Six
    Jennifer lay in bed, eyes closed as she tried to
sleep, but the familiar ache in her side throbbed after so much
bending and crouching. A fox barked somewhere in the distance, and
a few moments later an owl hooted right outside her window. She
gave up on sleep and picked up her phone from the nightstand to
check the time.
    It was just after one a.m., an hour since
she'd last checked on the cat and her newborn kittens. She'd
intended to look at them every two hours during the night, but
since she was awake, she might as well go and check on them
now.
    She hadn't wanted to alarm Chloe, but kitten
number six concerned her. She was smaller than the others, and
although the mother had accepted her and she certainly had enough
nipples to feed a litter of six, the runt of the litter was
sometimes pushed away by the bigger siblings.
    Jennifer slipped out of bed and donned the
thick sweater that Owen had loaned her over her nightgown. Putting
her feet in ballet flats, she tiptoed to the bathroom and opened
the door, turning on the recessed lights over the sink rather than
the main light, so as not to startle the feline guests.
    "Hey there, Mama Cat. How are you and your
babies doing?"
    She crouched beside the box, pressing a hand
to her aching scar, and took note of where each kitten was. Four
were feeding and a fifth was asleep among the others. Little number
six had been pushed to the side of the box near its mother's tail,
away from the warm curve of her body and the hot water bottle under
the bedding.
    Jennifer picked up the frail body and the
kitten mewled and wriggled. She touched the tiny