Valerie the Veterinarian's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

By nine in the morning Valerie had called every architect in the county. Six said no. Two hung up. The last one laughed. No one would stamp plans for a building already standing. Without a stamped drawing, the permit office would revoke her license in thirty days. She sat at the counter with the phone in her hand and looked at the back lot through the window. The shelter stood there on its concrete pad, roof pitched, beams braced, waiting to be legal or torn down. She had one name left on her list, an architect two towns over who did barn conversions. Valerie grabbed her coat and her patient journal and drove. The architect's office smelled like coffee and sawdust. She was a thin woman with reading glasses pushed up on her head. She listened while Valerie explained. Then she shook her head. "I can't sign off on something I didn't design. My license is on that stamp." Valerie set the patient journal on the desk and opened it. She turned the pages one at a time. Sam's map. The snapping turtle with the infected shell. A fox with no back legs, four years of visits, weight logged in a steady hand. A hippo who came every morning to sit and breathe. A penguin chick with a cut flipper. "I built the shelter because a forty-pound turtle wouldn't fit through my door," Valerie said. "I built it before I knew the rules. I'm asking you to look at the building and tell me what's wrong with it. If it's sound, stamp it. If it's not, I'll fix whatever you say." The architect turned another page. She read for a long time. Then she picked up her keys. They drove back together. The architect walked the pad, measured the posts, climbed a ladder to check the roof braces. She pulled on the pulley. She frowned at the drainage line and made Valerie dig a trench two feet longer. By late afternoon she sat on the edge of the deck with her clipboard and wrote for twenty minutes. Then she stamped the revised plans and signed her name. "Submit these Monday," she said. "They'll hold." Valerie held the papers with both hands. The shelter was legal. The permit was safe. She walked the architect to her car and thanked her twice.