Mr. Contreras bounded out as I rang his bell. “Oh, there you are. I was beginning to think you’d gone back to bed and I didn’t want to bother you none. I thought being as how you was out with the doc last night it wouldn’t be such a late evening, but you must’ve run into someone else you knew.”

His incessant burrowing into my love life sometimes brought me to the screaming point. Lack of sleep moved me to irritability faster than usual.

“Just once, as a noble experiment, could you pretend my private life is private? Tell me how Peppy is and why you had to come wake me up.”

He threw up placatory hands. “No need to get your tail in a knot, doll. I know you got a private life. That’s why I waited till nine-thirty. But I wanted to make sure I had a chance to talk to you before you took off for the day, that’s all. Don’t be so shirty.”

“Okay, I’m not shirty.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “Tell me how Her Serene Doggedness is doing. And how are the little ones?”

“Everyone’s a-okay. The princess is a champ, you don’t need me to tell you that. You wanna see her? Your hands are clean, ain’t they?”

“I just scrubbed myself squeaky clean inside and out and these are fresh jeans,” I said solemnly.

Mr. Contreras led me into his living room. Peppy was still stretched behind the sofa, but the old man had cleaned up her nest, giving her a fresh stack of soft sheets to lie on. The eight fur balls were squirming at her nipples, squeaking a little if one got pushed aside by another’s greed. Peppy looked at me and thumped her tail to show we were still friends, but her total attention was on her babies, too blind and helpless to survive without her.

“Every now and then she gets up to go out, but only for thirty seconds, then it’s back to her station. What a champ. My, oh my.” Mr. Contreras smacked his lips. “Of course, I feed her regular, just like the doc said, so don’t you go worrying about her.”

“I’m not.” I knelt cautiously next to the nursery and stuck my hand slowly behind the couch, giving Peppy time to growl me off if she wanted to. She watched warily as I stroked her babies. I longed to pick one up—their tiny bodies would just about fit in the palm of my hand—but didn’t want to alarm her. She seemed relieved when I stood back up.