Distress

It's raining--hard!

I am walking home from the Village Market with a backpack full of heavy groceries--a gallon of milk, jars of jelly etc, and a whole additional shoulder bag full of meat and fish and squash and tomatoes, rain seeping through my coat, in spite of the fact that it's supposed to be a raincoat.   And I hear the distress cry of a baby squirrel--I know that's what it is, because I have one that I'm rehabilitating.  But I don't see it anywhere, I look all around.  No nests in sight, big trucks backing through the alley, hard rain, puddles--if there's a baby squirrel out in the world without a mother, it will either be squashed or die of hypothermia.  But I go back to my own nameless baby squirrel, who soon will be hungry I'm sure.  In any case, I am!