The thing is,’ Mary said slowly, ‘Oscar only spends time with patients who are about to die.
-- Mary (Chapter 1 paragraph NA)

Importance: Mary introduces Dosa to Oscar one day when Oscar is lying on the bed of a dying patient. Dosa does not believe Mary’s claim that Oscar only spends time with patients who are about to die.

But while none of the medical staff, myself included, thought she was even sick, let alone close to death, that cat sensed something else. While my faith in science and my own intellectual vanity made it easier for me to reject the notion that some errant feline could know more than we as medical staff did, I felt strangely elated by the notion that I could be completely wrong.
-- Narrator (Chapter 2 paragraph NA)

Importance: Dosa is intrigued by Ellen’s death because Oscar was there when she died even though her doctor and nursing staff had not sensed that she was...