Chapter 7 - The Night I Drove Home With a Bunny on My Seat
I sat in my car outside 247 Elmwood for eleven minutes after I said goodnight.
The engine was off. The heat was bleeding out. May air came in through the cracked window and smelled like cut grass and fryer oil from somewhere down the block. Ella's cream bunny was on the passenger seat, propped upright like a person. I hadn't put it in the back. I hadn't put it in my pocket. I just held it all the way down the stairs and then set it there, both ears flopped forward.
My phone said 7:08. The coupon was done. Nine to seven, May 11. I had performed the promise exactly as written. School picnic. Diner. Park. Hallway. I wanted there to be some kind of chime or release, some feeling of completion. There wasn't. There was just the weight of the apartment building behind me and the quiet of my car.
I drove home with the bunny's brown eyes watching the road. At a red light on Main, a woman in the next car glanced over, saw a grown man in a black suit jacket that still had a pancake syrup stain on the cuff, with a stuffed rabbit buckled in like a child, and looked away quickly.
My apartment was a one-bedroom over the hardware store on Center. I carried the bunny up like it would bruise. Inside, I set it on my kitchen table and stood there looking at it. It was softer than I expected. Well-loved. One ear had been stitched where it must have torn. The fur on its nose was worn flat from being held.
I made coffee I didn't drink. I took the white paper out of my jacket — the coupon Ella had made with crayon, DADDY TICKET in wobbly letters, with little boxes checked for SCHOOL + PARK + DINNER — and smoothed it flat next to the bunny. Both objects from the ballroom. Both still with me. I realized I had been holding my breath since the hallway.
Helen's question came back. *Are you someone who can do that?* I had answered *I don't know yet.* It was honest. It also felt cowardly when I replayed it to the empty kitchen.
My phone buzzed at 8:34. Unknown number, but I knew.
Helen: Ella says thank you and that Bunny likes your car. She is asleep. -H
I typed and deleted three replies. Finally I sent: He is safe on my table. Thank you for today. Let me know when I can bring him back. -Daniel
Three dots. Then: No rush. Goodnight.
May you like
I didn't sleep much. At about one in the morning I got up and moved the bunny from the table to the top of my dresser so the first thing I'd see would be it. I lay back down and stared at the ceiling and thought about Michael Cruz at twenty-two, snoring on the futon in our college apartment, promising he'd be a dad who showed up to everything.
The promise was fulfilled. The day was over. That was the technical truth. The other truth was that I didn't feel finished at all. I felt like I'd started something I didn't know how to stop correctly.
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