Two days after my daughter
My 7-year-old gave her stuffed rabbit to a crying girl in the hospital waiting room — two days later, a long black limo pulled up, and a man in a black suit said, “Ma’am, I need to see your daughter. It’s urgent.”
My daughter Mabel had been afraid of hospitals since she was four.
So every time we had to go back for a checkup, she brought the same stuffed rabbit with her.
Mr. Bunny.
One ear bent. One eye scratched. Fur worn thin from years of being squeezed too hard.
That morning, the children’s waiting room was packed.
Mabel sat pressed against my side, holding Mr. Bunny under her chin, when we heard crying near the vending machines.
A little girl in a hospital bracelet stood there alone, cheeks wet, hands twisted in the front of her sweater.
Mabel watched her for a long moment.
Then she slid off her chair.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “where are you going?”
She didn’t answer.
She walked straight to the girl and held out Mr. Bunny.
The girl stared at it.
Mabel said, “He’s brave when I’m not.”
The girl took him with both hands.
A nurse hurried over a second later and led the child through a set of double doors.
Mabel looked sad on the drive home, but she didn’t ask for the rabbit back.
“She needed him more,” she said.
Two days later, I heard a strange engine sound outside.
It was too smooth and too low for any car that usually stopped near our apartment building.
I went to the window and pulled the curtain back.
A long black limo had stopped by the curb.
I watched as the back door opened.
A man in a black suit stepped out.
He walked up the stairs and knocked.
When I opened the door, he said, low and urgent, “Ma’am, I need to see your daughter. It’s urgent.”
