I thought the worst day of my life was already behind me. Then a six-year-old placed a box in my hands, and I opened it to find the one thing I had spent years believing was gone forever.
Part One: The Rabbit That Never Came Home
There is a sound a person makes when their heart breaks for the second time in the same place.
I made that sound on a Tuesday afternoon in my kitchen, with a pot of soup still bubbling on the stove and a little girl backing away from me in terror.
But to understand why, you have to go back. Back to the day I lost everything the first time.
Several years ago, my husband, Mark, and my daughter, Josie, were killed in a car accident on a two-lane road outside of town. Josie was five. Mark was thirty-four. They were driving home from her swimming lesson, singing, probably, because Josie never let anyone drive in silence.
I won’t tell you everything about that day. There are parts of it I have never said out loud, not to a therapist, not to my mother, not to anyone. Some things stay locked in a room inside you, and you learn to walk past the door.
But I can tell you about the thing that haunted me.
Josie had a stuffed rabbit named Mr. Bunny. He was gray and floppy, with one ear that drooped lower than the other and a pink nose that had faded almost to white. She got him the day she was born, and from that moment on, he went everywhere with her. To the grocery store. To the dentist. Into the bathtub, which I strictly forbade and which happened anyway. She fed him pretend peas at dinner. She made him wear a paper crown on her birthday.
If Josie was somewhere, Mr. Bunny was there too.
After the accident, a nurse handed me a clear plastic bag of my daughter’s belongings. Her little sneakers. Her purple hair tie. A sticker from the swim instructor that said SUPER SPLASHER.
I went through that bag twice. Then a third time, with my hands shaking so badly the nurse had to help me.
No Mr. Bunny.
I called the police. I called the tow yard. I drove out to that road myself, weeks later, and walked the ditch in the rain like a madwoman, searching the weeds.
Nothing.
