Two days after my daughter gave her stuffed rabbit to a crying girl in a hospital waiting room, a black limo rolled to a stop outside our apartment building. The man who stepped out didn’t ask for me. He asked for my little girl, and he said it was urgent.
The morning was quiet, something I’d gotten used to.
I poured cereal into Mabel’s bowl and listened to the radiator hiss, counting the hours until her checkup the way I always did, with a tightness behind my ribs I never quite shook.
Mabel padded in, her socks too big, Mr. Bunny tucked under her arm like a passport she would never travel without.
“Mama, is it the same doctor today?”
“Same one, baby. Dr.
Patel. She likes you.”
“Does Mr. Bunny have to get a shot too?”
I smiled and smoothed her hair behind her ear.
“No shots today. Just listening to your heart.”
She nodded, but her grip on the rabbit tightened. One ear bent, one eye scratched, fur worn down from three years of being squeezed through every hallway and every needle.
Mabel had been four when everything fell apart the first time, and Mr. Bunny had been there for all of it.
In the car, she pressed her cheek against the window.
“Mama, do you think hospitals remember kids?”
“Like, do they know it’s me coming back?”
My throat closed a little. “I think the nice ones do.”
***
The children’s waiting room was packed when we arrived; every plastic chair was filled, and parents were balancing coffee cups and paperwork.
Mabel pressed herself into my side, Mr. Bunny under her chin.
Then we heard someone crying near the vending machines.
A little girl stood there alone, a hospital bracelet loose on her wrist. Her cheeks were shining wet, and her hands twisted in the front of her sweater like she was trying to hold herself together.
Mabel went very still beside me.
She watched the girl for a long moment, the kind of looking that felt older than seven. Then she slid off her chair.
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