***
“I’ve had a lot of time to think.”
A minute later, we heard the dumpster’s lid.
Then footsteps. She returned, holding the empty wooden box from the day before.
She’d emptied it.
Claire walked straight to Liam and held out the box.
“Can we start again?” she asked.
Liam looked at the box, then at her. For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Then he took it.
And hugged her.
Just like that.
“Can we start again?”
***
A few weeks later, the bunnies were ready.
Cleaned. Dried. Notes fixed.
Some were still a little uneven, but that didn’t matter.
Liam asked Claire if she’d go with him to deliver them. Teary-eyed, my DIL agreed.
***
I later heard from Liam that Claire stayed close to him the whole time.
She didn’t try to take over.
Just… stayed.
***
Teary-eyed, my DIL agreed.
Liam said he got to hand them out after explaining to the nurses why he was there.
He said the kids in the cancer wards he visited when his mother went in for treatment held onto the bunnies as if they meant something.
Because they did.
On the drive home, Liam revealed he’d leaned his head against the window.
Then he said, “Mom would’ve liked that.”
He got to hand them out.
He saw Claire’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.
But she didn’t say anything; she just nodded.
And for the first time since she walked into our lives…
I believed she might finally understand how to stay.
