Old Ezra…Young Hare

Erin soon tired of chasing her dog around the backyard.  Even though her father told her Ezra was 84 in people years, he could still out run her.  Erin sat in the grass, forgetting that her mother told her not to dirty up her new dress.  
—Come here, Ezra!  I think I found a four-leaf clover.

Ezra ambled to his young ladymaster with heavy graying paws.  Four pairs of eyes gazed upon the plant in the tiny hands, disappointed.  
—Maybe it has to be at the end of a rainbow. Erin sighed.  

Old Ezra returned to the bushes.  His hearing was failing him, but he couldn’t overcome the curiosity of the small squeaks and rustling leaves.  He cast a protective glance at Erin.  She sat, crisscross-applesauce (as she called it), singing a song she made up about the crawling insect on her leg.
—You are green but also black with spots on your back you crawl slow but also fast.  Crawl little bug little bug little bug bug bug.

Ezra let out a low growl Erin had never heard before.  She brushed the caterpillar off her grass stainedskinned knee.  Old Ezra carried something loosely in his jaw towards Erin.  He placed a young rabbit—its eyes barely opened—onto her mostly white sundress.  The dog’s eyes flooded with anxiety as he looked at Little Erin.  
—What’s wrong with it?  He’s breathing so fast, Ezra what’s wrong?  

Erin wanted to cry out to her father, but she knew better than to interrupt him when he was cigarsmoking on the porch.  The baby rabbit was not much bigger than her child-sized hand.  Old Ezra sat next to Erin and put his head on her thigh, next to the cradle of her dress.  She put one hand on her dog and with the other, stroked the panicked bunny.  Erin wondered what could have happened to make this bunny so scared.  Maybe it had a bad dream, like she sometimes did when there was a thunderstorm.  She was so happy to be barefoot just then, because she hated the way shoes felt under her legs sitting cross-legged.  Her bottom was starting to hurt, but she didn’t want to move the baby in her lap.

Its breathing was rapid and shallow.  Erin didn’t know too much about rabbits, only dogs and kittens, but she did know that no living creature should sound like a kazoo when it exhales.  Mr. Wilson sounded like that but that’s because he has a hole in his throat from all the cigarettes he smoked.  But she knew that wasn’t how God wanted Mr. Wilson to sound when he grew up.  
—What should I do, Ezra? she held the bunny to her chest.

Erin could feel the tiny heartbeat.  She sang the song her mother sang when the thunder was too loud.  
—Too ra loo ra loo ra, too ra loo ra lie.  Ofty dreams I wonder to that cottagan.  Too ra loo ra loo ra, too ra loo ra lie.  

She didn’t really know the words, but the song always made Erin fall asleep, so maybe it would help the rabbit.  Old Ezra whimpered.  He seemed to know something Erin didn’t understand.  She started singing the song her father sang to her mother when they left Erin with a babysitter.
—My wild Irish rose the sweetest flower that grows, you may search everywhere, but none can compare with my wild Irish rose.  She liked that song so much because her mother’s name is Rosemary.  

Baby rabbit’s breaths were slowing to Erin’s gentle lullabies.  The excited heart beat quickly turned to a dull murmur.  Old Ezra barked and Erin put the bunny back in her dress-cradle.  Erin smiled.  The bunny was okay now.  She kept petting it in spite of Ezra’s barking.  After singing the rose song a few more times, Erin picked up the bunny to bring it back to his mother.  Her eyes welled up when she felt no life in the small animal.

Erin’s father finished wishing well his neighbor friends and putting away whiskey snifters when he heard the sobs of his young daughter.  He ran out to her, worried she broke another bone.  Erin held a small rabbit against her, rocking back and forth.  
       —He’s dead he’s dead he’s dead oh no oh no he’s dead he’s dead.
       —Hush darling, what happened?

Erin cried through the story of Ezra bringing her the bunny and how he was scared and she was scared and the bunny was scared but she calmed it down but then he stopped breathing and now he’s dead he’s dead oh no he’s dead.  Erin’s father followed Old Ezra as the dog eagerly lead him to the burrow where he found the bunny.  From the patches of fur, pawprints and dried blood on the leaves, Erin’s father figured a fox dragged the family back to his warren for dinner.  He was hoping he wouldn’t have to have the-everything’s-eventual and circle-of-life talk with her for a few more years.  But with grandma in the hospital and a dead rabbit in his daughter’s lap, he figured now was as good of a time as any.  
—You know, that little rabbit was lucky to be with you.  
—Why’s that daddy?  He died when I was holding him.
—No, no, her father said.  It wasn’t your fault.  
       
He picked up the rabbit and put it on the ground.  Ezra rubbed his salt-and-pepper snout on the rabbit’s still warm fur.  He whimpered and curled against his owner.   
—But why did he die, daddy?  He was a baby, a very little baby!  It’s not fair!
—Sometimes, Erin, life and death don’t seem fair.  You took care of the bunny as much as you could.  There was nothing you could do.  

Erin’s father glanced down at the dead rabbit and sighed.  The poor thing must have had a heart attack.  
—These things happen angel, he said as Erin cried into his shirtsleeves.  
—But why?  Why?  

The little girl had never experienced death before.  How could I explain the enormity of it? her father asked himself.
—I think that maybe. He faltered. —I think that maybe, that this bunny had a heart that was just too big for the world.  

Little Erin stopped crying.  She looked at her father with accepting eyes.  
       —Do you really think so?
—I really do.  You took such good care of him, but there was nothing more you could do.  
—Not even if I was a animal doctor?
—Not even if you were a veterinarian.  
Erin didn’t know that word.
—A veterinarian is an animal doctor.  
—Can we bury it? she asked.  
—Of course, her father said.  Let’s go inside.

Erin spoke very little throughout the spaghetti eating even though she didn’t eat much of her spaghetti even though there wasn’t any green stuff just butter like she likes it.  Mommy and Daddy were quiet too but Erin didn’t know why.  No thanks I don’t want ice creams tonight, she said when she brought her plate to the sink.
       
After her bath and after her mother braided her hair, Erin crawled into her bed.  She held Astaire, her favorite teddy, close to her mermaid pajamas.  Father put The Very Noisy Cricket back on the shelf after Erin asked to hear it chirp three more times.  He kissed her freckled forehead, said goodnight and left.  
—Mommy, please sing me that song.  I’m still sad.   
       
Rosemary sang to her daughter in her soothing alto until Erin’s breathing fell into the rhythmic sighs of sleep:

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now don’t you cry, too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral that’s an Irish lullaby.  Oft in dreams I wander to that cot again, I feel her arms a hugging me as when she held me then.