He wanted us to have time to become a family first.
The final line said:
I’m sorry I failed your daughter’s promise.
I folded the letter carefully.
Then my grief changed.
It became anger.
Daniel had known.
He had watched me braid Lily’s hair.
Listened while I talked about Josie.
Asked me to marry him.
And all the while, Mr. Bunny had been hidden somewhere in his house.
He died without telling me.
Worse, he had placed the responsibility on Lily.
An innocent child.
The one person in the world I could never allow my anger to touch.
Coward.
That was the word that entered my mind.
Coward.
There were questions I would never get to ask him.
Was Josie frightened?
Did she ask for me?
What were her last moments really like?
Daniel was gone.
There would be no confrontation.
No explanation.
No apology I could refuse.
Only a stuffed rabbit that no longer smelled like the little girl who once carried it everywhere.
Then Lily spoke.
“Are you mad at Dad?”
Her voice was tiny.
She sat on the kitchen floor with her knees against her chest.
I wanted to protect her.
But I couldn’t lie.
“Yes.”
Her chin trembled.
“But none of this is your fault. Not even a little bit.”
She looked down.
Then asked the question that broke me.
“Are you going to leave me?”
Everything inside me stopped.
Of course.
She had already lost her mother.
Then her father.
Now she had delivered something that made the last parent she had scream and cry.
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