“You’re sure?” I press. “Maybe when you brought the food, or my coat?—”
“No,” he repeats. “I would remember a toy. Sorry.”
That same feeling hits me again, like a word on the tip of my tongue. Something is wrong. I’m forgetting something important. It brushes the edge of my mind and slips away before I can grab it.
“Bunny,” Lily whimpers, and then the whimper turns into a full-on cry. “I want Bunny! Mommy, I want him!”
My heart squeezes. My brain is still in survival mode, trying to solve everything at once, and I have nothing left for this. “Hey, hey, baby, it’s okay,” I say, reaching for her, but she only cries harder, face crumpling. “We’ll find him, I promise?—”
She kicks the blanket, little hands balled into fists. The IV line trembles. Panic spikes in my chest. “Lily, careful?—”
“Lily,” Aleksander says, his voice low but firm.
She hiccups, the sound catching, but doesn’t stop.
He steps in closer, gently shifting me to the side. He leans over her bed, one hand braced on the rail, the other smoothing her hair back from her damp face.
“Malishka,” he says, softer now. “Hey. Look at me.”
It takes a second, but she does. Red eyes, wet lashes, bottom lip still shaking.
“The bunny is just hiding,” he tells her. “You know how he is. Always playing games.” His voice is calm, certain, like this is a fact, not a guess. “We will catch him. But you know what he doesn’t like?”
She sniffles. “What?”
“He doesn’t like it when you cry,” Aleksander says. “He gets scared. And then he hides more. So we have to be brave, da? Show him we are not scared. Then he comes back.”
Lily sniffles again, breathing unevenly, but the crying has stopped. “He’s scared?” she whispers.
“Very scared,” Aleksander says seriously. “He needs you to be strong so he knows where to come.”
She thinks about this, small brows drawn together. “Like…like when I was sick,” she says.
“Exactly,” he says. “You were very strong. Remember?”
She nods, a little shaky but calmer now.
“If you want,” he adds, “I can carry you. And you can tell Bunny in your head that you’re not mad. That you’re waiting.”
She nods again, more firmly this time, and lifts her arms. He scoops her up like it’s the easiest thing in the world, settling heron his hip, her head dropping onto his shoulder. Her fingers curl into his shirt, her breathing already starting to slow.
I watch the whole thing, useless plate of food still in my hands, my heart doing something painful and soft at the same time.
He calmed her in under a minute.
To anyone passing by, it probably looks completely normal—dad settling his kid down before a car ride.
To me, it feels like watching something I didn’t know I’d been starving for.
He turns to me, one arm holding Lily, the other reaching for my bag. “We should go,” he says quietly.
I nod, still looking at him, at them.
I thought I couldn’t love him more than I already did.
I might have been wrong.
The drive feels longer than it probably is.
