Chapter 6 - THE BUNNY BOX
Noah’s stuffed rabbit was named Bunny.
Gray ears. One missing button eye. He had slept with it since he was a baby.
I followed Noah upstairs with Alexander. Eleanor came too.
Noah climbed onto his bed and pulled a wooden memory box from beneath it. I had seen the box before. I thought it held baby photos.
Inside were birthday cards, a hospital bracelet, a small bottle of Lydia’s perfume, and a white envelope sealed with wax.
Alexander stared. “I’ve never seen this.”
Noah shrugged. “Mommy box.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Nana Rose.”
Alexander looked at Eleanor. “Your sister?”
Rose Sterling had died the year before I started working there.
Noah pulled out a tiny digital recorder. “Mommy talks.”
Alexander sat on the edge of the bed. His hands trembled.
Lydia’s voice filled the room. Soft. Weak. Alive.
“Hi, little bear.”
“If Daddy is playing this with you, tell him he still owes me twenty dollars.”
“I don’t know who will help take care of you when you’re bigger. Maybe Daddy will remarry. Maybe he won’t. Maybe there will be a nanny, a teacher, a grandmother, a friend.”
“Listen to me. You never have to call anyone Mommy.”
“But if someday you love someone and a word comes out because your heart needs it, that is okay too.”
Lydia continued: “Love is not a job title.”
“I need you to know something else. If Grandma Eleanor tries to make your life too organized, tell Daddy his mother is being terrifying again.”
Then Lydia said, “Alexander, if you are hearing this, please choose Noah before the company. At least sometimes.”
“And Eleanor, if you turn my son’s future into a board meeting, I swear I will haunt you.”
Because beneath the recorder was another envelope.
May you like
And across the bottom, in Lydia’s handwriting:
DO NOT LET ELEANOR ARRANGE HIS NEXT MOTHER.
