Chapter 19: The Rabbit in the Window

Sawyer stood in the corridor outside Lottie's room in a wet gray sweatshirt.

He had not shaved, and he held a pink stuffed rabbit from the gift shop by the neck.

The young firefighter stood in front of the door with his arms folded and did not move.

"Five minutes," Sawyer was saying. "Son, I'm her father. I just want to see her face."

"No, sir."

"I bought her a rabbit."

"She has a rabbit, sir."

I came around the corner at a run, with Terrence behind me, and I stopped ten feet away.

Sawyer saw me and straightened.

His whole face changed to the one I had married, soft and sorry and sure of itself.

"Hannah. Thank God. Talk to this boy. I'm out on bail, I did my time, I only want to say goodbye."

"You were ordered to stay away from her."

"I wasn't ordered. A cop told me. It isn't the same."

"A judge told you," Terrence said. "I read the paper."

"Stay out of this, Terrence."

"No."

Sawyer's mouth twisted.

"Look at you. Two days ago you were hiding up on a roof, and now you're playing the father in front of everyone."

"I'm not playing."

"You think she'll thank you for it? She won't. She'll see that you left, and she'll see what you let me do."

Terrence said nothing.

The young firefighter shifted his weight, and two nurses had come to the end of the hall and stood there, watching.

"Sawyer," I said. "Go home."

"I don't have a home, Hannah. You took it."

"You took your own home. You walked out of it on a ladder."

His eyes went wet, and I watched him decide to use it.

"She was my girl," he said, loudly, for the nurses. "Five years I held that kid. Five years I read her stories. Doesn't that count for something?"

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