Chapter 23: A Toy That Only Likes You

The first Saturday in July, Garner knocked on the cottage door like a stranger.

He had a cardboard box under one arm and a haircut he had clearly paid for.

"Come in," I said.

"Is she ready?"

"She's been ready since six."

Poppy was already at the table in her yellow boots.

She had a bag of crackers and a drawing she had been working on for an hour.

She looked up and stopped.

"Hi, Daddy."

"Hi, Pop."

For a moment neither of them moved.

Then she slid off the chair and walked over and put her arms around his legs.

Garner crouched very carefully.

His shoulders shook, and he did not make a sound.

"I brought you something," he said at last. "It's from the toy store. I opened it already, and I took out every battery."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted you to see it's just a toy."

He lifted a small, plain, floppy rabbit out of the box.

It had no lens and no seam.

Poppy turned it over and shook it, and then she looked up at him.

"Does it listen?"

"No," Garner said. "It only likes you."

She considered it seriously.

"Okay," she said. "But I'm keeping the lamb too."

"Of course you are."

I stood in the kitchen doorway with my arms crossed and my eyes burning.

It was nothing.

A father, a rabbit, a Saturday.

It was also the first thing he had ever done for her that nobody saw.

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