Ike began digging. Sandy soil erupted from the hole. It was cold with spring, and the soil rang against the shovel.
“Ralph!” Dennis suddenly screamed. He looked around, panicked. “Ralph! Ralph!”
“You’ll have to give up your unhealthy attachment to him, as well,” Martha said.
“Keep digging,” she ordered Ike, who had stopped, confused.
As Ike resumed digging, Dennis ran up to him and tried to pull the shovel out of his hands. Martha made a signal, and a staff member who had come outside held the boy. He wrapped his strong arms around Dennis. The boy kicked and screamed and twisted.
“Should I take him inside, ma’am?”
“He needs to watch. This is part of letting go.”
Above them, a circle of eyes appeared. The boys had been awakened by the screaming, and watched out their windows.
Ike reached the den. It wasn’t deep. He knelt down, peering into the hole.
“I see it!” he called out, excited.
Dennis fought against the arms holding him.
Ike reached inside the hole. He recoiled, yelling.
“The motherfucker bit me!” He grabbed his shovel and went after the rabbit, digging ruthlessly at her, then using it to whack down inside the growing muddy pit. Dennis struggled, screaming over and over again.
“Got it,” Ike said, hauling a limp, muddy body from the den. The dead rabbit looked very small.
Dennis broke away and ran to her.
Martha watched. Now Dennis could leave his false attachments behind and find real love within a family, at the knee of a strict but loving father, just as she had.
Dennis had never expected to hold the rabbit. She was as light as air. Tears were running down his cheeks. He felt them drip onto his arms. Ike began to refill the hole. The staff member who had been holding Dennis looked ashamed.
Dennis wanted to run into the woods with Bunny and find a bush that would bring her back to life. But he knew there was no such thing. There was just a dead rabbit in his arms, and Martha, smiling at him.
From out front, there was the sound of tires on the gravel.
“Ralph,” Martha said.
The custodian came running. He took in the scene in one glance.
“Clean up this mess,” Martha told him.
Dennis had taken to twisting sheets into ropes. He wrapped things around his neck: string he found in the kitchen, phone wires he tore from the wall.
Ralph ran to the boy, cutting the wire that was cutting into his throat.
Dennis looked up, his eyes blank.
“It’s okay, son,” the custodian whispered.
“No, it’s not,” Martha said.
“Do you need more holding time, Dennis?” she asked.
Martha was puzzled to see the lack of reaction. She wondered if killing the rabbit had been taking it too far, then decided it had been necessary, and this behavior was the last line of defensiveness in the boy. She would push through, to the cure.
Ralph watched helplessly. He held the cut wires in his hand.
