Chapter 8 - The Rabbit in the Drawer.
Emily found me twenty minutes later.
She was no longer wearing her veil.
Her hair remained perfect, but without the veil she looked younger.
Closer to the girl I remembered.
She stood at the end of the pew holding something in one hand.
"Can we talk?"
I looked at the small object.
A faded stuffed rabbit.
One ear was darkened at the edge.
My breath stopped.
"You kept it."
Emily sat down carefully.
"Mom packed it in my bridal bag."
I stared at the rabbit.
It had once been white.
Smoke and twelve years had turned it gray.
The left ear still carried a scorched line from the fire.
I had not seen it since the hospital.
Emily placed it on her lap.
"She said I might want something from childhood today."
"Did you?"
Emily looked at me.
"Not this."
The answer was honest enough to hurt.
She touched the rabbit's stitched nose.
"I used to hide it in a drawer."
"Why?"
"Because every time I saw it, I remembered you coming through the doorway."
I said nothing.
Emily stared straight ahead.
"Your hair was burning."
My chest tightened.
That was a detail she had never told me.
"I remember hitting it with my hands."
Her voice grew distant.
"You kept telling me not to look behind us."
I looked down at my gloves.
"I don't remember that part."
"I do."
She swallowed.
"I remember your arm around my head."
"I remember the stairs shaking."
"I remember thinking you were angry because you kept yelling at me to hold on."
A small, broken laugh escaped her.
"I didn't understand you were scared."
"I was terrified."
Emily finally looked at me.
"You never told me that."
"You never asked."
She looked away.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then Emily said, "I hated that rabbit."
I nodded.
"I hated the newspaper article."
"I hated when people called you a hero."
That one hurt.
She saw it.
"Not because you weren't."
"Then why?"
"Because every time someone called you a hero, I heard the rest of the sentence."
She tightened her hand around the rabbit.
"Because of me."
I understood then.
In Emily's mind, praise for me had never been separate from blame for her.
No one had meant it that way.
But children build equations from whatever adults repeat.
Claire is brave because Emily was trapped.
Claire is scarred because Emily started the fire.
Claire suffered because Emily made a mistake.
Over time, gratitude and shame had fused until Emily could not feel one without the other.
"You should have told me," I said.
"I tried once."
I frowned.
"When?"
"Your college graduation."
I searched the memory.
I had finished two years late because of surgeries and rehabilitation.
Our family had celebrated in a restaurant near campus.
Emily had been thirteen.
She had disappeared into the bathroom for nearly an hour.
"You had a stomachache."
"No."
She looked down.
"A woman at the next table recognized you from the article."
I remembered the woman vaguely.
She had asked to shake my hand.
"She told me I was lucky to have a sister who loved me enough to destroy her own life."
My stomach turned.
"She said that?"
Emily nodded.
"I was thirteen."
"Why didn't you tell Mom?"
"I did."
I looked at her.
Emily's expression hardened.
"She told me the woman meant well."
My mother had probably believed that.
Meaning well had excused a lot in our house.
"Then Dad told me not to make your graduation about my feelings."
I closed my eyes.
There it was again.
The same family rule applied in both directions.
Whoever hurt less was expected to disappear for whoever hurt more.
No one learned how to stand beside pain without ranking it.
Emily picked at a loose thread on the rabbit.
"After that, I stopped telling anyone."
"And you started blaming me."
She nodded slowly.
"It was easier."
"For you."
"Yes."
At least she did not pretend otherwise.
I looked toward the front of the church.
Daniel was speaking with Margaret near the altar.
"Do you love him?"
Emily looked shocked by the question.
"Of course."
"Then tell him everything."
"He'll leave."
"Maybe."
Her eyes filled again.
"How can you say that so calmly?"
"Because love that depends on a false story isn't safe for either of you."
Emily shook her head.
"You make everything sound simple."
"It isn't simple."
I looked at the rabbit in her lap.
"Running into that house was simple."
She stared at me.
"You needed help."
"I loved you."
"So I went."
I paused.
"Everything after that was complicated."
Emily turned the rabbit over and showed me a small patch on its back.
The fabric did not match the original fur.
"You fixed this," she said.
I leaned closer.
A memory surfaced.
I had repaired the rabbit when Emily was seven after our neighbor's dog tore it open.
My stitches were uneven and too large.
Emily had cried because she thought the rabbit would never be the same.
I had told her different did not mean ruined.
The irony was almost painful.
"You remember what you said?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"You said scars are just where something got repaired."
I stared at her.
"I said that at fifteen?"
"You were annoyingly wise."
"I was probably trying to stop you crying."
"Probably."
Emily traced the patch with one finger.
"After the fire, I couldn't look at this patch without thinking about your skin."
I understood the association immediately.
Children connect images adults would never think to connect.
A stitched toy becomes a body.
A candle becomes guilt.
A family photograph becomes evidence.
"Did you ever want to throw it away?"
"A hundred times."
"Why didn't you?"
Emily looked at the rabbit.
"Because you carried it out too."
She swallowed.
"Part of me thought throwing it away would mean admitting I wanted to throw away everything that reminded me of what you did."
The sentence was painfully close to what she had tried to do with me at the wedding.
She realized it too.
Her eyes closed.
"I guess I found another way."
I did not disagree.
Emily looked down at the rabbit for a long time.
Then she whispered, "There's more."
My skin prickled.
"More about what?"
Her eyes lifted to mine.
May you like
"About why I needed you out of the pictures."
THE FRONT ROW
