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Description
Gretta told me there were rabbits underneath the overgrown shrubs just outside my bedroom window. Baby rabbits, the kind that were hairless and pink. Gretta told me that their mama hadn’t come for days, and while it was natural, it was weird.

Mama hasn’t come home for several weeks now. The home is just the way it was when she touched it: the stove splotched with cooking stains, the carpet riddled with pine needles from two months ago, and even the cuckoo clock still needed rewinding. Gretta told me not to touch anything—to preserve it for her.

Yesterday, I escaped the quiet jail of my house while Gretta was working. She’s employed about a mile down the highway, at the Walmart. She used to go to college about an hour away, but lately, she hasn’t found time to go. She said that she misses it, that she regrets stepping out of the house only to find out she didn’t do anything she planned. I’ve learned though. I’m going to everything I’ve thought out for my personal jail-break.

The first thing I did was look at the sky. It surrounded me the same way those walls in that room Mama had to stay in did. Clean, blue, empty. I glanced away, focusing on the thick grass, the dirt road, anything, to get the memories away. Usually memories are a good thing, but those memories, the one when she’s in the blue room with all the machines…that’s all I remember anymore. I wanted to remember her in my room, snuggling with me. I wanted to remember her home, spilling the soup over the stove, never vacuuming long enough to get all of the Christmas tree out of the carpet, always forgetting to rewind the clock so I can hear the bird sing at noon. But all that remained are the traces, the outline of her existence. She’s a shadow fading as the sun comes up.

Trying to think of something else, I remembered the baby rabbits underneath the shrub, right outside my window. How their Mama, like mine, had forgotten about them. Peeking under the shrubs, I saw them, no longer pink, no longer helpless. They’re still small, still young, but they’re looking at me. They wanted me to help them, help them escape from their prison too—locked up in a place where Mama only pretends to care. I lifted each one into my arms, cradling them as I took them inside. I gave them carrots and pet them, as I promised to visit them every month.

When Gretta came home, she was tired. She held a cellphone to her ear in one hand, but rubbed her temples in the other. Her dark eyes saw past me, past our house, and settled someplace distant. She nodded once, forgetting the other person couldn’t see her, and said, “Pull it.” She hung up. She hugged me. She cried.

The day we went shopping for black dresses was the day I saw the mama rabbit come, dragging bloodied bodies out of her nest. I balled my hands into fists, pulled out of Gretta’s grasp, and charged at the rabbit, running just slow enough for the rabbit to dash away.

I stumbled to the baby rabbits, their bodies damaged, and sobbed, screaming, “How could a Mama just leave like that?”

Description
Gretta told me there were rabbits underneath the overgrown shrubs just outside my bedroom window. Baby rabbits, the kind that were hairless and pink. Gretta told me that their mama hadn’t come for days, and while it was natural, it was weird.

Mama hasn’t come home for several weeks now. The home is just the way it was when she touched it: the stove splotched with cooking stains, the carpet riddled with pine needles from two months ago, and even the cuckoo clock still needed rewinding. Gretta told me not to touch anything—to preserve it for her.

Yesterday, I escaped the quiet jail of my house while Gretta was working. She’s employed about a mile down the highway, at the Walmart. She used to go to college about an hour away, but lately, she hasn’t found time to go. She said that she misses it, that she regrets stepping out of the house only to find out she didn’t do anything she planned. I’ve learned though. I’m going to everything I’ve thought out for my personal jail-break.

The first thing I did was look at the sky. It surrounded me the same way those walls in that room Mama had to stay in did. Clean, blue, empty. I glanced away, focusing on the thick grass, the dirt road, anything, to get the memories away. Usually memories are a good thing, but those memories, the one when she’s in the blue room with all the machines…that’s all I remember anymore. I wanted to remember her in my room, snuggling with me. I wanted to remember her home, spilling the soup over the stove, never vacuuming long enough to get all of the Christmas tree out of the carpet, always forgetting to rewind the clock so I can hear the bird sing at noon. But all that remained are the traces, the outline of her existence. She’s a shadow fading as the sun comes up.

Trying to think of something else, I remembered the baby rabbits underneath the shrub, right outside my window. How their Mama, like mine, had forgotten about them. Peeking under the shrubs, I saw them, no longer pink, no longer helpless. They’re still small, still young, but they’re looking at me. They wanted me to help them, help them escape from their prison too—locked up in a place where Mama only pretends to care. I lifted each one into my arms, cradling them as I took them inside. I gave them carrots and pet them, as I promised to visit them every month.

When Gretta came home, she was tired. She held a cellphone to her ear in one hand, but rubbed her temples in the other. Her dark eyes saw past me, past our house, and settled someplace distant. She nodded once, forgetting the other person couldn’t see her, and said, “Pull it.” She hung up. She hugged me. She cried.

The day we went shopping for black dresses was the day I saw the mama rabbit come, dragging bloodied bodies out of her nest. I balled my hands into fists, pulled out of Gretta’s grasp, and charged at the rabbit, running just slow enough for the rabbit to dash away.

I stumbled to the baby rabbits, their bodies damaged, and sobbed, screaming, “How could a Mama just leave like that?”