Issue 36 | Richard Leise and Lillian Taylor

Telly could not say when the rabbit first entered the garden.  The animal arrived with the wet heat of July.  Small.  Brown.  Still among the marigolds. 

The yard did not appear disturbed.  Water gathered in thin puddles along uneven ground, gnats swirling just above the damp earth.  Tomatoes sagged against their stakes along the fence.  Beyond the neighbor’s yard, a sprinkler rotated with steady clicks, pausing before swinging back again. 

Telly stood at the back door with a mug in both hands.  She looked out the window.

—Daniel.

Daniel turned from the counter and set down his glass of orange juice.  He hesitated.

Telly pointed. 

He leaned forward.  —What?

—It’s still there.

He came up beside her, and their shoulders touched.  The rabbit did not move.

—Do you see him? she asked.  

Daniel lowered his eyes toward the yard.  —See what?

Telly lifted her mug.  —That little rabbit, there.  Off in the marigolds. 

He looked towards a drift of blood red poppies.  Their star-shaped stigmas yellow with pollen.  He considered the garden. 

—I don’t think ….

—Don’t do that, Telly said.

—Do what?

—Look at me like the answer matters. 

He stopped.

The rabbit remained still among the marigolds.

—I see it, he said finally.

The sprinkler clicked beyond the fence.   

On the kitchen table lay a small stack of seed packets.  Daniel had placed them there yesterday, when he returned from the store. 

He did not say what they were for. 

Later, Daniel stood at the sink.  Outside, cicadas chirred, flattening the space with sound.  Water ran over a clean plate and disappeared into the drain.  His thumb pressed into his palm and held there.  When he looked up, there was still no rabbit in the marigolds.  Telly entered and opened the refrigerator. 

—It’s gone, he said.

—Maybe.

—You pointed right at it.

—I pointed at the flowers.  She closed the refrigerator.  —Don’t turn this into something, she said. Please.

He flexed his thumb.  —I’m not. 

Her eyes stayed on his hands.

—You always did that right before you did. 

He did not answer.  He realized she had been watching him for longer than he’d understood.

For a moment she looked embarrassed for having said it aloud.  Then her expression closed. 

Daniel lowered his hand.

Telly looked through the window.  —When I was little, she said.  A girl.  My mother.  She used to leave food out behind the apartment building.

Daniel waited.

—There was a rabbit that kept getting into it.  Same one every night.  I thought it recognized me.  She smiled briefly.   —One morning it was gone, but I still kept checking for it afterward.

Daniel watched her face.  —Why are you telling me this?

—I don’t really know, Telly said.  —Because it felt the same.

She closed her eyes. 

—And because I don’t trust what I remember about it anymore.

Weeks passed.  July deepened.  The grass burned and stiffened into a sick green.  Roses thickened along the porch.  Vines extended farther along the fence line.  Cucumbers swelled under broad leaves.  One morning, Telly found several squash split and yellowed in the soil.  Ants crawled through blackened holes made greater from this incessant purpose.    

Some mornings the rabbit was near the flowerbeds before sunrise.  Other mornings it stood near the shed beneath the hydrangeas.  When she looked away, it was elsewhere.  When she looked back, it was already there.

Once, she turned toward the sink for only a second. When she faced the window again, the rabbit had turned completely around.  It should have taken longer.

Another morning it stood beside the birdbath until she blinked, and then it was beneath the hydrangeas.

After that, she stopped trusting the moment between seeing something and seeing it again.

Daniel began waking earlier.  The kettle whistled before dawn some mornings.  Other days he stood in the kitchen already dressed in the dark.  He checked things repeatedly:  the back door latch, the silverware drawer, the mugs beside the sink.  Sometimes he returned a minute later and checked again.  Once, after a heavy rainstorm, Daniel stepped outside and paused on the stoop.

The yard smelled wet and warm in the sun.  Something sharp passed briefly through the air, almost medicinal.  He was about to give up when the word he was searching for came to him. 

—Juniper, he said.

The word arrived before the thought of it.

Not spoken exactly.

Remembered.

His stomach tightened before he understood why.  Telly followed onto the porch with a dish towel.

—What? 

—I don’t think I said anything, did I?

Telly shrugged.  —You’ll track mud inside. 

—You think?

The grass had greened again.  Water dripped from gutters and tree branches, though the rain had stopped hours earlier.  The marigolds moved once.

—It was closer, she said.

Daniel looked at her.  —How do you know?

Telly hesitated.

—Because yesterday I think it was past the birdbath.

Daniel stared at her.

—You’ve been measuring?

—You’re tracking it? 

—You’re not? 

Telly crossed her arms. 

Neither of them liked how quickly the question had become an accusation.  For a moment, each seemed to suspect the other of pretending.

The night before, it had not been beside the broken terracotta pot.  He had checked.  His shoes were wet to the ankles. 

He could not remember stepping into the yard.

At midnight, Daniel drank a glass of water.  Telly stood beside him.  The kitchen smelled of basil and dish soap.  Through the window, hydrangeas shifted unevenly in the late summer wind, colorless in the moonlight. 

—You can’t sleep, she said.

—I can.

She waited.  When he didn’t speak, she thought of something to say.  —Full moon?

—Super, he said.

Warm air moved through the window.  The glass of water trembled slightly in Daniel’s hand.  Daniel paused.  Brought the glass to his mouth.  For a moment he saw glass jars on a basement shelf.  He had the sudden certainty that he used to be afraid of them.  Then they were gone.  The absence frightened him more than the image had.  Telly reached past him and closed the window.   

Something near the marigolds shifted at the sound of the window.  Something moved near the hydrangeas.  A second later, the space beneath the bush was empty.  The branches still moved.

—There, she said quietly.

Daniel looked at her first, then toward the moonlit yard. 

—I saw him.  He was much closer.   

Evenings cooled first, so windows remained open overnight.  By morning, the house smelled faintly rotten.  A thin layer of fallen leaves gathered along the fence, though most of the trees remained green.  The birdbath near the shed reflected clouds.

One evening, Daniel sat on the porch steps while Telly sat one step above him, closer than she had been all summer.  Wind moved through the garden. 

—What are you waiting for? she asked.

He rubbed his thumb against his palm.  —For it to stay in the same place twice.

Telly looked toward the yard.

The rabbit stood near the fence line among flowers already beginning to collapse.  Telly looked down once.  When she looked back, it was closer.

—Maybe it moves when you’re not looking. 

Daniel looked toward the rabbit.  He realized he had already begun avoiding looking away first. 

A window rattled in its frame.    

One afternoon Daniel returned from the grocery store and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

The rabbit sat beneath the table.

Completely still.

Telly stood at the counter peeling carrots.

Daniel did not move.

—Tell.

She glanced over.

—What?

He pointed beneath the table.  Telly looked down.  Too quickly.  The space beneath the table was empty.  Daniel stared at her.  —You didn’t see it.

—See what?

—You looked right at it.

She set the knife down carefully.

—Daniel.

—You didn’t look where I was looking.  He heard how desperate he sounded only after speaking.

—No.

His voice startled both of them.  Daniel stared at her.  Not at the space under the table, but at her face, as if it had become the only place things might disappear from.

—You can’t keep doing that.

The kitchen became very quiet.  Telly wiped her hands on the back of her jeans.  She looked at him carefully then, as though deciding whether he had said something cruel or simply true. 

—Sometimes, she said. 

She didn’t finish.  

Daniel looked toward the empty space beneath the table.  The chair legs cast thin shadows across the floorboards.

By the end of the month, objects no longer stayed where they belonged.  A spoon appeared in the medicine cabinet.  Shoes vanished from beside the door.  The birdbath stood closer to the shed each morning.  Neither claimed to have moved it.

The garden hose disappeared entirely.

A week later, Daniel found it coiled beneath their bed, damp with cold mud.

One morning, Daniel opened the hall closet and stopped.

A folded blanket sat on the top shelf.  It was not new.  The fabric smelled like rain and earth. 

—Tell?  He touched the blanket once.  —What’s this?

Telly looked at it briefly, then shrugged.  —Maybe you forgot it. 

He waited for her to correct herself.  She didn’t.

That afternoon he carried the blanket downstairs and placed it over the couch.  Neither spoke of it again.  That night Daniel paused before the hall closet.  He could not remember whether he was afraid something might be inside, or afraid it might be empty. 

Cold air began slipping through the window at night.  Dead leaves scraped softly across the porch.  Light from the television cast the room in shadow as scene cut to scene.  

—You were sitting farther away, he said.

She didn’t look up. 

—I know.

Daniel watched her for a long moment.

The rabbit appeared every morning now.  Once—having forgotten—Telly pointed.  The rabbit rested by the sunflowers.  When she looked again, it was beneath their small Japanese maple.  

—There.

Daniel looked at her instead of the yard.

—Let me guess. 

—I thought you saw it.

He began to answer automatically, then stopped.  Outside, branches moved against one another in the wind. 

Daniel looked toward the yard. 

—I saw you.

For a moment she looked almost relieved, as though being witnessed frightened her less than disappearing unnoticed. 

Then her expression closed again. 

Her shoulders lowered.

Summer ended in a single shift.  Marigolds collapsed inward after a hard rain.  Maple leaves gathered in darker layers along the fence.  Bare branches rose above rooftops.

In the mornings, the garden turned briefly silver before light settled.  From the porch, she could see the rabbit near the shed.  From the sink window, the yard was empty.

Then frost came.

It held across the yard even after sunrise.  The ground hardened enough to preserve footprints.  Pipes ticked softly inside the walls as the house adjusted.

Daniel stood near the shed.

Tracks crossed the frozen grass toward the trees beyond the fence.

Telly stood beside him. 

—Those are real, he said.  Daniel looked down at the prints.  His breath drifted into the cold air and vanished.

—I know.

Somewhere beyond the trees, branches broke under their own weight.

He crouched once, then stood again.

Frost cracked beneath Daniel’s shoes.

Telly stepped forward.

After a moment, Daniel followed.

At the edge of the yard she stopped.  Nothing prevented her from continuing.

Ahead, the trees stood open.  Nothing moved. 

Behind them, one of the footprints slowly filled with meltwater.