At six years old, I found our pet rabbit, Stew, mauled to death in his hutch. His soft, white pelt was streaked with blood, and his face—what was left of it—was a roseate valley of matted fur and wet meat. Bits of chewed-up carrot littered the hutch, like the fox had startled him mid-meal, and a final evacuation of his bowels was stacked sky high.

It was a bitter February morning, close to my birthday, and the ground was crusted with frost that crunched under my wellie boots as I trudged down the garden. I’d filled my beach bucket with carrots, as I did every morning, and was rubbing stars and fireworks into my eyes.

When I came to the hutch, I didn’t realise the rabbit was dead. His body was slumped away from me, a cruel trick of positioning that made him look like he was simply napping, his back turned for privacy. Even the fox, it seemed, had some grim sense of decency, sparing me the worst. I noticed the jagged hole torn through the wire of the hutch, but it didn’t register. I was six after all. I poked Stew with my fingers, then with one of the carrots, but he didn’t move. That didn’t feel strange either. All four of my grandparents were still alive, and we had never owned fish.

My mother was watching from the kitchen window, still wearing her pajamas – the grey ones with the crescent moons. When I returned to the kitchen and mentioned that Stew was asleep, her eyebrow cocked and her face turned white.

We walked back down the garden together, my mother running her hands up and down her skinny arms for warmth, cursing herself for not grabbing a sweatshirt. She didn’t like Stew—going as far as to name him Stew—though she was always kind and never openly hostile to him. (Looking back it was only natural. He had been a gift from the neighbours when my father left—something to cheer me up, something for her to clean up after.)

I hadn’t noticed the smell before, but when we reached the hutch and the weight of my mother’s concern was heavy, it hit me. At the time, I didn’t have words for it—metallic, salty, industrial—but I knew pennies, the way their scent clung to my hands after counting them.

I saw my mother wince, a violent twitch in the muscles of her face as she looked down into the hutch, and the automatic reach of her arm around my shoulders, tilting me away.

“Sweetheart,” she said, tenderly. “I think Stew is dead. Do you know what that means?”

“He’s gone away.” I said. The bucket of carrots was still in my hand. They clattered as I gently swung the bucket to and fro.

“Yes, angel.” My mother said, keeping her body wide to shield me from the scene inside the hutch. Her uncovered arms were covered in goosebumps, and her eyes were shiny and wide, searching my face for signs of understanding. “Why don’t you go inside and watch cartoons, and we can talk a little bit more.”

I nodded and headed back up the garden, feeling something and nothing all at once.

“He’s only dead for a little while though?” I asked her, suddenly turning back. “He’ll be back soon?”

“Oh, no,” my mother said, coming towards me. “No, sweetheart. He’s gone for good. But he’s somewhere better now,” she said, getting onto her knees and running her fingers through my hair. I dropped the bucket on the ground. My mother’s teeth were beginning to chatter. “He had a lovely time with us—with you especially—he loved you so, so, much. But now he’s somewhere better, and he won’t come back, no matter how many times we ask him to, he’s made up his mind.”

“I don’t want Stew to be dead,” I cried.

“Me neither,” my mother said, her voice breaking, shoulders heaving, and that’s when I bolted—darting around her, my feet pounding the earth as I made straight for the hutch. It was there that I first saw the blood. My small hands fumbled with the latch, yanking it open with frantic urgency and reaching down for my rabbit, wanting to cradle him, to shield him from his own death.

“Hannah, stop!” my mother screamed, hurtling towards me, but seconds too late. The bushes seemed to explode as a flock of birds shot into the sky, flapping and cawing, scared by my screeches. My mother caught me mid-fall, and we collapsed together, tangled in each other’s despair. And we stayed that way for an eternity, sobbing wet crystals in the garden while somewhere far above us, a plane carried my father to a better place.

– Catherine Swabb

Author’s Note: “Bon Voyage” is a brief work of autofiction tracing a child’s fractured understanding of loss. Beneath the surface of a quiet domestic tragedy lies a deeper absence.