Long Island, 1991

We put Cleo down today. Cleo is was my rabbit. She was my pet. Not like our yellow lab Clancy who belongs to my mother.

That was the cheapest vet bill we ever got, my father tells my mother.

He took my rabbit to the vet about an hour ago. Wrapped her in a towel. Her fur matted and sweaty.

I am sad, but I do not cry. I do not cry very much at all. Even when I broke my ankle playing soccer, I cried only when it first happened. When my father carried me off the field. Then I just sat on the sidelines and shivered and waited for the game to finish.

My grandfather came to see the game and told my mom I was in shock. At the time, I thought, of course I’m shocked. My foot twisted over the soccer ball. My ankle made a frightfully small sound. Just an unassuming snap. And my body tumbled to the grass…hard.

I learned later that shocked meant my body was reacting to the broken bone. Sending blood to the scene of the crime. That’s why I was cold. Not the bag of ice on my foot. That was numbing the pain.

I wonder if Cleo was in shock. Or if she was cold. Or if she felt numb when the vet put her to sleep. I know that put to sleep means kill her so she’s no longer in pain. But my father wouldn’t let me come, so I don’t know exactly how you put an animal to sleep. My father just wrapped her in an old towel and put her in the passenger seat of his truck.

 A Jeep.

 My parents bought the truck when my father thought he might take a job in California. We took a trip out there to look at houses. My mother made jokes about dying my hair blonde and sang Beach Boy songs. We went to Disneyland, but all I remember is the cramped hotel room and the cold sore inside my bottom lip. My dad brought back burritos one night for dinner. The spices irritated my mouth so badly I almost cried.

Almost.

My father didn’t get the job. Which made my aunt happy. If we weren’t moving to California, she didn’t have to move out of our house.

My aunt is the reason I had Cleo the rabbit in the first place. Three years ago, we were walking home from church and we saw a white bunny in a neighbor’s front yard. My aunt got really excited. She was always really excited.

Unless she was really down.

Look! A bunny. And just in time for Easter, she shrieked and pointed to a fluffy white lump sitting on the lawn.

I walked up to the bunny and introduced myself. It twitched its fuzzy grey nose. The bunny let me pick it up and from then on, it was mine.

I’ll call you Cleo, I told it. But I knew there was no way my mother would let me keep it. We had a dog, but other creatures didn’t do well in our house.

The parakeet flew away.

Twice.

The second time for good.

And the turtle got behind the firewood pile and never came out. And when my cousin’s hamster had babies, my mother said no to keeping one of them.

But this bunny, this just-in-time-for-Easter bunny, already had a name. Cleo. And my aunt would not shut up about how amazing it was that we found a bunny on Palm Sunday.

Serendipity, she told my mother.

Soon I had a little hutch in the tool shed for Cleo. I fed her carrots and played with her every day. Sometimes I would even talk to her. Of course, I was really talking to myself. Bunnies don’t speak English. But it felt good to tell Cleo when I was angry or sad or worried.

I have a lot of worries.

Finally, my mother stopped protesting. My father built a little fenced-in area in a corner of our backyard. Next to the swing set and the old sand box.  Soon Cleo was big and fat with dirty paws because she had eaten all the grass in her little enclosure.

Cleo wasn’t always a good pet though. She would dig a hole under the fence and escape into the next-door neighbor’s yard.

Our neighbor on one side was a Chinese man with four cats. One of those cats scratched me in the face when I tried to pick it up. Another got hit by a car and my dad had to drag a garbage pail out into the street and scrape it off the pavement. It looked like a flattened stuffed animal…if stuffed animals were made out of pie filling. I watched the whole thing.

This Chinese man had the most wonderful garden. Hanging grape vines. Rows of strawberries and beans and something he called box choy. In late summer, he would give us tomatoes. Bright red tomatoes. Their skin pulled so tight. All that tomato juice and seeds just waiting to spill out. My father eats tomatoes same the way he eats apples. 

Each time Cleo escaped, the Chinese man came to get my father. He put two fingers behind his head and hopped a little.

I almost lost Cleo once. My sister and I brought the bunny down to Sheba and Benson’s house. They lived exactly three houses down, so we were allowed to walk. We were petting Cleo and playing with her in their front yard.

This high school boy walked by and stopped abruptly.

Snowy?  He looked at us and said the word like a question. No hi or hello. Just…Snowy? We didn’t even know this high school boy. Sheba went inside to get her mom.

That’s my rabbit, he continued. Her name is Snowy.

He didn’t sound angry. Just stating the facts. His friend rode a skateboard covered in stickers. He went in and out of Sheba’s driveway. The sound the little wheels made was oddly aggressive on the concrete.

I looked at Cleo and then back at the boy. Her name is Cleo, I told him and raised one eyebrow.

Well, actually, her name is Snowy.

He smiled at us. He walked towards the rabbit. He knelt down and pet her. But Cleo didn’t respond like she knew this high school boy. Just kept twitching her gray nose. Same as she always does.

The boy started talking again. We have about six rabbits in our backyard. But the white one ran away, he explained. His voice soft like Cleo’s ears. Did you find it on this street?

We found her down the block, my sister blurted. I widened my eyes at her like SHUT UP, and she shrank back.

It’s okay, the boy said. You can keep her.

She’s happy with us, I said.

When my father takes Cleo to be put to sleep, the vet is surprised at how old she was. At least that’s what my mother tells me.

Cleo is was three as far as I know.

The vet said that rabbits don’t usually live that long, my mother smiled at me. You must have taken such good care of Cleo, she whispered and hugged me tight.

I knew she might be making it up, but it felt good to believe her. And my mother gives the best hugs.

– Kristin H. Sample