60.

She rescued a rabbit from an overflooded culvert one day on her walk home from school. After its wounds healed and strength returned, the little creature no longer tolerated her advances of comfort, and spent its waking hours cowering in the far corners of its cage. “You can’t force fear away, lovely,” her grandma advised, “nor love to grow, but don’t think for a minute they can’t wear the same face.” The night she let the rabbit free, it hopped to the end of the lawn, its ears draped and quivering along its back, its progress slow, hesitant, retreating ever farther from her heart.

grh