Molly cleared her throat. ‘I could talk to you about my memories of Rabbit all day. I could tell you how much I loved her and how she moved me. I could mention how lost I’ll be without her, how nothing will ever be that good again. I could try to sum her up in a few lines, but I’m no poet and Rabbit deserves poetry. So this is one of many letters written to Rabbit from the love of her life while he lay dying.

Dear Rabbit,

I can feel myself slip away, inch by inch, and it’s slow and torturous. My body is a bone bag but I’m still me, deep within. My bowels are tied; my bladder is attached to a catheter fastened to a dead leg with a Velcro strap. My sight faded so slowly that in the end it simply blurred to black but every now and then I see a flash of stars. Talking is difficult now, words no longer flow, my twisting tongue is a difficult hurdle to overcome. Dictating this letter takes a week. I get so tired and the nurses only have so much time, but although they don’t know me they are kind to the fragile and frightened man deep inside, this stuttering, decaying bone bag. They say it’s a young man’s heart that keeps me in here but it’s slowing; I can’t feel much of anything these days, but I can feel that. I miss you, Rabbit, but not enough for you to return home and not enough to ask you to break your promise to never come here. Not yet but soon I know I will be in your presence once more when time is of the essence and I am granted a goodbye. There will be no real words spoken then, just small talk from you and salty tears from me, but those tears will be joyful. Till then know that you have been my world. Thank you for keeping a light on long after it became dark, for pushing and pulling and fighting the unknown. Thank you for being honest and true and for respecting me enough to argue, to call me out and for doing as I ask from deep inside this bone bag. Thank you for being you.

Molly stopped, took a breath. She didn’t cry. She didn’t even look like she was going to. She just needed a second to compose herself. She looked up from the letter and faced her daughter’s basket. ‘So now I’d like to say thank you, Rabbit, for being my world, for keeping the light on, for pushing and pulling and fighting the unknown. Thank you for being honest and true and arguing with us all till the very end, and I hope you’re happy in your bloody basket.’