They had driven a few more hours when Ozzie suddenly pulled off at an exit that read Stroudsburg, and said that if she couldn’t find herself a bathroom, she was going to ruin the front seat of Liam’s beautiful car. The sun was long gone, and the sky was dark. The clock on the dashboard read 9:57 p.m.
“Oh, thank God,” Monica said. “I didn’t want to ask again.”
Ozzie rolled her eyes and pulled the car into a rutted parking lot. She parked in front of a small store with a dirty red and white awning over the front door. The inside was lit with a bright, almost garish sort of light, and Nora could make out a tall figure standing behind a counter. The scrawled missive WE SELL BEER AND ICE CREAM was taped in one of the windows, and another sign, scratched out in the same cryptic handwriting, was tacked to the front door: RESTROOMS IN BACK.
“Ewww.” Monica sat forward on the seat, perusing the building with a worried expression. “Nothing in that place is going to be clean or have a single room. Can’t we go somewhere else?”
“Oh, for the love of Pete.” Ozzie had already opened her door and was stretching her arms and legs outside the car. Grace and Nora followed. “We’re the only other people around. And if you’re worried about germs, just put some toilet paper down on the seat. Or squat above it. It’s not a big deal.”
But Monica held back, her fingers gripping the front of the dashboard. “I don’t know if that’ll be enough. You can pick up anything on a dirty toilet seat these days. Even STDs.”
“Well, we can go somewhere else,” Grace said. “But the sign back there said the next restroom isn’t for another thirty-four miles. Do you think you can wait that long?”
Monica let out a small whimper.
“I’ll go first,” Ozzie said, leaning in Monica’s window. “Okay? I’ll go first and then wipe everything down, and then you can go. All right?”
Monica dug inside her purse. “Use this,” she said, handing Ozzie a plastic bottle of lime-coconut-scented hand sanitizer. “For when you wipe down the seat.”
Ozzie studied the plastic bottle and then raised her eyebrows as Monica got out of the car. “Okay,” she said. “Whatever floats your boat.”
Nora moved quickly inside the dirty restroom after Monica and Grace were finished, being careful not to touch anything she didn’t have to.
“Where’s Ozzie?” Monica asked as she emerged back outside.
“Probably getting something to eat,” Grace said.
“Inside?” Monica looked horrified as she glanced at the store again. “She won’t find anything edible in there.”
“Let’s wait in the car,” Nora suggested. “She’ll be out in a minute.”
Thirty seconds later, Ozzie reemerged, not from inside the building, but from the right-hand side of it. She walked toward them with long, quick steps, her eyes riveted on something inside her cupped hands.
Monica rose up a little on the seat, staring through the windshield. “What happened? What’s she holding?”
Ozzie trotted up to the car and motioned for Monica to roll down her window. Monica looked at her fearfully and then lowered the glass pane.
“Look what I just found,” Ozzie said, opening her hands.
Monica screamed and drew back, nearly pinning Grace against the side of the door. Her feet scrabbled on the seat in front of her, and her arms flailed helplessly on both sides.
“What?” Grace yelled. “What is it?”
“Oh my God, it’s a rat or something!” Monica shrieked. “Get it away, Ozzie! Get it out of here!”
Nora leaned over the backseat and stared into the well of Ozzie’s hands. Inside was the tiniest creature she had ever seen; no bigger than a dinner roll and covered with soft brown fuzz. It had ears, but just barely, and its tiny slits for eyes were squeezed shut.
“It’s not a rat,” Ozzie said. “It’s a baby rabbit.” She lifted her hands up, turning the small creature to the right and then to the left. “I can’t believe none of you noticed it. It was just a little ways from the bathroom.” She nodded toward the animal. “Look at the little white blaze on its forehead. That means it’s still too young to survive without its mother. It must’ve fallen out of the nest somehow and then crawled toward the bathroom.”
“Well, put it back!” Monica was still clutching at Grace behind her. “Please, Ozzie. It’s probably carrying all kinds of diseases. Go put it back.”
“Oh, I will.” Ozzie made no effort to hide her annoyance. “There’s a field right behind the store, which is where the mother probably is with the rest of the litter. I just wanted you guys to see it first. Have you ever seen a wild rabbit? They’re a lot different than the domestic ones you can raise at home.”
“No, I’ve never seen one.” Monica’s voice was a whimper. “And thank you for thinking of us, but you can go return it to the field where it belongs.”
Ozzie rolled her eyes. “It’s a rabbit, Mons, not a cobra. Relax.”
“I’m relaxed.” Monica nodded her head. “Go ahead now. The field’s right behind you.”
Nora was still staring at the tiny animal. Its nose had begun wiggling ever so slightly, as if just catching wind of her scent, and the tip of its right ear was bent forward, as if it had been creased somehow. She opened the door on her side of the car. “I’ll go with you,” she said as Ozzie turned back around.
“Me, too.” Grace got out of the front of the car.
“Wait, you guys are leaving me?” Monica leaned halfway out of the window, a horrified look on her face. “All alone?”
“Get out of the car and come with us!” Ozzie called, not turning around.
Nora trotted back to the car and leaned in Monica’s window. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be like an adventure.”
“I don’t like adventures,” Monica whimpered as she stepped out of the car. “Especially when they involve wild animals. My idea of an adventure is looking at pictures of animals. Preferably on the wall of a spa.”
They followed Grace and Ozzie toward the back of the building, stopping as they rounded the corner.
“Good Lord,” Monica said. “It’s like Little House on the Prairie out here.”
Nora didn’t disagree. Even in the dark she could make out the stretch of field, full of waist-high brown and green grass and dotted with black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s lace. Not a building was in sight. Just grass and flowers and more grass and flowers. Above it a star-spangled sky loomed, wide and endless as the ocean.
“Shhh!” Ozzie said, looking at Monica. “You have to be real quiet or we won’t be able to find the mother.”
“You want to find the mother?” Monica’s voice went up a notch.
“Monica.” Ozzie turned around, her steepled fingers parted at the top. “We have to find the mother. That’s the only chance it’ll have of surviving.”
Monica gripped Nora’s arm. “Okay. But what if . . . what if the mother’s mean? Like what if she charges at your leg or something because you have her baby? And then she bites you?”
Ozzie bit her lip, suppressing a smile. “Really?”
Nora patted Monica’s hand. “It’ll be okay. Wild rabbits don’t usually charge at humans.”
Monica nodded and stared out at the field. She did not look convinced.
“Why don’t you and Nora go left?” Ozzie suggested. “Just walk along the perimeter of the field and look for any movement in the grass. Grace and I will go this way and do the same thing.”
“Movement?” Monica repeated. “What kind of movement?”
Nora pulled on her arm. “Come on. And don’t worry; I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Fine.” Monica clutched at her hand. “But if I see anything move in that grass, I’m running like hell.”
The left side of the field was behind the store. A large metal dumpster sat at the opposite end of the building, filled to overflowing with black plastic bags. Flies swarmed over the tops of it in tight, dark clouds, and then separated again, like loose threads. A heap of smaller white bags had been thrown haphazardly around the bottom of the dumpster, and their contents—old watermelon rinds, orange peels, dirty Q-tips—spilled out from the gnawed corners.
“It smells like summer in New York back here,” Monica whimpered. “I don’t like it.”
A hiccup of a movement next to one of the white garbage bags caught Nora’s eye. She paused and then squinted, wondering if she had just imagined it. But there it was again, a slight kick, almost like an afterthought, from behind the garbage bag. “Stay here,” she said, holding Monica lightly around the wrist. She concentrated on keeping her voice as normal sounding as possible. “I just want to go see something.”
“What?” Monica’s voice pleaded behind her. “What is it, Nora?”
Nora knew it was the mother rabbit even before she got up close. She knew it was in the very last stages of death too, in the same way she understood that the tiny balls of fur around it were the other babies, and that they were already dead. A fox, perhaps, or maybe even a cat must have stumbled across the nest and dragged it out here. Or maybe the mother rabbit had gone in search of food and been mortally maimed before the attacker had turned its attention to the babies. Whatever the situation, they were too late. There was nothing anyone could do.
“Don’t come over here,” Nora said, holding her hand out in Monica’s direction. “Just stay right where you are.”
Monica stood frozen to the spot, watching as Nora grabbed an empty paper bag and laid it gently across the lifeless carcasses.
“It’s the mother?” Monica whispered as Nora came back over.
Nora nodded. “And the rest of the babies.”
Monica stared at the paper bag, her stricken eyes filling with tears. “That’s terrible,” she said.
“It is terrible.” Nora took Monica’s hand again. “But it’s life too, Monica. Come on. Let’s go get Ozzie and Grace and tell them.”
Monica put up a fight for twenty whole minutes after Ozzie announced that she was keeping the orphaned rabbit, but Ozzie didn’t budge. “For Christ’s sake, Mons, the poor thing’s entire family has just been obliterated.” She crawled into the backseat of the car, still holding the animal in her hands. “At the very least, we can keep it safe during the remainder of the trip. Look at him! He’s shaking like a leaf.”
Grace climbed into the driver’s seat, but made no move to start the car. “I think he might be shaking so much because we’ve taken him out of his element.”
“Do you know anything about wild animals?” Ozzie’s voice was dangerously close to sounding rude.
“No, but—”
“Well, I do,” Ozzie said. “We’ve raised two baby foxes at our house and a porcupine.”
“A porcupine!” Monica, who had crept into the front seat next to Grace, drew back in horror. “Ozzie! You cannot be serious.”
“They’re adorable. You would love them. My point is that I know what I’m doing here. You’ve got to trust me.”
“Well, I may not have raised any wild animals from birth,” Grace said, “but I’ve read enough to know that taking them out of the nest when they’re this little isn’t a good thing. He’s not an infant, Ozzie. I bet he has a good chance of making it if we just put him back where we found him.”
“In the nest?” Ozzie sounded incredulous. “Did you forget that his mother was torn to pieces back there? It won’t take ten minutes for some fox or badger to smell this little guy and finish him off, too. If we put him back now, we’re just bringing him back to die. But if we keep him, we can give him some food, keep him warm and comfortable. We can at least give him a chance.”
“To do what?” Grace’s eyes flashed. “We’re on our way to Manhattan, Ozzie. We have to go to a police station in the morning and God knows where else after that.” She reached out and put a hand over Monica’s. “I don’t mean to project, sweetie. We just don’t know what else is going to happen yet.”
“What’s your point?” Ozzie asked.
“My point . . .” Grace paused, rolling her eyes. “. . . is what are you going to do with the rabbit? Put him in your pocket? Dump him in a shoebox and set him outside the police station until everything’s over? And then you have to take a plane home. Do you really think you can pass through security with a wild animal in your hands?”
“I don’t need to take him all the way home.” Ozzie sounded less convinced. “I’ll . . . I don’t know, I’ll find a vet somewhere. In Manhattan. There’s got to be a million of them there.”
“Ozzie, come on.” Monica’s pleading voice was back. “We don’t have time to do that. We’re barely going to get into the city as it is, and we still haven’t found a hotel room!”
“I agree.” Grace set her jaw. “Now come on, Oz. You’re the one who’s always yelling about being realistic about everything, so let’s get real here, okay? As sad as it is, we can’t bring the rabbit. We just can’t. It doesn’t make any sense. You have to put him back.”
“I can’t.” Ozzie turned away from Grace and Monica, resting her head against the side of the seat. “Besides, I’ve already given him a name.”
“A name?” Nora asked. “What is it?”
“Elmer,” Ozzie said.
Nora and Grace exchanged a look. “Why Elmer?” Nora asked.
“Oh, you know, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd. One just sort of segued into the other.” She shrugged. “Listen, we’re not letting him out to die, okay? Please just start the car. Give me a minute, all right? I’ll think of something.”
“What if it has fleas?” Monica tried as Grace started the engine. “Seriously, what if it has fleas and we get them and bring them home?” Her eyes were opened so wide that Nora could see tiny red streaks zigzagging across her pupils. “If I get fleas on top of everything else I have to deal with right now, Ozzie, I will seriously lose what’s left of my mind. I’m not kidding.”
“Oh, please,” Ozzie said. “Fleas are not a big deal. I got them last summer from one of our dogs, and it was nothing a good medicated shampoo didn’t fix.”
“I Don’t. Want. To. Get. Fleas.” Monica was semihysterical, pounding her words against the back of the seat. “I don’t care if there are ten million medicated shampoos out there! I don’t want to get them! Now, please, Ozzie! I’m serious!”
“Elmer doesn’t have fleas.” Ozzie’s jaw pulsed. “The poor little thing is only a few weeks old. He hasn’t even had time to get fleas.” She opened her hands a little and peered inside. “Look. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll check him out. Right now.”
“What do you mean, check him out?” Monica leaned back until she was almost flat against the dashboard as Grace pulled the car back on to the highway. “Can you actually see fleas? Will they jump out at you if they’re in there?”
“Hmmm hmmm . . .” Ozzie ran an index finger through the rabbit’s fur. Nora settled herself sideways against the seat and watched. The animal was shaking so hard that it looked like a battery-operated toy. She could see the faint outline of its spine as Ozzie ran her fingertip up and down the length of it, and its tiny nub of a tail was no bigger than her fingernail. “Nope, all clean.”
“Nothing?” Monica bit her lower lip. “Not one flea. You’re sure?”
“Positive. And look.” Ozzie opened her hands a little, moving them toward the front seat. “He’s shaking like a leaf. He’s scared out of its mind. He needs us.”
“Okay, okay.” Monica moved back even more. “You can put him back now. I believe you.”
“Can I hold him?” Nora asked.
“Really?” Ozzie looked surprised. “You want to?” Nora nodded and held out her hands. “Okay,” Ozzie said. “But just for a few minutes, all right? Wild animals aren’t like pets. They don’t do well being passed around. Human scents are too overwhelming to them. It can just cause more stress.”
Nora didn’t breathe as Ozzie deposited the tiny figure inside her palms, staring in amazement at the utter perfection of it. It was so tiny! Like a breath! A whisper!
“Have you ever held a wild rabbit before?” Monica asked, looking nervously at Nora’s hands.
“Never,” Nora whispered. “He’s so light. Like a little pincushion.”
“Well, he is light.” Ozzie fiddled with her wallet, opening the Velcro pouch and counting out single dollar bills. “They only weigh a few ounces when they’re born. Elmer probably still weighs less than a half pound.” She tossed her wallet aside and leaned in close to Nora. “He’s sweet, right?”
Nora could feel something rising within her, and she swallowed it forcefully. “So sweet,” she whispered. “Perfect.”
“Poor little guy.” Ozzie reached out and ran her finger down its back again. The pink ears twitched, and its nose wiggled like a button. “Oh, Nora, he’s shaking even more. Give him to me now, okay? He was just starting to settle down a little in my hands, which means he’s already gotten used to my smell. I think he’s freaking out from the switch.”
Nora bit the inside of her cheek and turned away from Ozzie.
“Come on, Norster. He’s really stressed.”
“Not yet.” She clutched her hands around the rabbit and moved a fraction of inch farther away from Ozzie.
Ozzie pulled on Nora’s arm and then moved her hand as if to grab the rabbit. “Nora. Seriously. Give him to me.”
“I will.” Nora turned even more, so that she was almost facing the window. “Just let me hold him for a little while longer.” She knew how ridiculous she sounded—like a child or maybe even some kind of crazy person. But she didn’t care.
“Nora.” Ozzie’s voice was slow, dangerous. “Please give me the rabbit. He needs to relax. I know a lot more about animals than you do. Babies can have heart attacks if they feel too anxious. Now, please.”
“No.” Nora turned all the way around now, so that Ozzie could see the back of her head. “I just want to hold him for a few more minutes. He’s all right.” She could feel Ozzie’s eyes on the back of her neck, hear the frustrated sounds of her breath going in and out behind her. Well, it was too bad. She would have to wait. Nora clutched at the animal, pressing it to her. She wanted to feel it against her chest, its pea-sized heart thrumming beneath its silky fur. She wanted to feel his breath, the shaky movements of him, the staggered breathing. She did not want to give him up. No matter what.
“Okay, fine.” To Nora’s relief, Ozzie sat back against the seat again. “The poor thing is probably on the verge of a heart attack right now, but you hand him over when you’re ready.”
Nora gripped the tiny animal beneath her shirt; she could feel the pitter-patter of its heart slowing, even as she held him closer and closer still. Nothing Ozzie could say right now would make her give him up.
Not a thing in the world.