Amy's Question
"Uncle?" she asked, her tiny voice pure curiosity, gazing up with wide, clear eyes. "Why are you crying?"I startled, touching my face. My fingers found unexpected moisture. "Bunny here!" Amy misunderstood, proudly thrusting her shiny new toy towards me. "See! She okay!" The new bunny glittered in the sunlight. Amy's innocent face mirrored Lily's childhood features. For a moment, the vast pit of guilt inside me seemed pierced by her naive words, letting in a shaft of painful light. I looked at Amy's pristine bunny, and remembered the half-eared one swallowed by the garbage truck.
The Scar
The hole remained. Lily's "It's all past" was a thin bandage over it. It no longer bled, nor stabbed sharply, but its outline was permanent. An invisible scar, deeply etched between Lily and me, and within my own life. Amy soon lost interest, scampering off with her bunny. Only TV chatter and family voices filled the room. I wiped my face, sinking back into the sofa. Images flashed: the bunny vanishing into dumpster filth, Lily's hesitant offer of crumpled savings, the garbage truck's fading rumble, the shattering "I HATE YOU!"...
An Eternal Debt
These scenes clung like indelible photographs deep in memory. "It's all in the past," Lily had said. Perhaps for her, it was. She had moved on—new life, new family, new joy. Her world had journeyed far. She chose not to revisit that old wound. But not for me. That scar was my own carving. Bunny was gone. Childhood was gone. "Brother" was gone. I owed that seven-year-old girl an unpayable debt. Those crumpled coins and the lost, threadbare bunny became an eternal burden—a constant reminder that some mistakes demand a lifetime of regret. I carry it, moving forward.