19
THE DAYS PASSED. THE SUN ROSE and set and rose and set again and again. Sometimes the father came home and sometimes he did not. Edward’s ears became soggy and he did not care. His sweater had almost completely unraveled and it didn’t bother him. He was hugged half to death and it felt good. In the evenings, at the hands of Bryce, at the ends of the twine, Edward danced and danced.
One month passed and then two and then three. Sarah Ruth got worse. In the fifth month, she refused to eat. And in the sixth month, she began to cough up blood. Her breathing became ragged and uncertain, as if she was trying to remember, in between breaths, what to do, what breathing was.
“Breathe, honey,” Bryce stood over her and said.
Breathe, thought Edward from deep inside the well of her arms. Please, please breathe.
Bryce stopped leaving the house. He sat at home all day and held Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her back and forth and sang to her; on a bright morning in September, Sarah Ruth stopped breathing.
“Oh no,” said Bryce. “Oh, honey, take a little breath. Please.”
Edward had fallen out of Sarah Ruth’s arms the night before and she had not asked for him again. So, face-down on the floor, arms over his head, Edward listened as Bryce wept. He listened as the father came home and shouted at Bryce. He listened as the father wept.
“You can’t cry!” Bryce shouted. “You got no right to cry. You never even loved her. You don’t know nothing about love.”
“I loved her,” said the father. “I loved her.”
I loved her, too, thought Edward. I loved her and now she is gone. How could this be? he wondered. How could he bear to live in a world without Sarah Ruth?
The yelling between the father and son continued, and then there was a terrible moment when the father insisted that Sarah Ruth belonged to him, that she was his girl, his baby, and that he was taking her to be buried.
“She ain’t yours!” Bryce screamed. “You can’t take her. She ain’t yours.”
But the father was bigger and stronger, and he prevailed. He wrapped Sarah Ruth in a blanket and carried her away. The small house became very quiet. Edward could hear Bryce moving around, muttering to himself. And then, finally, the boy picked Edward up.
“Come on, Jangles,” Bryce said. “We’re leaving. We’re going to Memphis.”
20
HOW MANY DANCING RABBITS HAVE you seen in your life?” Bryce said to Edward. “I can tell you how many I seen. One. You. That’s how you and me are going to make some money. I seen it the last time I was in Memphis. Folks put on any kind of show right there on the street corner and people pay ’em for it. I seen it.”
The walk to town took all night. Bryce walked without stopping, carrying Edward under one arm and talking to him the whole time. Edward tried to listen, but the terrible scarecrow feeling had come back, the feeling he had when he was hanging by his ears in the old lady’s garden, the feeling that nothing mattered, and that nothing would ever matter again.
And not only did Edward feel hollow; he ached. Every part of his china body hurt. He ached for Sarah Ruth. He wanted her to hold him. He wanted to dance for her.
And he did dance, but it was not for Sarah Ruth. Edward danced for strangers on a dirty street corner in Memphis. Bryce played his harmonica and moved Edward’s strings, and Edward bowed and shuffled and swayed and people stopped to stare and point and laugh. On the ground in front of them was Sarah Ruth’s button box. The lid was open to encourage people to drop change inside it.
“Mama,” said a small child, “look at that bunny. I want to touch him.” He reached out his hand for Edward.
“No,” said the mother, “dirty.” She pulled the child back, away from Edward. “Nasty,” she said.
A man wearing a hat stopped and stared at Edward and Bryce.
“It’s a sin to dance,” he said. And then after a long pause, he said, “It’s a particular sin for rabbits to dance.”
The man took off his hat and held it over his heart. He stood and watched the boy and the rabbit for a long time. Finally, he put his hat back on his head and walked away.
The shadows lengthened. The sun became an orange dusty ball low in the sky. Bryce started to cry. Edward saw his tears land on the pavement. But the boy did not stop playing his harmonica. He did not make Edward stop dancing.
An old woman leaning on a cane stepped up close to them. She stared at Edward with deep, dark eyes.
Pellegrina? thought the dancing rabbit.
She nodded at him.
Look at me, he said to her. His arms and legs jerked. Look at me. You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me.
The old woman turned and hobbled away.
Come back, thought Edward. Fix me.
Bryce cried harder. He made Edward dance faster.
Finally, when the sun was gone and the streets were dark, Bryce stopped playing his harmonica.
“I’m done now,” he said.
He let Edward fall to the pavement. “I ain’t gonna cry anymore.” Bryce wiped his nose and his eyes with the back of his hand; he picked up the button box and looked inside it. “We got us enough money to get something to eat,” he said. “Come on, Jangles.”
21
THE DINER WAS CALLED NEAL’S. THE word was written in big, red neon letters that flashed on and off. Inside, it was warm and bright and smelled like fried chicken and toast and coffee.
Bryce sat at the counter and put Edward on a stool next to him. He leaned the rabbit’s forehead up against the counter so that he would not fall.
“What you gonna have, sugar?” the waitress said to Bryce.
“Give me some pancakes,” said Bryce, “and some eggs and I want steak, too. I want a big old steak. And some toast. And some coffee.”
The waitress leaned forward and pulled at one of Edward’s ears and then pushed him backward so that she could see his face.
“This your rabbit?” she said to Bryce.
“Yes’m. He’s mine now. He belonged to my sister.” Bryce wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “We’re in show business, me and him.”
“Is that right?” said the waitress. She had a nametag on the front of her dress.
