The evening light turned the entire street gold.
It caught on storefront windows, chrome bumpers, porch railings, and the polished handlebars of the motorcycle parked outside the little diner at the corner.
For most people in town, it was the kind of evening worth slowing down for.
The heat of the afternoon had finally broken.
Restaurants opened their doors.
A florist rolled a chalkboard sign onto the sidewalk.
A couple walked an old dog beneath the sycamore trees.
Cars moved lazily through the intersection.
Nobody expected anything memorable to happen.
The Little Girl came out of the rehabilitation clinic three blocks away at exactly five twenty-seven.
She was nine years old.
Light-brown hair divided into two braids.
Blue denim overalls.
Yellow striped T-shirt.
Pink sneakers.
Two aluminum crutches.
And tucked carefully beneath one arm was a tan stuffed bunny whose left ear had been repaired so many times that the stitching no longer matched.
The bunny had a name.
The Little Girl almost never told strangers what it was.
Some things still belonged only to her.
Walking with crutches remained hard.
Not impossible.
Hard.
That distinction had become important during the last four months.
Adults loved using the word impossible around children when they actually meant difficult.
Sometimes they did the opposite too.
They called genuinely difficult things easy because they thought confidence could be manufactured with cheerful vocabulary.
The Little Girl had developed little patience for either approach.
Her left leg had been injured badly during a winter accident.
Several surgeries followed.
Bone.
Tendon.
Months of immobilization.
The doctors expected recovery.
But recovery was one of those words that sounded much cleaner than it felt.
Recovery did not mention waking at three in the morning because the leg throbbed.
It did not mention how much effort it took to stand after muscles weakened.
It did not mention feeling embarrassed when another child stared at metal braces.
It did not mention falling.
Mostly, it did not mention falling.
The Little Girl had become very familiar with falling.
Her therapist taught her how.
That sounded ridiculous at first.
Who needed lessons in falling?
Apparently anybody who had to relearn balance.
Protect the injured leg.
Release the crutch.
Turn the shoulder.
Do not throw both hands down if you can avoid it.
Let the body meet the ground without making one bad moment worse.
The Little Girl hated those lessons.
Then one day they helped.
After that, she hated them slightly less.
Her mother normally picked her up directly outside the clinic.
That evening, the clinic’s parking lot entrance had been closed because workers were repairing a broken water line.
Her mother waited half a block away.
The Little Girl insisted she could manage.
Her mother offered to walk back.
The Little Girl said no.
Again.
And again.
Finally her mother agreed to remain near the car where she could still see most of the route.
The Little Girl liked independence.
Even when independence took longer.
She planted both crutches.
Moved forward.
Right foot.
Crutches.
Left leg carefully.
Pause.
Again.
The stuffed bunny remained trapped between her upper arm and ribs.
She had developed an entire system for carrying it while using crutches.
The rabbit had survived hospitals.
Two ambulances.
Four surgeries.
One terrifying night when doctors could not get her fever down.
It had been placed beside her head when anesthesia pulled her under.
It had been the first thing she asked for upon waking.
So when her mother once suggested leaving the stuffed animal in the car because carrying it complicated crutch walking, the Little Girl reacted as though someone had proposed abandoning a family member.
The bunny came.
Always.
She reached the corner.