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them. Sometimes, it was all they ate.
    â€œUncle Ray, what you got there?”
    The sound of J.T.’s voice prompted Tucker to scramble and dash from the porch. Kate held the book and sat up. She couldsee that, down at the tractor shed, J.T. and Uncle Ray had something in their hands.
    â€œWhat is it?” she asked, after running to where they stood.
    In the sweaty T-shirt he’d taken off, her uncle held a sorrowful sight: three dead baby bunnies, their little bodies mangled and bloodied. He didn’t need to explain it. The mower blade had hit their nest. It had happened before. Kate winced and started to look away but saw that J.T. held something, too. A single survivor, a tiny brown cottontail missing one leg, was cradled in the palm of his hand.
    â€œWhat are you going to do with him?” Kate asked.
    â€œBest thing to do, Kate, is just put him out of his misery,” Uncle Ray said. “I’m so sorry. I told J.T. I’d take care of it.”
    â€œNo!” Kate protested. “Can’t we help him? I’ll do it! I’ll take care of him!”
    Her uncle hesitated and looked from Kate to J.T. “What do you think?”
    J.T. met Kate’s eyes.
    â€œPlease,” Kate begged again.
    Her brother turned to Uncle Ray and shrugged. “I say let her try. Let her find out how much work it is to raise a baby rabbit, let alone one without a leg!”
    â€œYou’ll have to dab ointment on that stump, Kate, to keep away infection. And this little, you’ll have to feed it several times a day,” Uncle Ray warned. “We’ll have to get special formula at the feed store, and even then there’s no guarantee.”
    â€œI understand,” she said, pressing her hands together. “Really!”
    Within the hour, Kate had a baby bunny, encased in a fuzzysock and snug in her hand, accepting droplets of warm formula from a plastic syringe. She’d already texted Jess twice to come see him as soon as she got back.
    â€œWill he live?” Kerry asked, sitting tight against Kate on the living room couch. On her lap she held the baby bunny’s new home: a flannel-lined shoebox.
    â€œDon’t know,” Kate said. “I hope so.”
    â€œI promise I’ll keep Jingles away,” Kerry said.
    Just then Kate’s cell phone alerted her to a message. It was from Jess, but no response about the bunny. No words at all. Just a picture of a bathing suit on a dressing room bench. The suit was dark blue. Two piece.
    â€œSomeday this bunny and Jingles can be friends,” Kerry said.
    â€œHe’ll be hopping around one day, you wait and see,” J.T. said, surprising the girls that he stood behind them.
    Kerry’s face lit up. “We should name him Hoppy!”
    â€œHoppy,” Kate repeated, trying to get back into the moment. “Perfect!”
    *
    The baby bunny and J.T.’s arrival home truly marked the beginning of summer. Soon, the pink and white crepe myrtle trees blossomed as though loving the longer, hotter days. The cicadas got louder, making the air hum with their noise. And a different kind of routine settled in. J.T. was the first one up every day, until one morning when Kate’s mother beat him to the kitchen and had bacon frying. The good smell got everyone up early. “You need something more than cereal if you’re going to go out and work all morning,” Kate heard Mom tell J.T.
    Every morning Kate had chores, dishes, or vacuuming, thenshe was free to write in her journal or read or do whatever she wanted. She fed the baby bunny every three hours, even setting her phone alarm at night, and kept antibiotic cream on the missing back leg’s stump. Some afternoons, she babysat her three little girl cousins—Alice, Annie, and Alyssa. Kate had reconnected with Jess, and the girls had agreed that half the money they made babysitting over the summer would go toward the hefty admission fee to an