Daniel noticed that whenever someone approached her, she pulled the rabbit against her chest.
« That’s Emily, » the woman from the adoption agency explained. « She’s been here for almost a year. She’s a sweet child, but she doesn’t trust people easily. »
Daniel nodded.
He was forty-three, a widower, and had spent the previous four years trying to convince himself that he was perfectly comfortable living alone.
His wife, Margaret, had died unexpectedly from an illness that had progressed much faster than anyone anticipated. They had never been able to have children, although they had talked about adoption many times.
After Margaret died, Daniel kept putting off the idea.
He worried he was too old to become a father. He worried he might not know how to raise a child alone. Most of all, he worried that he might not be able to give a little girl everything she deserved.
But one afternoon, while cleaning an old drawer, he discovered a letter Margaret had written shortly before her death.
