I wish I had killed the damn bunny. I caught sight of it flying from near my car’s wheel well and then when I looked to the side, as I had to look, I saw it launched into the grass at the side of the road, on its side and twitching. If a rabbit could scream it wouldn’t have been half as loud as the screams of my children from the backseat. My hands were shaking and I remembered the feeling; being unable to drink a hot cup of coffee most of those mornings after. So I had to stop.

I ordered the kids to stay put,  popped open the door and walked around the front of the car. I found the rabbit bloody and breathing but that was about as much movement I could see. I could tell the kids that it was dead or I could tell them that it had run off. Those choices would involve lying and leaving an animal there to suffer might have been too much for my new found honesty to take. I’d always felt lucky to have never hit anything when I drove drunk but here I was, gratefully sober and mowing down defenseless rabbits.

The kids were perched up near the top of the back seat’s window when I walked past their frozen faces and around to the back to the truck. I took out the tire iron and the kids’ voices behind the glass were loud and jumbled. I prayed that they stayed loud enough to not hear me when I struck down. The blood splattered on the bottom of my jeans.

When I pulled away, they were crying. I wanted to tell them about why I did what I did. “You’ll know,” I said. “One day you’ll see.”