Clover

Clover was named by five-year-old Emma Patel, who took one look at the Holland Lop with the floppy ears and said, “He looks like a clover.” The logic was unclear, but the name stuck. He had free run of the living room in the Patel family’s Princeton home, and he used every inch of it — binkying off the rug onto the hardwood, thumping at 2 AM for reasons known only to him, and sprinting to the kitchen the instant anyone touched the refrigerator door. At three, he got sick enough that the vet wasn’t optimistic. The family spent a week hand-feeding him critical care formula with a syringe, and he pulled through, because Clover was stubborn in the way that only small animals and small children can be. He lived five more years after that. Emma grew up alongside him — from kindergarten to middle school, Clover was the constant. He died peacefully at eight, which is a good long life for a rabbit, and the house has been quieter since. The fridge still opens, but nobody comes running.