Page 170 of Breathe Again

“Do what?”

“Did you publish?”

I smiled, happy that he remembered how close I was to finishing. “I did.”

“You did?” he exclaimed.

“I did,” I giggled nervously. “Whatever happens, happens. I did it, though. I finished it.”

“Proud of you, baby.”

The warmth climbed up my chest until it hit my cheeks. I had not heard a lot of ‘proud of you’ growing up. I heard a lot of criticism, manipulation, demands, and a fair bit of character assassination, butnot much in the way of praise, and precious little ‘proud of you’. Even better than hearing it was feeling it for myself.

“Thank you, baby. I’m pretty pleased with myself, actually.”

“You should be,” he replied warmly. “Your girls there? Are they staying?”

“Yup!”

“Hmm, we’ll have to delay our celebration until later.”

The flutter grew wings and I smiled, knowing that we would. “That sounds good.”

“You make dinner?”

“Nope.” Anxiety over being selfish flooded me, and I rushed to explain, “I haven’t gotten that far. I worked on the book all day. I probably should have taken a break…”

“No, Mara, no. You don’t always have to stop to feed us. How about I pick up something for dinner?”

I took a deep breath, took a moment to recognize my emotions, and recalibrated. “That would be great. Let me see what everyone wants…”

I hadn’t finished speaking when Willa voted for ‘Greek food’ and Bex concurred.

“They chose…”

He laughed. “I heard. I’ll see you soon. Love you, baby.”

“Love you, Zee.”

Zale came home with dinner and was not shy about his congratulatory kiss. I felt myself flush a deep red, but it pleased me.

Willa complained, “Please, people, we’re trying to eat!”

Olivia picked that moment to come in and nonchalantly replied, “They do that, Auntie Willa, it’s best to just ignore them. Are we having Greek food?”

It was a happy group that gathered around the table, and for a moment I was thrown back to the time before Rhys, before Barrett, when this was our dynamic. Bex was so much happier than she was back then. Even Willa had something new in her eyes, something that I prayed was good, something I hoped had to do with Barrett.

I wondered if I looked different to them. I figured that I must, I’d never been terribly good at hiding my feelings.

I had that feeling that I got sometimes, a good feeling, the feeling I got when life was perfectly balanced, everything in place, all our blessings intact. I would not miss this; I would enjoy it. I would not waste these precious days on worry, and I’d squirrel away the warmth to shore me up in times of scarcity. We would have those times, too, but they are but one beat in the rhythm of life. I learned something important over the past several months, something that was true, something that I hoped to pass on to Olivia:

‘You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.’

Got that little gem from Winnie the Pooh.

The End

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