Page 112 of The Scars I Bare
She tried to look away again, but I turned her head back toward mine.
“It’s just that, when you don’t smile, I don’t smile.”
And, just when I’d thought my heart couldn’t melt any more, it liquefied all over the floor.
“Oh, come here,” I managed to say before the tears started to roll. She curled into my lap as I wrapped my arms around her. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a terrible mom lately.”
“But you haven’t,” she said, looking up at me with those giant brown eyes. “You keep saying you’re a horrible mom, but you’re actually the best one ever. It’s called self-doubt.”
I let out a strangled laugh, catching Taylor doing the same. “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“You need to trust yourself more, Mommy. And give yourself more credit. Or at least, that’s what the free self-help guide I downloaded from Amazon says.”
“Did this self-help guide also tell you to email a handsome fisherman on my behalf?”
She giggled. “Dean isn’t handsome. That’s gross. And no, not exactly. But it did say to surround yourself with people who make you happy.”
I stroked her hair, loving my daughter more in that moment than I’d thought was possible. “And you thought that person was Dean?”
“He makes you happy, right?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, he does,” I answered honestly.
Her smile beamed up at me. “Me, too.”
She settled back into me, laying her head on my chest for the remainder of the short flight, while I thought about her words.
“When you don’t smile, I don’t smile.”
That kept replaying in my head.
I’d thought I was making the right choice, choosing Lizzie and therefore Blake over Dean. Lizzie needed her father, and if Dean couldn’t handle that, I had to walk away.
I’d thought it was a simple choice.
“When you don’t smile, I don’t smile.”
But I’d be giving up a lifetime of happiness.
A lifetime of love.
“When you don’t smile, I don’t smile.”
Would I also be sacrificing her happiness as well?
The moment we all stepped foot in the hospital, Jake went to work. Dean had always joked around about his best friend having two distinct sides. So far, I’d mostly only been around the doctor side of Jake Jameson. But, after I’d spent the last few days with him, witnessing him marry the love of his life and seeing him interact with mine, the stark contrast was palpable.
Sitting in the waiting area was a foreign concept for me.
I’d never been on the opposite end before.
I’d never been the anxious friend or the basket-case family member waiting for news. I’d always been the one on the other side, caring for those loved ones so that there would be a next day.
And a day after.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was probably a matter of minutes, Jake returned with news.
“Dean’s fine,” he said, causing me to let go of the breath I’d been holding since the night before.
