I've thought about that my whole drive in this morning and I want you to hear this clearly. She held his gaze. You are not a project. I am not trying to fix you. I'm not interested in fixing you because there is nothing about you that needs to be fixed.
He didn't say anything. I like you, she said simply. I like who you are. All of it. The part that checks the beam calculations twice.
And the part that burns grilled cheese because his daughter said something that knocked him sideways. And the part that keeps reading glasses in a nightstand drawer. She didn't look away. I like the whole person. Not a version I'm planning to renovate.
He felt something move through him that he didn't have a word for. Not relief exactly. Closer to being seen. the specific feeling of someone looking directly at the parts of you that you've tried to keep out of the light and not flinching. "Okay," he said. His voice was slightly rougher than usual.
"Okay," she said, and she left. He sat at his desk for 3 minutes doing absolutely nothing, which was unprecedented. Then he finished his soup. Thursday arrived with a problem. He found out about it the way he found out about most things did the compliate his life from Lily in the form of a question that seemed simple until it wasn't.
They were in the car on the way home from school and Lily was telling him about a math test she'd taken and then without any transition she said, "Dad, why do some kids only have one parent?" He kept his eyes on the road. Different families are built different ways, buddy. But how does that happen? Sometimes a parent leaves.
Sometimes a parent gets sick. Sometimes people just He paused. Sometimes families change. Lily was quiet for a moment. Then like us.
Yeah. He said, "Like us." Another silence. He could feel her processing the way she always did thoroughly without rushing. Like the analyst Clare had correctly identified her to be.
"Do you miss mom?" she asked. His hands tighten slightly on the wheel. This question was not new. She'd asked versions of it since she was five.
And every time he answered it as honestly as he could at whatever level she was asking from. Every day he said, "Does it still hurt?" A little, but different than it used to. More like he searched for a word a seven-year-old could hold. Like a song you loved that you don't hear very often anymore.