Page 178 of His Surrender

“I would still choose every morning I woke up beside her. Every argument. Every holiday. Every night we sat on the couch after you went to bed and talked about nothing important.”

His eyes shine, but he doesn’t look away. “I would choose the pain again because it came after a life I would never give back.”

I lower my gaze. For nineteen years, I have viewed my mother’s death as proof that love creates unbearable loss. My father views the same loss as proof that love existed first.

“I don’t know how you lived through it,” I admit.

Dad smiles sadly. “I had you. You needed a parent. You needed someone to show you that losing your mother didn’t mean life ended for both of us.”

“I’m not sure you ever moved on.”

“I didn’t move on from her. I moved forward with her. There is a difference. Your mother is in every good thing I gave you. Every tradition we kept. Every story I told. She is in the way you hold Liana.”

My chest aches.

Dad leans back. “And now you are standing at the edge of a life with Aubrey, trying to decide whether fear deserves the final word.”

“I don’t want to become controlling.”

“Then do the work to not become controlling.”

The simplicity of the answer frustrates me.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you talk to someone who understands trauma. You learn what happens in your body when the panic starts. You make a plan that doesn’t require Aubrey to surrender her freedom so you can feel safe.”

Therapy.

I have spent my entire life believing therapy belonged to people who couldn’t solve their own problems. Saturday night proved I can’t solve this one alone.

Dad watches the realization cross my face. “You don’t have to face this alone.”

“I already made her cry.”

“You will probably make her cry again.”

I give him a hard look.

He shrugs. “You’re going to disappoint each other or say the wrong thing.” His expression grows serious. “But there is something else you need to consider.”

“What?”

“Liana.”

I stiffen. “This has nothing to do with her.”

“It has everything to do with her. You know what it was like to lose your mother.”

My jaw tightens. “Yes.”

“Then don’t take away Liana’s chance to have one because you are afraid you might lose love again.”

The words strike so hard that I stop breathing.

Dad doesn’t soften them. “You’re thinking only about the possibility that Aubrey could leave or die.” He leans closer. “What about the possibility that she stays?”

I cannot answer.