Chapter 8 - Healing the Scars
That evening, we celebrated at our favorite local pizza parlor—the kind with sticky red booths, arcade games in the back, and the best garlic knots in town.
Ella’s first-place blue ribbon was propped up right in the center of the table, leaning against the ketchup dispenser where everyone could see it.
“Do you want to put this on the refrigerator when we get home, El?” I asked, sliding a slice of pepperoni pizza onto her plate.
Ella shook her head, a bright, confident grin spreading across her face.
“No, Mom,” she said, touching the edge of the blue ribbon. “I want to put it on my bedroom door. That way, everyone who walks into my room knows I earned it.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard,” Hannah agreed, raising her glass of iced tea. “To Ella—master of soil erosion and spelling bees.”
“To Ella!” Eric and I chorused, clinking our glasses against theirs.
Later that night, after the girls were asleep, Eric and I sat on the back porch with two mugs of hot coffee, watching the stars pierce through the clear winter sky.
Eric wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close against the cold.
“You know,” Eric murmured into my hair, “for the longest time, I thought love was something you had to buy. Something you had to earn by being quiet, by being small, by letting people tear you down so they could feel powerful.”
I turned and looked up at him, kissing his cheek.
“You aren’t small anymore, Eric,” I whispered. “And neither are our daughters.”
May you like
He smiled, looking out toward the dark, quiet street where no uninvited cars were parked, and no emergency phone calls were waiting to pull us back into the dark.
“Yeah,” he said softly, tightening his grip around me. “We finally broke the cycle.”
