Skip to content 
“Did you bring the pancake book?”
Rachel held up a picture book about breakfast.
“I did.”
Jackson crouched in front of Emma.
“Remember the rules?”
“I stay in the library.”
“And?”
“I ask Rachel if I need potty.”
“And?”
“You come back after the big hand goes all the way around once.”
Jackson smiled, even though his eyes were terrified.
“That’s right.”
Emma touched his face.
“Daddy, your eyebrows are worried.”
Rachel looked away.
So did I.
Jackson kissed Emma’s forehead.
“I love you, Bug.”
“I love you bigger.”
“Impossible.”
“Possible!”
Then she took Rachel’s hand and walked toward the little table.
Jackson and I sat in his car for ninety minutes.
He gripped the steering wheel even though we were parked.
At one point, he said, “What if she calls her Mom?”
I looked out at the library doors.
“She might someday.”
He inhaled sharply.
“And what do I do?”
“You breathe.”
“That’s your advice?”
“It’s the only thing that works every time.”
He gave me a look.
I smiled.
He almost smiled back.
Then he said something I will never forget.
“I used to think good parents never let their kids get hurt.”
I waited.
“Now I think good parents just make sure they don’t get hurt alone.”
That was when I knew he was going to be all right.
Not because the pain was over.
Because he had stopped believing he could prevent all of it.
At exactly ninety minutes, Rachel walked Emma to the car.
Emma was holding a paper crown from the library craft table.
“Nana! Daddy! I made a duck queen!”
Jackson opened his door so fast he nearly hit the curb.
Emma ran to him.
Rachel stayed several feet back.
Jackson lifted Emma and looked her over like he was checking for invisible bruises.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yes! Rachel reads funny.”
“Yeah?”
“She makes the duck sound like Mr. Pickles.”
Mr. Pickles was my elderly neighbor’s bulldog.
Jackson laughed before he could stop himself.
Rachel smiled at the sound.
Then she handed him a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Just what we did. Times. Bathroom break. Snack. She bumped her knee on a chair at 10:42 but didn’t cry. I wrote it down.”
Jackson stared at the paper.
It was exactly the kind of thing he would have done.
That may have been why it hurt him.