Mia nodded slowly. Then she looked down at the bouquet.
“I meant what I said,” she told me. “About getting married someday. I really believe it now. I didn’t used to. But I do now.”
“I know you do, baby.”
“Because it was never about the walking,” she said, mostly to herself, touching one of the roses. “It was about the heart part.”
“That’s right.”
She was quiet a moment more. Then, softly: “I don’t think I’m the broken girl anymore, Mom.”
I had to pull over. I couldn’t drive and cry that hard at the same time. I pulled onto the shoulder and I put the car in park and I turned around in my seat and I reached back and took my daughter’s face in my hands, the same way I had that day on the floor when she’d first said those terrible words about herself.
