“Not really.”
“I see.” She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and scribbles on her yellow pad. I hate when she does that. My anxiety hums louder.
“Do you think happiness can change? What makes you happy or how long it lasts…can that change?”
“Sure. A good romance novel makes me happy now, but five years ago, I wouldn’t have even picked it up. Spider-Man makes Sawyer happy now, but last year it was Bluey.”
“Right. So if what makes us happy can change…is it safe to assume happiness itself can change?”
I look at her, waiting.
“What if happiness…looks different over time? In this season of life, it might even be unrecognizable to you. You might not see it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
I don’t respond right away. The words settle in a quiet corner of my heart, hooking onto the small moments of joy I’ve been carrying around: the boys laughing in the backyard, Josie smiling in the kitchen, Ellie walking down the aisle to Benny. All of them perfect.
And then there are the moments withSteven.
At first, I have to dig for them, sift through time to find something that feels truly happy. But once I let myself go there, they flood me like a wave. Warm, heavy, almost too much to hold. His random texts. Taking out the trash even when it makes him late to work. Picking up dinner every Thursday night. His deep brown eyes, always searching for me. The slight twitch of his hand when I’m near. The way his gaze dips to my lips every time I say his name, even when he’s mad.
These things aren’t extravagant or soul-stirring. But they do make me happy.
Guilt stings my eyes. All the moments I was too proud to embrace or too angry to notice. I’ve been too scared to disrupt things with my big feelings that I didn’t realize I was holding back my own happiness as well.
“What are you thinking right now?” Dr. Belo watches me carefully, her glasses now perched atop her head.
“That I’m an idiot,” I admit, letting a short, embarrassed laugh escape me. “I’ve been so focused on being quiet or hurt, I haven’t even tried to be happy with him.”
We walk through these feelings. The tiny pockets of joy and the reminders that there’s still so much work to do in my marriage. Small acts don’t erase the big forgets: the distance, the times he left me to handle the kids while he took mental health days, the work that absorbs him so fully he forgets to check in. Happiness can exist, but we still have the hard parts. We need to find balance between the two.
Before I go, Dr. Belo leans forward in her chair, steepling her hands under her chin. “Emma, I know you’re tired. But you’re doing a great job. And I know you’re going to be so focused on Steven and his family this week that you’ll forget half of what we talked about.”
We both laugh.
“But I need you to really think about what we talked about,” she says, her voice soft but equally stern. “It’s time to move forward, one way or another,and you need to ask yourself…are these happy moments enough? Can they hold you together if Steven gets his memory back? Or when things get hard again?”
I stare down at my hands, tears pooling before I can stop them.
“I hope so.”
Chapter twenty-seven
Steven
“Comeon,I’llbefine.”
I never thought I’d be forty years old, begging my nanny to let me leave the house. But here I am, pouting and batting my eyelashes, the same move I used when I was seven.
Cindy tsks. “Won’t work on me, Mr. Jones. And I don’t think Emma’s too keen on you going for a joy ride.”
“It’s not a joy ride…it’s for recovery.”
Her gaze flicks to mine, her mouth twisting in consideration. I almost have her. It’s technically not a lie. Liam told me to go for a drive, see if it triggered anything, but honestly, I’m going stir-crazy here. There’s only so much one man can do before the walls start to close in. We’re meant to be out in the world—hunting, gathering. My version of that just might be in the form of driving to Starbucks.
“What if you get lost?” She arches a brow, thinking she’s got me cornered.
I hold up my cell phone, waving around the tiny satellite. “You can keep tabs on me if you’re worried.”
She hesitates, chewing on her thumbnail before rolling her eyes and growling, “Fine. But if Emma gets wind of this, I’m telling her you locked me in the basement and escaped through the skylight.”
