down on the edge of the bed next to her. “It took a long time to get it out.”
“How did you get it out?”
I thought about that.
“Somebody showed me I was looking at the wrong thing,” I said. “I was looking at my waist. My stretch marks. My gray hair. I was looking for what your dad said was missing.” I took the mirror gently from her hands. “And somebody else said, look again. Look at the woman who keeps her kids safe. Who gets up every day and goes to work. Who reads to her girls every night even when she’s so tired she can barely see the page.”
Ava looked at me.
“That’s what you see now?”
“That’s what I’m learning to see,” I said. “It’s harder than it sounds.”
Ava was quiet for a moment.
Then she took the mirror back from me. She
