I let the swell of emotion in my heart bring tears to my eyes. I was crying for the pain I caused Abbi, the pain I caused my daughter. I was crying for the second chance I was getting with them. I was crying for my father. I was crying for the absence of him in my life. I was crying for the fact that it mattered to me, despite desperately wanting otherwise. I was crying for the emptiness of the last decade, the loneliness, the exhaustion, the pointlessness. I was crying for the sunrise. For the warmth of Abbi's hand in mine and the sparkling green eyes next to me looking out on a world of amazing possibilities.
I squeezed Abbi's fingers and whispered, "Hey."
Abbi turned her face to look up at mine. I could see her surprise at the emotion welling in my eyes, as complex and multi-faceted as diamonds.
"It's beautiful," I said.
Abbi, who had clearly still been struggling to hold back her tears, nodded with a choked sob. It was with a sigh of relief that the first tear streaked down her rosy cheek beneath the rosy sky. It was as if she'd been waiting for permission and I'd just unknowingly given it. It was as if she'd been waiting at a locked door and I'd handed her the key. The dam had been cracking and moaning beneath the strain and I'd given her not rolls of duct tape, but a sledge hammer.
With a sniffle, Abbi turned her face back toward the canyon and rested her head against my arm, which she held tightly. I smiled as I felt the heat of her tears through my t-shirt. We stood there long enough for her to soak my sleeve, long enough for it to dry and long enough that I was certain I never wanted her fingers to leave mine.
Abbi
The next two days of our impromptu road trip slipped by too fast. With each passing moment of laughter, sunshine and toes wiggling out the window along some tumbleweed-lined highway, I was more and more afraid to breathe. The time with Michael and my daughter, happy and giggling, was like a dandelion ready to flutter away at the smallest of contented sighs.
After exploring the Grand Canyon for a few hours, we headed back north across state lines in Utah and found ourselves at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The three of us tumbled out of the car, messied with candy wrappers and tags from gas station sunglasses and cheap, touristy caps, and wandered in awed silence between the towering red stone formations, like a city unto itself. That night we ate at a roadside attraction called Hole N" The Rock, which was, quite literally, a hole in the rock. The food was greasy and slopping off our plates when the harried waitress flung them down. But we lapped up every trace of gravy with buttery biscuits and ordered three whopping scoops of chocolate ice cream each.
After sleeping in the first motel with a vacancy we rumbled past, we awoke early, wolfed down sugary bowls of Lucky Charms from the motel's continental breakfast, and drove the short distance over to Moab and Arches National Park.
"They look like the eyes of giants," Zara whispered as she stood between Michael and me, staring at the massive arches of stone overlooking vast stretches of other-worldly red desert.
She was being opened to a whole new world. Not just one of natural beauty and the wonders of the world outside her home in Denver. But to a world where there were two parents in her life, a world where they were happy and present and together. A world where she was safe to stretch outside her shell, to take bold steps forward, to be daring and brave.
I'd worked so hard to keep her safe, to keep her sheltered, to hide anything negative from her, including my own fears and scars. But this trip had opened her eyes to what she'd been missing: life and love. I just hoped it wouldn't all be ripped away from her with the definitive thunder of a book of fairy tales being slammed shut.
At Arches we hiked and drove along the scenic trail and munched on trail mix Zara and Michael put together from our gas station raid, which consisted of ninety percent M&Ms, five percent peanuts, and five percent leftover Skittles.
Then it was back into the car to drive past a forty-foot massive cartoon-pink dinosaur, a tall tree sculpture on a stretch of white, barren desert, and an old-fashioned trading post before hitting the Four Corners, the meeting spot of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. We waited our turn in the line of bustling tourists getting their pictures taken touching all four states with hands and feet. We asked an older woman with her husband to get our picture and in an outdoor version of Twister the three of us all contorted to squeeze into.
With a red-faced giggle, I hopped to my feet, dusted off my palms against the leg of my pants, and pushed my sunglasses back up the bridge of my nose with the back of my hand as I went to take back our camera.
"Thanks so much," I said as the woman passed the camera back over to me.
I was squinting against the hot rays of sunlight and checking over the pictures when the woman said, "You know, that's quite a lovely little family you have."
I glanced over my shoulder at Michael, who was still straddling the four corners with Zara draped across his back and laughing as her hair fell into his face. I blushed as I looked back at the woman.
"Oh, we're not a—"
In the pictures of my camera the three
