It was late by the time they landed at the Bluegrass Airport. Nick could barely keep his eyes open, having spent the past 12 hours on airplanes and in airports making sure his family made it safely from one hectic destination to the next. His body ached with jetlag and sunburn and every part of him was exhausted.

His heart most especially.

He watched as Mia stirred on Gracie's shoulder. She let out a small sigh when he brushed the hair from her cheek before drifting back to dreamland in the comforting arms of her mother as the three of them trudged slowly through the silent terminal. He shifted the heavy bags in his arms and hung his head in sadness and defeat. What should have been remembered as a happy family getaway had instead been yet another step in the painful revelation that his wife was on a one-way track of self destruction.

That thought made him hate himself even more. He'd spent the past several hours on the plane from California wondering if he was making the right choice for his family. For his daughter. For himself. The flight brought back painful memories of another time when he'd been helpless to make things better for her. To save her. But at least then... at least then she'd wanted the little bit of comfort he could offer. This time she was putting up walls... no -- barbed wire fences -- around her heart, and try as he might to climb them, she wasn't about to let him in.

The cold winter air swept their faces as the revolving doors opened out into the parking lot. It felt good. Nick hadn't grown up in Kentucky -- in fact, he'd spent most of his life relaxing on the beach during winter vacations -- but he'd easily gotten used to the cold and the snow. Winter, he realized now, was supposed to be fresh and new. It was supposed to send a chill down a person's spine and make them long for the coming of a fresh new spring. Winter was supposed to be the time in life when you curled up with the one you loved the most and spent long nights by the fireside as you sipped hot chocolate and giggled over silly jokes until you eventually fell asleep in one another's arms.

Winter was supposed to be what he and Grace used to have not all that long ago.

"Hey!"

He heard his brother's voice before he saw him, standing there in the parking lot beside his car, a smile of greeting plastered to his goofy southern face, "Welcome home you!"

Nick had to laugh and he smiled when Gracie laughed to. If anyone could bring out the tiny amount of joy she still occasionally dared show... it was Brian.

"You are still the world's biggest dork Bri," He heard her whisper as she hugged him, careful not to disturb their daughter's slumber.

The car ride home seemed to last forever. It was times like these when I cursed the fact that Nick and I had purchased a home so far out in the middle of nowhere. I sat in the backseat and watched Mia sleep, occasionally glancing out the window at the lights of the city and the Bluegrass fields in the distance. The trees were bare and the moon shone brightly through their branches reminding me of a scene from a Halloween horror film. I longed to go back to the beach where it was warm and sunny. Here it was wintery cold and dreary... that time of the year when all you can dream about is the coming of spring and the blossoming of flowers.

I tried my best to think of our vacation and of how happy Mia had been at the beach, but I couldn't. The sad thoughts came... the memories. Those damned terrifying memories that plagued my mind on a regular basis...

I stood back for a few moments and admired my work. I'd finally finished the last square of the checkered wall in Mia's new playroom -- once my office, a place where I'd never actually done any real work. The only real memories I had of the "office" were the memories of spending countless hours following brutal chemotherapy treatments and radiation sessions just staring at the untouched essays and assignments I should have been doing for the classes I should have been taking in order to finish the master's degree I should have long earned by then.

I smiled at my masterpiece, remembering the day not so long before when I stood in that same doorway, Mia asleep on my shoulder after a long and exhausting night, and finally decided to pack up my hopes of becoming a career woman, and instead jump headfirst into the new dream of being the very best stay at home mom Mia could ever want or need. A mom who would always be there. A mom who, even though I'd been through hell and back and had once been told, a dozen times in a matter of months not to even plan for a life and a future... knew that being there for my daughter... spending and sharing all of the precious moments life had to offer with her... meant far more to me than any career ever could.

I stood in the corner of the room by the window and took in all the work I'd accomplished over the last couple of days. The days of waiting... the days of not knowing. I had to fill them some trivial way. And so I filled them with painting. I dropped Mia off at my mother's house with little explanation other than I needed a little time to myself -- knowing it wouldn't matter to her anyway, she'd take her grandchildren any day of the week. I'd spent the hours after that painting several dozen squares on the main wall of the room. Bright reds and blues and greens. It was colorful and fun, the kind of playroom I'd always wanted as a child. I stood in the doorway now and tried to picture all of the little touches I'd add in the next few weeks. The window curtains with the funky fish pattern. The dragonfly rug. I imagined the room complete with the shelves Nick was putting together in the basement, filled with the toys and the games we'd buy her through the years, and the dollhouse her grandpa Littrell had built her for Christmas.

I tried to imagine all of the fun times that we would share in that room.

Really... I tried.

But the image that kept coming to me, the image that haunted my thoughts and plagued my newest dreams was an image of my husband and my daughter, curled up together in the rocking chair in the corner. The only light in the room from a lamp on the red side table I'd planned on painting and putting in the room, illuminating fresh tears on my husband's face as he rocked our daughter to sleep and stared at the photo of the three of us... the one from the beach of us buried together in the sand... and cried.

I shook the thoughts from my mind. I tried to imagine our daughter, older and wiser, a beautiful teenager with hopes and dreams of her own sitting at the desk I'd painted in the corner working on her homework while I stood over her shoulder and helped her with a particularly difficult math problem.

Those images too were washed from my mind. Washed away by the thought of my daughter in her graduation cap and gown seated at that desk, staring at a photo of the two of us... my favorite of me kissing her cheeks the first moment I welcomed her into my life. She's wiping her own tears now... her father nowhere in sight. Experiencing grief in only the way a teen without a mother ever could.

And the thoughts, though I tried my best to force them away, stayed with me.

I jumped when I felt Nick behind me, his arms gently wrapping around my shoulders as a struggled to breathe normally again and to clear my mind of the saddness that had just settled there.

"This is beautiful," he smiled, "she's going to love it!"

I nodded and bit my lip, "I hope so"

He took my hand in his and offered me my jacket, hesitating for a minute before he asked, "you ready to go?"

So this was it.

Nick had arrived home the evening before, taking me into his arms as I'd collapsed in a puddle of tears and grief. For hours after and long into the night he'd listened to my fears and he'd comforted my heart... but I knew deep inside he was just as terrified as I was.

Was I ready?

Ready to go to the doctor and find out once more that something was horribly wrong?

No.

Never.

But I nodded my head and together we walked through the quiet house and out the door, Nick grabbing his car keys off the front table as he led me to the car and opened the door for me.

"It's gonna be okay." He whispered, squeezing my hand as he climbed in beside me and started the engine... and I know he was saying it more to himself than he was to me.

Because really... I looked at him in silence. How could anyone ever really know.