"Dance, Daddy! Dance!" Little Lily jumped up and down, stomping her feet gleefully as Carlton glared at Marlowe behind the camera.

"This is your fault, Spencer," Carlton said, throwing his stare to Shawn. Marlowe panned the camera over to where Shawn and Gus stood, both bouncing on their toes in excitement. Shawn had just accidentally told Lily that her daddy and Gus had once taken tap dancing classes together to help get her excited for the dance class Marlowe had just signed her up for.

"You've got to do it, Lassie face!" Shawn said, "You can't let this face down."

Shawn crouched down, dramatically sliding his hand under Lily's chin "C'mon Lil' Lassie! Show us your best face."

Marlowe laughed and zoomed in on Lily's face, her eyes twinkling and her bottom lip jutting out. "Please, Daddy? Show me how you dance?" She batted her eyelashes, just to seal the deal.

"Fine. One time." Carlton stuck up one finger to make it clear to everyone that this was never happening again.

"C'mon Lassie, you remember how it's done." Gus stood next to Carlton, slowly giving commands and tapping out a rhythm with his own feet. Carlton picked up the moves fairly quickly and Marlowe could see her husband fighting off a begrudging smile that was forming on his face as his daughter cheered for him.

"Yay Daddy!" Lily said, hopping up and down. "Do you see him, Mommy? Do you see him?"

"I do see him, baby," Marlowe said from behind the camera.

And then the video stopped.

Marlowe couldn't even count how many times she had watched that video in the last three months. She had watched him move his feet effortlessly. Stick out his left hand to gesture without even thinking about it. Speak to them like it was nothing. Look at them.

All the things he couldn't do anymore.

She tried. She tried not to watch the old videos. Not to compare where he was now to where he used to be. Wish with every fiber of her being that when he had said casually that he had a little headache that night, she had insisted he went to the hospital instead of being rushed there half dead the next day.

But it was hard. It was hard to not get stuck in the past when the present hurt so badly. When her own husband, the love of her life and the one who had all but saved her, told her to get out and not to come back. She just wanted her husband back. The one from the video with soft eyes and a good heart, who would do anything for his family.

His family.

Her family.

She just wanted their family back.

But their family was increasingly becoming a thing of the past. At least for now. Only to be painstakingly memorialized in effortless videos of before. She could watch the videos and pretend nothing had ever gone wrong. Close her eyes and see his face, hear his voice from before. Even when it killed her to do so. But she missed him so much it hurt.

She felt even worse for Lily. Because Lily was too young to understand what happened to her daddy. And she was too young to understand why they couldn't go visit daddy at the "helping house" anymore. And she definitely didn't understand why every time she brought up her dad, it would take every fiber of Marlowe's being to keep her from crying, or screaming, or falling apart all together.

"Is Daddy mad at me?" Lily asked from the back seat of the car one day.

"What?" Marlowe asked, shock coursing through her veins and down her limbs, causing the car to jump to a stop as she subconsciously slammed on the brakes. She was grateful no one was behind her as she quickly pulled the car off the road and turned around to get a better look at her daughter. "Why would you say that, Sweetie?"

"Why doesn't Daddy want to come to my birthday party?"

"Who told you that?"

"I heard you telling Grandma and Ti-Ti on the phone. You said that Daddy was mad and that he couldn't come to my birthday party."

"Oh, Sweetie. Your Daddy loves you so much," Marlowe said, quickly getting out of the car so she could join Lily in the back seat. "He's trying so hard to come home to be with us again. He just has to work a little harder."

"But we got to see him on New Year's Eve," She said, her eyes welling up with tears. "And Christmas, and Thanksgiving. Why can't we see him anymore? Why doesn't Daddy want to see me?"

Marlowe tried to hold her own tears in as she unbuckled Lily from the car seat and pulled her into a tight hug on her lap. "Daddy's working so hard to come home to us. He's going to come home so soon. We just have to give his brain time to heal. It got really hurt."

"But he yells at us now," Lily cried, her tears feeling like fire as they hit Marlowe's skin, burning her baby's hurt into her. "And he doesn't look at me when I talk to him. Did I make him mad when I jumped on him? Or because I got in a fight at school?"

"Lily," Marlowe said, no longer able to keep her own tears at bay. She pulled away from Lily just long enough to wrap her hands around her daughter's cheeks, focusing her eyes on Lily's matching light brown ones. "Your daddy loves you more than anything else in this world. And I love you more than anything else in this world." She looked at her daughter, face to face, tears sliding down her hands and cheeks as she wished she could take all of the hurt and sadness and anxiety away from her.

"I miss Daddy," Lily cried, her little hands wrapping tightly around Marlowe's wrists as her chest heaved with heavy sobs.

"Daddy will come home to us so soon," Marlowe offered, her unsure voice wavering but she tried to be strong, tried to give Lily some sense of confidence.

"No, I miss old Daddy," Lily whispered, like it was a dirty word she knew she wasn't supposed to say.

"Me too," Marlowe whispered back, barely loud enough for herself to hear. They stayed like that for a long time, Marlowe's shirt wet with Lily's tears and Lily's hair sprinkled with Marlowe's. They needed each other. But they needed him too. And he wasn't coming home for a long time.

She feared how this would change her daughter, not just for now, but in the long term. She feared how she would be changed herself. But she was endlessly proud of Lily in that moment for her bravery and her honesty. More than that, she was infinitely grateful that they had each other.

She began to pretend that she was just a single mom. That she didn't even have a husband in the first place. It was slowly becoming easier and easier to just pretend that she was completely alone. She felt alone. It was better than missing what she used to have, and what should have been.

But then the night would fall, and Marlowe would find herself lying in bed thinking about everything she used to have. And everything that she had lost. And on some very dark nights, thinking how much easier it would have been if he just... hadn't made it through that first night. Because if he hadn't made it through that first night, then maybe her heart would feel free, instead of locked in a vault twenty miles away in her husband's hospital room. And maybe she could have worked through the grief and moved on with her life, instead of feeling stuck in an uneasy limbo between wanting to be there for her husband and stand by him no matter what and wanting to respect his privacy.

She would count down the seconds until she fell asleep, praying for a dreamless night. The dreams hurt too much. Because in her dreams, she would relive all of her husband's trauma- Shawn knocking on the front door, the first night in the hospital, the day Lily came to see him. Or worse, she would dream of before. Dream of simple and mundane days that they used to take for granted without even knowing there was something there to be taken for granted.

When the daylight came, she would throw herself into working or taking care of Lily. With her fifth birthday coming up, Marlowe wanted to do everything she could to make this the best birthday ever for her despite the father-shaped hole that would be in every photo of the day.

"You can have it here," Juliet had offered when Marlowe had come by one day, completely overwhelmed by the world. Juliet sat in bed, her computer and a collection of magazines, drinks, and pillows trapping her in the sheets. Marlowe sat in her old rocking chair that she had given Shawn and Juliet when she found out they were having a baby. It still smelled like Carlton and just sitting in it gave her flashbacks to her strong, stone-faced husband smiling wide as he held Lily with one hand, her bottle in the other.

"Are you sure? That won't be too much stress for you?"

"Am I sure?" Juliet held out her hand to Marlowe. "Of course I'm sure. Besides, if you have it here, I can actually come because I won't have to be in a car. And Shawn and Gus can help you plan it. It will be good practice for them."

"Good practice for what?" Shawn poked his head into the room at the mention of his name.

"Planning a little girl's birthday party."

"I've been planning Gus's parties since before we could walk. I'm a professional at planning little girl's birthday parties."

Marlowe laughed at Juliet who had thrown her hands up and shook her head.

"Thank you both, for taking such great care of us."

"Marlowe, you're family." Juliet took her hands again.

"Yeah," Shawn came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "We look out for family."

"Marlowe, you're not alone. Please don't ever think that you are." Juliet read her mind. Her smile was soft and her eyes felt like they could look right into Marlowe's soul and keep all her secrets safe. Marlowe understood why her husband trusted Juliet so much.

"I just want him back." She dropped her head. "I want my husband home."

They didn't say a word. They didn't need to. As exhausted tears leaked out of the corners of Marlow's eyes and stained her cheeks, understanding surrounded her in a hug and told her that she was not crazy. And she was not alone. She had people around her who were there to look out for her and even if she wasn't the one stuck in a hospital bed, it didn't mean that she was wrong to feel sad. She was just trying to make it through the day when the days seemed to pass in a nondescript pain.

You're not alone. Juliet continued to remind her with every text and every phone call.

At this point, it felt like the only thing getting her through the days.