a sound she hadn't heard before

forty-nine.

Taylor wakes up in the night with a feeling of anxiety. She doesn't know why she feels that way, and wants to brush it aside and go back to sleep. Something deep within her, though, tells her to check in on Ayla. She can't help but feel like something isn't okay.

Throwing a sweatshirt on, Taylor pads out of her and Joe's room, and down the hall to Ayla's, where she finds the door left open and the bed empty. The little girl isn't in the bathroom, and the only other rooms on the second floor of the house are occupied by Joe's parents and Patrick, sleeping soundly.

Taylor feels panic strike through her body as she hurries down the stairs, needing to find her daughter. It doesn't take long, luckily. Taylor finds Ayla sitting in the living room with Bloke, sipping a glass of milk and talking to him in a hushed tone. Taylor can't tell what she's saying right away. However, something tells her to not interrupt Ayla, who is so focused on the dog that she doesn't even see her mother lingering in the doorway.

As Taylor quietly inches closer to Ayla, she can see that her daughter clearly isn't a very happy camper. In fact, in the dim lighting of the lamp in the living room, Taylor can suddenly see that there is a stream of tears running down her daughter's face.

"And... and Mommy says I'm going to make friends here, but what if I don't? What if the other kids don't like me because I don't talk funny like they do?" She pauses. "Or what if I can't ride my scooter as well as they can, Blokey?" Ayla lets out a sigh and then leans over, resting her head on Bloke's back. "And there's my scary daddy. What if he knows that I'm in London? Mommy said that we're safe here, but she said that about New Jersey too... and he came to my school a few weeks ago, then Mommy came to pick me up and I was never allowed to go back to school. I don't have friends who have to worry about scary daddies and moving to London and people taking pictures of them when they don't want it."

As Taylor listens to her little girl talk, her heart absolutely shatters. This is what she was so afraid of. That Ayla had some bottled up emotions that she was too afraid to tell Taylor about.

"Ayla, sweetheart," Taylor says, walking over and gently placing her hand on her daughter's arm.

Ayla turns to Taylor, looking like a deer caught in headlights. "I'm sorry Mommy!" she says. "I was just thirsty, so I came downstairs to get milk, and then Bloke wanted snuggles, so I came over to pet him, but I was going to go back upstairs right away, I promise promise promise!"

"Ayla..." Taylor says, realizing that her daughter has no idea how much she just heard. "Please don't lie to me. I'm not mad at you, but I want you to tell me why you're awake right now." Taylor takes a seat on the ground next to the little girl, who lets out a sigh.

"I couldn't sleep. I'm scared, Mommy."

"What are you scared about?"

"Everything," she frowns. "Being in London is scary, and I'm scared about my daddy coming to hurt you and me, and you said that people are going to want to see me during the c- c-"

"The custody battle," Taylor offers.

"Yeah, that. And I don't know what that means but I'm scared of it, and I just miss how everything used to be. I never used to worry about guys with cameras or scary daddies or London. And I miss when it was just you and me, and now Joe's with us all the time and you have to share your love between him and me which means that you love me less because when you share your love with two people then each person gets less love than if it just goes to one person. Just like when I have to share my blocks with Betty so I can't build a tower with all of them and have to build a smaller tower with only some of them."

Ayla stops talking as she dissolves into sobs, her whole body shaking. Taylor doesn't even know what to say to any of this. She pulls her daughter into her arms as she struggles to find the words. She had no idea that her little girl thought any of this.