a sound she hadn't heard before

fifty-six.

That evening, Taylor is relieved to sit down at the dinner table knowing that her meeting with the lawyer went a lot better than the doctor's appointment in the morning. Not that she had expected the doctor's appointment to go differently than it did, but it still certainly caused her stress.

The lawyer wasn't fazed at all by anything that Taylor had to say and assured her that, when the time came, they had an extremely solid case that they will win. She's expecting a call any day now regarding the date that is going to be set for the trial. Though she's dreading it, she's also deeply looking forward to getting it over with.

Taylor now has one more hurdle to jump over before the day's end: she has to talk with Ayla about what happened at the pediatrician's office this morning. Luckily, just as promised, Joe has her back on this one.

So, as they're sitting around the IKEA dining table, eating takeout fried rice that Joe ordered for them, Taylor takes a deep breath and begins to speak to her daughter.

"Ayla honey, can the three of us have a big girl conversation?"

A look of panic crosses Ayla's face. "What is it?"

"It's about the doctor's this morning."

"Is there something wrong with me?" she instantly asks in a tiny voice.

"No, no, sweetie, absolutely nothing is wrong with you," Taylor assures her daughter,  feeling like she is being stabbed in the gut upon hearing Ayla ask that. "Do you remember when the doctor asked you a bunch of questions?"

"Yeah."

"That was a screening for something called an anxiety disorder." Taylor swallows. She looks to Joe, who gives her a little smile and encouraging nod. She can do this, and he knows it. "It's perfectly normal. Lots of people have it, and the doctor thinks that you do too. I had a suspicion about it, which is why I took you to Louise a little while back, and then to the doctor today."

Taylor watches as tears well up in Ayla's eyes. "Am I going to die?" she asks, her voice so soft that Taylor can barely hear it from across the table.

"Oh my god. No, no, no," Taylor says, standing up and walking over to her little girl, wrapping her into a hug from behind. "It's not a sickness like the flu or anything like that. It means that your feelings are sick, and we are going to make sure that they get better, okay?"

"Oh, okay.."

"We are going to go see a special doctor called a therapist, and they are going to be just like Louise, but they're going to be nicer. They're going to help you to feel better, and you probably won't need medicine, and they won't need to do anything that doctors do, like listening to your heart or taking your temperature. All that you're going to have to do is sit in a chair and talk to them, and be really, really honest about things that you're feeling. Does that sound okay?"

"I guess so..." Ayla says, stabbing aimlessly at the food on her plate.

Taylor sighs. It's a really complicated thing for her to explain to a child, as clever as Ayla is. She walks back around to her seat and sits, defeated.

At this point, Joe senses that Taylor has hit a brick wall, and he jumps in. "Ayla, this doesn't mean that your mum loves you any less, or that I love you any less. All that it means is that you need a little bit of help, which is fine. I've needed help with my feelings sometimes too, and I know your mum has felt the same way, but neither of us have ever really gotten the help that we've needed, which I think we both regret. We don't want you to struggle in the same way that we have."

Taylor is so thankful for Joe bringing that up.

"You can ask either of us any questions that you have, at any time, okay?" he adds on.