As I signal for a right turn, I look in the rear view mirror and that’s when I see it. I see my own face in her face. I see the furrowed brows, the crease between the eyebrows. My heart stops, and I want to run.

I want to run away from the woman who has blamed the world without stopping to say thank you if only once in a blue moon. But I’m being drawn in. In to the woman who wasn’t ready for marriage. For kids. For this kind of life. The woman who was stripped of every dream she had. The woman who let things slip away because self pity is always easier than change.

I look back at the road, and all I can see is the unfortunate town that has increased the depth of the crease in her forehead. It’s people, it’s hole-in-the wall eateries, it’s all too familiar scents of “home” – it’s all there’s left.

Her frown only shifts downward, and I feel my own self dropping to the bottom of my seat. And somehow, I know. I know that the only way out is living the dreams through the children. But no one wants to live their life for someone else. And she says she’ll die soon enough anyway. What’s left for a heart that harbors absolutely nothing?

When I give up, I feel his hand on my forehead. With a gentle finger, he’s there in the passenger seat, rubbing out the crease between my eyebrows and I can’t help but smile.

I look back at the rear view mirror, and while I wish things were different, I find comfort knowing my life is not hanging onto her frown or her perceptions of what I should do.

It’s almost silly that his nearly flawless forehead reminds me that dreams are possible. That I won’t be that woman. That no one will ever be her. That my dreams are my own, shared with his, and he’d never let me frown so hopelessly.

I finally stop the car, and when we walk out, I can’t help but let my arm curl around her shoulder, hoping that there’s still a fire left in the chambers of her heart.