Page 97 of The Scars We Heal

At first, Whitley started stirring the mixture too aggressively, and a little bit of flour came out of the bowl, but she got the hang of it after we helped her, and soon our dough was mixed to the right shaggy consistency.

I kneaded the dough, then we covered the bowl with plastic wrap so it could sit on the counter and rise.

“What now?” Whitley asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Hmm…” Caitlin tapped her lips. “How about chocolate chip cookies?”

A squeal of delight flew from Whitley’s lips, and she started bouncing up and down excitedly.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I chuckled, warmth filling my chest. This was the kind of thing I wanted to do every day for the rest of my life. I could die a happy man knowing my girls were safe and having fun.

The three of us worked in tandem to make the cookies. Well, at least Caitlin and I worked in tandem, one of us always helping Whitley with whatever task she wanted to help with. I showed her how to crack eggs into the bowl, and even though we ended up with a few eggs on the floor and some smashed shells, the important ones made it into the dough. Caitlin helped her mix in the chocolate chips—although I was confident half the bag made it into Whitley’s mouth instead—and we both helped scoop the cookie dough out onto the baking sheet.

By the time the oven had preheated and our first batch of cookies was out of the oven, we were ready to start shaping our pizza dough and add the toppings. The oven temperature needed to be turned up, so we decided to bake the rest of the cookies later.

“I want mine to look like a dinosaur!” Whitley mimicked a T-Rex roar, tucking her arms into her body like a dinosaur.

A bright laugh bubbled out of Caitlin, and I stole a glance at her. Her eyes shone with pride, and a smile played on her lips. I was still staring when she turned her head toward me. Her brows rose as though asking me what I was looking at, but all I did was shoot her a wink.

“Mommy, can I make it into a dinosaur?”

“Sure, maybe Jake can help you with that,” Caitlin teased.

I wasn’t a sculptor or an artist by any means, but I could at least try. “Come on, bug, let’s go over to the kitchen table so we have more space.” I lifted her off the ground from her armpits and tucked her close against my body, walking us over to the table.

Caitlin followed with a ball of dough and some flour to sprinkle under it.

Rolling my lips, I tried to imagine what a pizza dinosaur would look like.

“What kind of dinosaur do you want?” I asked, wanting to make sure I had the right one before I started.

“T-Rex!” she shouted.

“Shh.” I laughed. “Inside voices, yeah?”

She giggled then nodded. “I want to make mine a T-Rex.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

With a little trial and error, I managed to shape the dough into a dinosaur-looking shape. I couldn’t promise it would look good once it was cooked, but it didn’t look like a blob.

“How’s it going over there, darlin’?” I looked over my shoulder at Caitlin.

She threw me a thumbs-up. “It’s good! How’s the dino-shaping?”

“It looks perfect, if you ask me,” I said.

Whitley piped up, adding, “I love it, Mommy!”

“Are we ready to add some toppings, then?” she asked, bringing over a couple pizza pans with personal-sized pizza dough spread out on them. She also grabbed the toppings we’d bought from the store: pepperoni, bacon bits, sausage, olives, tomatoes, spinach, and of course, cheese and pizza sauce.

I spread a thin layer of pizza sauce on each piece of dough then sprinkled cheese on my designated pizza. Meanwhile, Whitley dumped a mountain of cheese on her pizza and tossed on what looked like half of the bag of pepperoni. Both Caitlin and I ended up sneaking some of her pepperoni onto ours.

“Looks good.”

We all admired our pizzas before I carefully put them all in the oven.

The radio had been playing softly in the background, but my ears perked up when I heard the opening notes of “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” start to play.