Even though I don't want to, Jeanne is sitting to my right during Mathilde's surgery. For one, I have no one I can trust enough to take care of her except Ian, and he's sitting to my left, his hand holding mine tightly. There's also the fact that Jeanne wouldn't allow me to leave her out of this when her Granny's leg "is being chopped down". That's how Mathilde explained it to her, and then she proceeded to answer four million questions, because let's not forget that Jeanne is a six-year-old girl with many, many things she wants to know.

"Is she going to be okay?" She asks me because she's just like me and can't be too sure.

"Didn't she tell you it would be fine like seven hundred times?" I answer in my most motherly tone, because like I said, I can't be too sure and I'm really in need of some stray hunter shooting me with a tranquilizer dart.

"I don't know, Mom. I don't like this place." Her voice is grim now as she examines her own kicking feet.

"I know. I don't like it either. But Granny needs to be here for this, honey."

"I still don't like it." Her voice is now a mumble, and her legs go still. "This is a place where people come to die."

"Jeanne!"

"It's true!" She reacts, lifting her eyes to me. "Granny keeps saying that."

"Actually that's wrong, Jeanne." Ian finally joins the conversation, saving me. Jeanne looks at him with pursed lips and wearing Mathilde's usual frown, and I can't believe how much of her rubbed down on my daughter. Even her mean tone is a perfect copy of Mathilde's as she accuses Ian.

"Are you saying my Granny is a liar?"

"Of course not, Jeanne." He replies quickly, chuckling lightly. "I'm saying she's only half right."

This gets her attention and, her frown isn't angry anymore.

"How's it possible to be half right, Mr. McAllister?"

"Well, let me tell you this: Granny is right about people dying here." This makes me gape at him, and I really want to say something about it, but I give him a chance to fix this. "But people don't come to the hospital to die, sweetie. People come here to avoid dying, like Granny did today."

He smiles at Jeanne, and I can see the way she smiles back at him. He's won her over ever since that first day at the supermarket, and he's once again proving why. There's the easy way he talks to her, his everlasting smile, his patience to answer all her complicated questions. There's this way he narrows his eyes when looking at her, and they glimmer with some love even her father failed to show. Ian is an awesome man, and it doesn't scare me to say I'm falling in love with him.

Soon enough one surgeon come out of the room, and to our big relief,tells us it was a big success. I can't ignore how Jeanne hugs Ian first when weget the good news.