Hi, it’s me!  Lily!

So, Sabby read yesterday’s diary.  I don’t know why I keep doing that.  Maybe I want her to see it.  I don’t know.  Truth is, I wasn’t too hurt, but I was a little bit hurt.  I had a question, and she didn’t answer it.

Before school, she told me that she thought the Bible study was a bad idea and she probably shouldn’t have done it.

“Why?  Did you hate my question that much?”

She hung her head.  I’d never seen her quite like that.  She looked a little…  vulnerable.

“No, Lily.  I didn’t hate it.  I couldn’t answer it.”

“So you just shut it down?  You could have just said ‘I don’t know'”, I said, with just a touch of bitterness in my voice.  “There’s lots of things I don’t know, you don’t have to know everything.”

“It’s not that,” she said, with the same touch of bitterness in her voice.  “Your question was a good one.  It was too good.  How am I supposed to answer that?  Even ‘I don’t know’ wouldn’t have been a good answer, because then… then I’d be admitting I follow something I don’t understand.”

I was quiet for a bit.  “You don’t like to look weak, do you, Sabby?”

“I don’t care about looking weak, I don’t want to be weak.  Especially… especially in front of you.”

I was surprised.  “Me?”

She sighed.  “I raised Beth and David from babies.  Of course I did, because they came from me.  I don’t have anything to prove to them.  I’m their mother.  But you…  you don’t have to like me.  You don’t have to respect…”

I glomped her.  “You’re my mother too.”

“I am, but…”

“Stop it!,” I said with a raised voice, and let her go.  “Just stop it!  Don’t you remember what I said to the judge?  That if I could get my memories back, I’d want you to be my real mother too?  Just… stop.  If you don’t know, you don’t know, but don’t shut me down because you don’t know something!  You see me weak all the time!  Let me see you weak too!  It…”  I sighed.  “It means a lot to me.”

She was quiet.  “I don’t know how to answer your question.  I…  I have doubts too,” she said quietly.  “I have faith, but…  I don’t always have faith.  I don’t understand it… the Bible, I mean.”

“Then why do you…”

“Because I have nothing else!,” she nearly shouted.  “I’ve got no other answers!  Life is hard, don’t you see that?  Of course you do…  Of course you do.”  She put her head in her hands and sobbed.  “Look who I’m talking to, asking her if she sees life is hard…” she chuckled darkly, tears in her eyes.

I rubbed her back.  “Do you remember that movie, Contact?”

She was silent.

I recited as best as I could from memory.  “Your species is an interesting mix.  You are capable of the most beautiful dreams, and the most horrible nightmares.  You see, Ellie, in all our travels, we have found that the only thing that makes the emptiness bearable… is each other.”

She looked at me.  I’d never seen her look so lost.  Then she grabbed me and held me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.

“Sabby… air…”, I gasped.  She relaxed her grip a little but didn’t let me go.

“No more Bible studies,” she said.

“No more Bible studies,” I repeated.

“But,” she said, “if you’re reading it and you get some kind of an answer…” her lip quivered… “tell me, okay?”

I nodded.

“I love my family,” she said.  “I love Dave, and Beth, and David, and… you.  And the cat.  But…  maybe you’re the most like me.  Or maybe I just want you to be the most like me.”

I was quiet for a bit.  “Being an orphan…  you haven’t forgotten, have you?”

She shook her head.  “And I never will.”

“The only thing that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”

She sighed.  “I’m sorry, Lily.”

“I love you, Sabby.”

She kissed my forehead.  “And I you.  Thank you.”

We stood up, and school started.

Love you all!!! ❤️