The sickened luna’s last chance

Chapter 70

Ella

The restaurant was cozy and warm, with soft lighting that made everything feel intimate and comfortable. We got a table by the window, and I could see people walking by on the street outside, laughing and holding hands and swinging their shopping bags.

Real families. Real couples.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Lilith as soon as we’d ordered our food. “I didn’t mean to pry about your past. That was

rude of me.”

Lilith shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just… complicated.”

I waited, not wanting to push again but hoping she’d continue.

“The truth is,” she said, looking down at her hands, “I do view you as a daughter. More than that, actually. You are a daughter to me, Ella. The daughter I never got to raise.” She sniffled and hesitated for a long moment, then whispered, “I did have a child. A little girl.”

My eyebrows shot up. This was the first time I had ever heard of Lilith having a child. I’d always wondered, but she had never mentioned having a daughter, not even once. If anything, I’d thought that she had simply never married and had kids.

“Did something happen to her?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“She’s alive,” Lilith said quickly. “She’s alive and well. She just… she doesn’t know about me.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She hasn’t seen me since she was a baby. Less than a year old.” Lilith sighed and tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear. “But I’ve been watching over her, unbeknownst to her, all these years. Making sure she’s safe, making sure she’s happy.” She laughed bitterly. “Although sometimes I don’t think I’ve done the best job of that.”

“So you watch her, but she doesn’t know you’re there?”

Lilith nodded sadly. “Something like that. We’ve actually interacted before, many times, but she has no idea

who I really am.”

That took me by surprise. Was she too shy to admit who she was? “Lilith, why haven’t you told her who you

are?” I asked.

“It’s complicated.”

she’d want

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Chapter 70

alive and that you care

again. “I don’t know. What if she hates me? What if she thinks I

her?”

“Did you? Abandon her?”

her voice was raw enough

sure what that meant, but it didn’t matter. “Then tell her that,” I said. “Explain what happened. Lilith, take it from someone who never got to meet her mother–she would want to know you. Even if it’s

“You think so?”

I was a baby, just like your daughter was when you last saw her. And even though I don’t remember her at all, I think about her every single day. I wonder what her voice sounded like, what her laugh was like, whether she would have been proud

now. “If someone came to me tomorrow and told me my mother was actually alive somewhere, watching over me, caring about me… it would be the best day of

and her eyes filled with an emotion that I couldn’t quite

“Ella, 1-”

I’ve got a club sandwich for the

was going to tell me, she just waved her hand and said she couldn’t remember. I took it as a sign that I had exhausted the conversation,

that, we spent the next half hour talking about lighter things–the shops we’d visited, plans for the upcoming week, anything to give us both a

was halfway through my meal when our waiter approached with a cocktail on his

the drink in front of me. “This is from

saw a man sitting alone, raising his own glass in my direction. He looked

was to refuse. I was married, after all, even if it was a sham of

about everything that had been happening lately. I

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Gay, 20 Aug

3

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Chapter 70

five years of my life living like a

focused on being proper? How many simple pleasures