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.”

complicated,” I said gently. “But surely she’d want to

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Chapter 70

alive and

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

her?”

“Did you? Abandon her?”

leave her.” The pain in her voice was raw enough to make me choke up. “But circumstances… sometimes

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?”

though I don’t remember her at all, I think about her every single day. I wonder what her voice sounded like, what her

and told me my mother was actually alive somewhere, watching over me, caring about me… it would be the

shock, her face pale and

“Ella, 1-”

for the young lady, and clam chowder

he was gone, and I asked what she 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, and

visited, plans for the upcoming week, anything to give us both a

meal when our waiter approached with a cocktail on his

me, miss,” he said, setting the drink in front

my direction. He looked to be in his thirties, reasonably attractive, with dark hair

a sham of a marriage. And I didn’t make a habit

then I thought about everything that had been happening lately. I was dying, potentially

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Gay, 20 Aug

3

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Chapter 70

years of age, and I’d spent the last five years of my life living like a nun, following all the rules, being the perfect Luna wife while my

I was so focused on being proper? How many simple pleasures