Page 69 of The Pacifist
“Yes, of course.”
Lilly left her purse on the chair and walked over with open arms. Anne stood up and turned to her and the two women hugged.
“Don’t you doubt for one second that you’re loved,” Lilly whispered to her and from Anne’s shoulders I could tell she was crying hard.
“Here, let me pull a chair over for you.” Missy moved a chair between her and Anne and encouraged Lilly to keep holding Anne’s hand as they sat down.
“I can understand how alone you must have felt for all those years and then to be rejected again…” Missy gave Anne a sympathetic smile. “But it doesn’t change the fact that your actions were reckless and harmful to others.”
Anne used her sleeve to dry her eyes and took the tissue my mother gave her to blow her nose.
“May I speak?” I asked.
“Yes, of course, Jonah. I would love to know how you feel about this turn of events.”
“I’m sorry that Anne felt rejected, but there are still holes in her story. You’ve given us your motive for coming to the house, and explained that it wasn’t your intention to burn down the storage building. You even claim that you intended to wake us up and only left when you saw lights being turned on inside the house. But what about all the interviews with your accusations? You’ve done far more than hurt Cole. There’s a big chance that you’ve destroyed my future on the Council and Emanuela’s career as a professional soccer player. What did we ever do to you?”
“You took his side.” Anne couldn’t look at me.
“Anne, do you hear yourself?” I kept my gaze locked on her and leaned forward, placing my elbows on my thighs. “I can forgive your immature and inconsiderate actions as a teenager, but you’re twenty-two now, and you still think everything is about you.”
In a small voice, she gave a meek “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, I never meant to hurt anyone but Cole.”
Cole stretched his legs and moved in his seat.
Missy said, “Since we have now established that the root of this conflict is really between Anne and Cole, let me ask you this, Lilly. Can you love them both?”
Lilly brushed a lock of Anne’s hair behind her ear. “I’ve always loved them both. And I’ve reached out over the years.”
“That’s why I responded,” Anne cried.
“All right, I’m going to ask the same question of all of you. Can you find forgiveness and love in your heart?”
I thought about it. “It’s not my natural state to feel resentment, and I can empathize with your pain. Right now, I just have to focus on saving my seat on the Council. I owe that to all the voters who put me there.”
“I voted for you,” Anne said in a low voice.
“So you don’t wish to see Jonah excluded from the council?" Missy asked.
“No.” She gave me a pleading look. “I shouldn’t have said the things I said in the media. But after the fire, I was scared and confused and I didn’t think very far.”
Cole shook his head. “So basically, nothing has changed.”
With the temper of a hormonal teenager, Anne shot back, “I guess not. You still hate me. I don’t expect that to change.”
Everyone was quiet. We were Motlanders and even in our unconventional family a conflict including the word hate was unheard of.
“I don’t hate you,” Cole muttered. “I just don’t understand you. And I wish you had talked to me instead of ruining our lives.”
Lilly was holding Anne in her arms, making soothing sounds to calm her crying.
“What’s going to happen now?” I asked Missy.
“Well, ideally, I’d love you all to forgive each other.”
