Her mother's eyes widened. "Why are you thanking me? I should be the one thanking you. Fate knows I don't deserve you lifting a single finger for me."
Next to Sullha, Burda nodded in agreement.
"You gave birth to me and raised me," Sullha said. "You never lifted a hand to strike me or even raised your voice at me. Given what you were fighting on the inside, that alone was amonumental effort, and you had nothing more to give. I might not have appreciated that when I was younger, but I'm older and wiser now, and I'm well familiar with the demons you were waging war with."
Tears appeared in her mother's eyes. "You are so much braver than me, leaving your heart open for love despite what it costs you. I was too broken to allow myself to feel anything. Not for you, and not for Tomek. I'm still broken, but maybe there is hope for me."
Sullha's eyes prickled with tears. "You will heal. We will heal together." She rose to her feet, crossed the short distance to her mother, and crouched next to her. "I'm going to hug you now, and you are going to allow it."
She didn't wait for an answer before enveloping her mother in her arms.
18
YAAF
Sullha crouched beside her mother, told her that she was about to hug her and, without waiting for a response, did exactly that.
She wrapped her arms around Leehy, and after a moment, the mother's arms wrapped back around her daughter, and the two of them held each other under the darkening sky and the mango trees while the other women witnessed the display with smiling faces and moist eyes.
Yaaf couldn't look away even if he wanted to.
His own mother was dead. Learning about it from Sullha not too long ago had been a more potent blow than it should have been given his history with his mother. The collective had helped him through the pain, but the bulk of it still sat in his stomach like a bad meal.
It wasn't the best analogy, the collective pointed out, but the unease was difficult for him to analyze, even with the others' help. It was a sense of helplessness that the Eight had forgotten they'd ever felt and did not know what to do with.
They had become invincible, or close to it, and yet, they couldn't bring back the dead from beyond the veil or turn back time so Yaaf could have a moment like this with his mother. The finality of her death had never felt as acute as it did now, while watching Sullha and her mother embrace like they probably had never embraced before.
Sullha had said that her mother could heal, that they could heal together, and Yaaf had no doubt that they would. Sullha was a powerhouse, she'd always been one, and he wondered how she could summon so much inner strength given how little she'd been given.
He let out a breath.
If only that strength could extend to him and the way she felt about him. If only she could be strong enough to accept what he had become.
When he and Sullha had been kids, they used to joke that they were like orphans because their mothers were the walking dead. They had formed an honorary orphans' club and had laughed about it because the alternative was letting the helplessness of the situation consume them.
Leehy had a long way to come back from the abyss she'd sunk into decades ago, but Sullha was reaching out, and her mother was responding, and soon the orphans' club was going to have only one surviving member.
Yaaf was glad for Sullha. He knew how much Leehy's indifference had pained her, despite all the jokes. He wanted her to have the mother she'd always wanted, even if she was imperfect and had been mostly absent and would have to learnhow to be present with her daughter in a way she hadn't been before.
He just wished he could have the same.
After a few silent tears had been shed, Sullha let go of Leehy, stood up, and returned to her own mat.
It took her a moment to gather her composure and return to being the woman who was leading the others to freedom.
"We will meet again," Sullha said. "Tomorrow. Same time, same place. There are practical details that need to be discussed, like what you can bring with you and what needs to be left behind, and what to do once it's time to walk out of these gates."
"Is it safe to meet again?" Gindah asked. "Won't that attract attention?"
"The cover of the teaching positions still holds. If anyone asks, Saphira still has a lot of things to talk to you about. We can continue having meetings up to our escape day if we need to."
"It's a good cover," Saphira agreed. "If it were true, I could talk for days and still not get everything covered."
Sullha smiled at her. "Trust me, she could." She turned back to the women. "Tomorrow at six."
The women began to rise, and as Yaaf scanned their thoughts, he was flooded with their emotions. Hope was the dominant one, something none of them had thought they would ever feel, and some of it was gratitude to the sons who hadn't forgotten them. The same sons they hadn't shown love to because they couldn't, because feeling anything would have opened the floodgates of pain and despair. Numbness had made life in the enclosure bearable.
Mirumah stopped next to Sullha and pulled her into a brief, tight hug. When she released her, Mirumah's eyes were wet. She nodded once and walked away.
