Logs:Seeking After Signs

Seeking After Signs
Dramatis Personae Grace, Lily	early april, 2020 "What's the point of families if we don't help each other?"
Location <UT> Allred Household, Woods Cross -- Utah
The sewing machine has jammed, again -- probably anyone currently on this floor of the Allred house has heard Lily curse, unSaintlike, at the machine already, though Maddie has promised she hasn't snitched to their parents. Probably, nobody wants to have that conversation -- there is enough ambient irritation in the house already, enough nerves jamming up against each other in crowded quarters. Downstairs, six children are fighting for the wifi for Zoom School for hours. At least right now, the Allreds attending Zoom University or Zoom Grad School are not also straining the modem, a small blessing in troubled times. Upstairs, Lily has claw-clipped her hair out of her face, pushed up the sleeves of her black turtleneck, and tied her skirt up so it's not catching on the legs of this ancient desk chair. Right now, she's taking a break from turning scraps of old Girls Camp tee shirts into face masks to argue with her sister on videochat. "-- No of course we want to meet Brayden," she's saying, "but safely, he's a newborn he's hardly got an immune system yet, what if -- Ivy, love, you're breaking up, can you get -- it might be our connection, I can call --" The phone hangs up.- Lily presses her palms into her eye sockets for a long moment before swiping out a "I'll call you back" message. There's a knock at the door -- "S'open," she calls before turning to look. "Oh, shi---oot, do you need the desk for class? I can move this." When the door opens it's only Gracie's head that peeks through, her expression apologetic. "No, no," she says quickly, before adding "--I'm done for today." She hovers in the doorway for a moment, brushing her long hair out of her face with the sleeve of her loose walnut-colored sweater, before pushing it a little further open. A large purple folder she's got pressed to her chest underneath her left arm comes into view with the rest of her body. "...Whatcha making?" "Oh, good." Lily is still frowning at the elastics, the thread, the rectangles of fabric, though she's no longer moving to brush them into the basket at the side of the desk. "These are going to be masks, I think, they won't be nearly as good as N95s but…" Lily trails off with a worried glance at her little sister – probably Gracie doesn't need the impromptu virology lesson again, given how many times Lily has already shared it. "It'll keep you all safer." She looks back up, eyes catching on the folder in Gracie's hand. "What's that?" Gracie's looking at the strewn materials now too; her giggle is brief but controlled. "Better than leaving them at the bottom of a drawer!" she smiles brightly. "I think most of the boys'll just try to stay outside though. It's been pretty warm since the last storm passed, it's nice weather for driveway basketball." She looks down at the envelope, brow furrowing. "Oh, it's my mission call! I printed it all out. I thought maybe holding the papers would help me figure out what to do." Lily's smile is less bright than her sister's, smaller, and fades away like sun disappearing behind storm clouds when Gracie says what the folder is. "Ah," she says, serious now. "That's – big." Her brows furrow together. "Figure out?" she echoes. Her eyes lift to the open door behind Gracie. "Do you want to – talk. About it." Here she sounds unsure. "Yeah." There's hesitation in Gracie's voice that's punctuated by a light wavering of her hands in tight circles in front of her, before she follows Lily's glance toward the door. After a moment, she pushes back on it until it clicks shut, then seats herself on the edge of one of the twin-sized beds, sinking just slightly into the strawberry-bedecked bedspread. "Yeah, oh–" she backs up this train of thought, "maybe you haven't heard about the letter from the First Presidency? They announced last Tuesday that those of us under call can either report to online MTC on our normal dates and maybe have a temporary assignment or delay for twelve to eighteen months. Mom says I have time until the end of the month but..." this last line is delivered more mutedly, "...I haven't been able to think about much else since. I don't know what's best." Her voice trails off under downcast eyes. "Mm." Lily hasn't heard, Gracie can tell in the way her eldest sister's lips compress, the way her eyes ever so slightly widen. "That's – not a decision many people have had to make." Her brows are crumpling further. "What are you weighing?" A little more cautious – "Are you asking me, or do you want me to listen?" "No," Gracie replies in a small voice. "Challenging times, right? We're not supposed to have trials we can't handle, though." Is Gracie saying this to convince her sister or herself? Whichever it is, she doesn't look that convinced; her mouth is twisting a little as she looks down at the folder nestled in her arms. When she looks up again, she looks at Lily a little strangely, like she's not someone she's known all her life, and doesn't answer the question. Instead she asks, "Do -- you ever wonder what it would’ve been like if you'd gone?" Lily twists further in her chair – her skirt snags once again on the legs. She scowls ever so briefly – at the question? at the skirt? Probably at the chair that she's abandoning. Lily settles onto the bedspread, a little ways from Gracie but still near enough to touch. "Sometimes," she says after a quiet moment. "I –" Her eyes lift to Gracie's face, studying that twist in her expression. "I don't regret it, though." Gracie looks a little surprised when Lily moves over to the bed, but she shifts her posture in her direction obediently. She studies her sister's face and then drops her eyes, setting the folder to the other side with a sigh and folding her hands in her lap. "I know ‘’loads’’ of people who say it strengthened their faith, so I think I should just try. But maybe my uncertainty means I'm not ready, and I'm meant to take this option as a sign? And maybe it would be better if I helped out here, with all the boys, like -- Mom and Maddie don't have time to help them all through Zoom school." Once the tap opens, her words tumble out in a bit of a rush, picking up speed. Lily's lip press into a thin, unhappy line as Gracie speaks, though there's no noticeable place this starts. "The boys are old enough," comes sharp, "to figure it out on their own, after a point. You don't need to put your life on hold for them." She glances downwards into her own lap, and unclenches the curled fists she finds there one finger at a time. "...If there was no virus. Would you want to go?" Gracie stares at Lily, drawing back just slightly at the edge in her voice. "Half of them are in elementary school, it's not normal to be stuck without their friends and barely seeing their teachers," she protests, then adds, "what's the point of families if we don't help each other?" There's some kind of fervent tension in her words. Perhaps realizing the degree to which she has contradicted a sister she has always tried to defer to, Gracie falls silent suddenly. "I think I should," she repeats, more hesitantly. Lily has no comment on the subject of families, but after a moment longer her posture is slowly easing. "Should isn't the same as want," is gentler. "It's nice when they're the same thing, but they aren't, always. If you are uncertain about going, about going now…" Here she trails off, glancing at the closed door. "You know," she says, quieter, almost nervous, "I'm not going to have any advice about what Heavenly Father wants you to do, right?" "I want to do the right thing, though," Gracie murmurs, although her drawn-together eyebrows suggest that she is, at least, giving consideration to Lily's statement. When she speaks again, though, she's falling back on, "I wish the Spirit would just give me a sign. Maybe my prayers aren’t sincere enough…" At Lily's last sentence, her fallen face rearranges into an equally nervous glance towards her sister, and then away, towards the sewing machine. Her hands raise up in front of her for a moment, pressed together and pointing in Lily’s direction. "...Why did you..." She stops, starts again, returns her gaze to Lily through her eyelashes, fingers interlacing and falling back to her lap in a tight grip. "You don't believe...any of it, anymore?" She doesn’t sound accusatory – she sounds a little scared. Lily is still for a moment before, very slowly, she shakes her head. "I had doubts for a long time. I don't think, for me, going on mission would have changed that." Her eyes have settled on Gracie's hands. "That doesn't mean it won't for you. I also don't know if that makes it the right thing." Her own hands are folding together. "I don't think there is a right or wrong thing, here. Just – things that might make you happy, or fulfilled, and things that might not." Gracie's face crumples inwards, a little, and she drops her gaze to her hands. "Did you," she starts to push, the accusation creeping in for a moment, but then she stops, gaze falling again to her fingers, unlacing with difficulty and curling into little fists. "I don't wanna lose you forever," she says instead in a small voice, her tongue pressing to the back of her teeth for too before her mouth closes and she swallows it down. She flattens her palms against the fabric of her skirt, looking back towards the folder. "Happy..." She curls her hand around it again, then forces a smile onto her face. "I'll think about it," she promises. Probably nobody outside this household could see the heartbreak betrayed by that small swallow at Lily's throat, the twitch of her lips. "I know," she says. Not I'm sorry, not You're not losing me, just "I know," twice, now, as if that acknowledgement could soften the fear in her sister's voice. "I think you'll make your right choice, whatever it is." Lily pushes off the bed – leans down to hug her sister, quick, tight. "Either way, I'll be here for you."