How Green Becomes Wood

"Sally, you don't have to worry about me removing myself too far from death." Daizi replied succinctly. She wasn't trying to be rude or to shut down conversation, in her opinion she was just being honest. She was very familiar with death. "Do you remember we were supposed to get Brunch the day after Ivy was born, before we knew we had scheduled it for the day after she was born? I told you it'd be awhile before we'd be able to reschedule." She also remembered telling Sally she'd just about reached the end of when she was unstable, and Sally telling her she'd only reached the end of that phase of instability. If she hadn't disowned her own father less than a week ago, the memory might've made her laugh.
 
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"Oh, I know that. I have been in your house," Sally remarked with a little smirk. "I do remember that. It seems your have been finding new layers, but that is how life goes sometimes." She got out and opened the door for Daizi. "There is a quiet little booth at the far back, but the chairs are sometimes quite close together in the walkway. I do not know what they were thinking with that layout. Stay close to me."
 
Daizi held to Sally somewhat tightly as they navigated the chairs but managed to make it to the booth only bumping into one, "I don't know how you'd be able to be able to navigate this place if you were in a wheelchair."
 
"I guess you don't," Sally said a touch peevishly. "The accessibility act apparently does not cover anything beyond reaching the front door." She carefully pulled Daizi forward a little. "The booth is on your right. It is a little low." She waited until Daizi was seated before sitting across from her. "At least it is quiet here. The menu is a little large. Where would you like for me to start reading?"
 
"Believe me, I'm more than familiar with people doing as little as possible to be technically in compliance," Daizi replied, "You may as well start. One day I'll find a restaurant that only has braille menu and then you'll all need to be read to."
 
"I look forward to that day," Sally said. She looked over the menu and read off the different sections before going back to the beginning and carefully and slowly reading each item off to Daizi. She was happy to go as slow as Daizi needed and reread anything Daizi requested. She made some commentary on the pictures, whether or not they looked like the description or not.
 
It didn't take long for Daizi to decide on what she wanted to order and then she sat back with a quiet sigh, "One good thing about having to listen to someone read the menu is we never get too caught up in talking to remember choose what we want to eat."
 
Sally chuckled as she cast her gaze over the menu one more time before deciding. "How dare you call me out on my biggest failure when going out." The server came over then, and she gave him her order first. She waited for Daizi to place her order, and when the server was gone, she leaned forward again. "How have you been feeling?"
 
"It's the failing of many people when they go out, including myself when they actually have a menu I can read," Daizi replied with a little chuckle, placing her order after Sally. Then, at her question, she paused awkwardly, turning her face away, "I've been... I've been okay, I think." She paused again, "I got into a bit of an argument with my father, but other than that, I'm okay."
 
"Well, it started with him realizing Dark quit his job," Daizi answered, feeling almost like she was reporting to the principal, "Then we just sort of... got into it, I guess. I said things I probably shouldn't have, and he---" She swallowed hard and glanced away.
 
Sally reached out and covered Daizi's hand with her own. "If you don't want to tell me, I will not pressure you, but I feel like perhaps talking about it might be helpful. No matter what, Darling, you are my friend, and I support you," she said gently.
 
"He said I'm emotional and selfish and that he's--" She swallowed hard to try to bite back the tears that sprang to her eyes as she relived the conversation, "That he's glad my mother isn't here to see... who I am, I guess."
 
Sally's hand tightened on Daizi's, and her lips thinned so tightly they nearly disappeared. She gave herself a moment to breathe, forcing herself to calm down. "You are emotional, but so are the vast majority of people," she remarked, calm and gentle. "Those that are not emotional are usually called sociopathic or similar and are looked upon with great concern. It is a good thing to be emotional, and if he chose to say such a thing about your mother," she had to pause again for a moment, "it sounds as though you were not the only emotional person in that argument. As for selfish?" She clicked her tongue. "Love, you are one of the least selfish people I know. You are so kind, giving, and unselfish that you would hurt yourself before you would ever focus on yourself. You are truly selfless to a fault, and every person who loves you loves that about you. I do not know who your mother was, so I cannot say that I know how she would react, but surely the mother of someone as precious as you could not be disappointed in you. What he said was an emotional and selfish way to lash out and hurt you. Everything he accused you of being, he was himself."
 
Daizi took a rough, trembling breath as she listened to Sally, struggling to not begin to cry right there in the middle of the restaurant, "He told me that I just keep making choices based on what would make me happy without thinking about how the affect other people, or how they embarrass others, and that I leave other people to clean up my messes." She swallowed again, grateful for her dark sunglasses, "And I don't know my mother, either. So I don't know if she'd---I don't know what she'd say about me."
 
"Let me think about the choices you have made while we have known each other," Sally said in a musing tone that was only slightly exaggerated. "Of course, the biggest and most obvious choice was the one to take in a pair of traumatized teen boys and shelter them as best as you could while ensuring they would not return to the winter storm. Yes, very focused on your own happiness. You spoke to me when I was overreacting to my own teen's drama and helped to calm me down. Very selfish. You faced the, from what I hear, arrogant and potentially narcissistic father of those teenage boys and tried to play nice so he would have a relationship with them. Again, very focused on yourself. You saw how unhappy your husband was working away from home and away from his first baby girl, so you helped him to quit while you continued to work so he might be allowed to stay home. Again, completely focused on your own happiness. You went with someone you barely knew to a work function in order to help them not stand out. How could you do that? Yes, yes, you really do focus on your own happiness. I see that now."
 
"But I took them in because I wanted to be a mother so badly," Daizi said, "I wanted it, and I love them and Ivy so much, and so much of it is wonderful, but Sally, it's awful. I did it all because I wanted it so badly, but I'm scared all the time. I have these moments that are so beautiful and it's like feeling the sunlight for the first time after a long, cold winter, but the rest of the time I'm scared and tired and I feel like I'm failing. And I wonder if, maybe, if I had thought about it more--- I don't regret it. I don't. But I just do things, then I cry, and then the twins feel like they're responsible for me, and I just hurt them. And I'm so tired and I'm trying so hard to make things okay."
 
"Deep breath, Daizi," Sally said, worried Daizi was working herself up too much. After a moment, she asked, "Would you have made the boys stay if they did not want to? More accurately, if they did not want to and if they had somewhere safe to go. If you had tried to force them to stay or trick them, that would have been selfish. It is not selfish to want something. You hoped to be a mother, you did things that gave you a chance to succeed in that, and it worked out. That is not selfish. That is hope and love. But... why are you scared, love? What is it that has you so frightened?"
 
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