Chapter 15 - COFFEE BETWEEN TWO MOTHERSThe second coffee meeting lasted two hours.
No one intended it to.
Rachel arrived with a notebook.
Elena mocked her immediately.
“You brought notes?”
“I have children. My brain stopped storing information in 2017.”
“Fair.”
They sat near the same window.
This time there was no awkwardness.
Elena began.
“Question one: If God loves everybody, why do churches fight?”
Rachel stared into her coffee.
“How much time do we have?”
“Apparently two thousand years.”
They both laughed.
Then Rachel said:
“Maybe start with people.”
“What do you mean?”
“Churches are full of people.”
“Profound.”
“Wait.”
Rachel smiled.
“People fight about things they care about. Sometimes because the thing really matters. Sometimes because pride gets mixed in. Sometimes because fear does.”
Elena nodded.
“I can tell Clara that.”
“Me too.”
“Question two is harder.”
“How do people know what's true?”
They sat quietly.
Elena finally said:
“We study.”
“Pray.”
“Think.”
“Listen.”
“Read.”
“Talk to people we disagree with.”
Rachel raised her cup.
“That last one is apparently new for us.”
Elena laughed.
Then became serious.
“And sometimes we still don't agree.”
“Yes.”
“Will that scare them?”
“Maybe.”
“Did it scare you as a child?”
Rachel thought back.
“My family didn't talk much about uncertainty.”
“Mine either.”
“My grandmother loved questions, though.”
“The one who gave Noah the Bible?”
“Yes.”
Rachel smiled.
“She wrote inside it, ‘Keep asking questions. God is not afraid of them.’”
Elena went still.
“I like that.”
“Me too.”
“Did she actually live that way?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“She had opinions.”
Elena smiled.
“Grandmothers do.”
The conversation drifted toward their own childhoods.
Elena described Catholic school.
May processions.
Christmas Mass.
Her grandmother's rosary beads sliding through fingers.
The smell of incense.
The comfort of ritual.
Rachel described summer Bible camp.
Church picnics.
Her mother singing hymns while washing dishes.
Her father praying before long road trips.
Neither story sounded foreign once stripped of labels.
Both were memories of family.
Belonging.
Fear.
Love.
Rachel said:
“I used to think Catholics were very different.”
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“We are very mysterious.”
“I noticed.”
“What changed?”
“You.”
Elena laughed softly.
“That's disappointingly sentimental.”
“Sorry.”
“No. I mean it.”
Rachel looked out the window.
“I knew Catholics before. Coworkers. Neighbors.”
“But?”
“I didn't have to explain my faith to them while our children compared medical recoveries.”
“Very specific friendship requirement.”
“Extremely.”
Elena smiled.
Then she told Rachel something she had not told Daniel.
“When Clara's legs were at their worst, I got angry at God.”
Rachel looked at her.
“Really?”
“I'd pray beautifully at church.”
She stared at the table.
“Then I'd sit in the car and say horrible things.”
“What things?”
“That it wasn't fair.”
Rachel nodded.
“That I had done everything right.”
Rachel's expression changed.
Elena looked up.
“You too?”
“Oh yes.”
They laughed sadly.
“I thought if I prayed faithfully enough, maybe I could control the outcome.”
Rachel spoke slowly.
“I'd never have admitted that at the time.”
“Same.”
“When Noah improved, part of me felt relief.”
“Of course.”
“But another part felt…”
Rachel searched for the word.
“Vindicated.”
Elena understood immediately.
“As if your prayers had worked.”
“Yes.”
“And therefore?”
Rachel shook her head.
“I don't know. Maybe I wanted it to prove something.”
Elena whispered:
“Me too.”
That realization changed the room.
Neither woman had deliberately taught her child superiority.
But both had privately wanted the recovery to confirm that their trust had been justified.
Children had sensed that confidence.
They had simply drawn the line farther.
Rachel leaned forward.
“Maybe we need to tell them that.”
“All of it?”
“Not every detail.”
“Thank goodness.”
“But enough.”
Elena nodded.
“Children inherit more than beliefs.”
“What else?”
“Our need to be certain.”
Rachel looked at her.
“That belongs on the list.”
Elena took the notebook and wrote:
THE THINGS CHILDREN INHERIT
Then beneath it:
Faith.
Tradition.
Questions.
Fear.
Certainty.
Rachel added one more word.
Humility.
Elena looked at it.
“Can they inherit that?”
Rachel smiled.
“Only if they see us practice it.”
May you like
For the first time, both women understood the next part of the story would not be about what Noah and Clara learned.
It would be about what the adults were willing to model.
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