Posted by Civilian Jessa Novar (Child) in What we want verses what we have…Commander Rinker…When the past doesn’t match the future or the present

Posted by Commander Heathcliff Rinker (Chief Medical Officer/ Psychiatrist) in What we want verses what we have…Commander Rinker…When the past doesn’t match the future or the present

Posted by Civilian Jessa Novar (Child) in What we want verses what we have…Commander Rinker…When the past doesn’t match the future or the present
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Jessa laid in bed struggling to sleep like most nights recently. The weight of her situation was becoming more real and less fantasy. It was supposed to be a grand adventure with an ending nothing like what she was living now. The plan had been to get on the ship, retrieve the Prism, and then leave. That was three weeks ago. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Jessa tried to not think about how she was still in this backwater corner of space and instead of arriving back to the Union on her way to find her mother. Rolling over, Jessa pulled a pillow to her chest and held it tightly fighting back the urge to sob. “Crying doesn’t solve anything. It is stupid and a waste of time. Doing things solves problems. Fixing problems is how one should spend their time,” she quietly chastised herself.

Her issue was how to fix her problems. Rinker offered to help. Jack would help and if she gave Ian the chance, he would probably jump at returning her to an adult to get her off his hands. Pellan would be coming but none of that mattered right now. Jessa was alone, scared, and giving in to her worst thoughts. Looking around the room only depressed Jessa more. The sick bay was cold and sterile but mentally let Jessa separate herself from the crew. The room she was occupying now was warm and inviting. Whether intentionally meant to make her feel relaxed or a clever manipulation to trust the crew more, the color scheme allowed Jessa a few minutes each day when waking up to forget she was not at home.

Throwing back her covers, Jessa got up and exited her room to the main living space. The quarters were dead silent. Ian and Kelly had gone out for the night and due to her age and the security team constantly monitoring her, there was no need for a babysitter as if she were five. She could easily have opened the door and requested the officers contact Ian but tonight Jessa needed something else. Going back into her room, she rapidly changed her clothes, threw on some shoes, and grabbed the new backpack Kelly had gotten her. Taking a deep breath, Jessa walked to the door of the quarters and opened them.

===========
O’Neill quarters
==========
“What do you mean she is not there?” Jack’s voice cut through the silence of his quarters like a razor as he threw back his covers and began pulling on his clothes. He had not loved the idea of giving up his twenty-four-hour spot on Jessa’s detail however after almost three weeks guarding her, the stress and lack of sleep were getting to him so the four-man team was split into two officers on twelve-hour shifts. Paulson and Beck ran the night shift while he and Reed ran the day shift.
“Sir,” the officer tried to keep a steady tone. “She came to the door about zero one hundred hours complaining she felt sick. We escorted her to the sick bay but there was a medical emergency two seconds after we entered and she must have slipped out,” the security officer on duty snapped back.

“Freaking fantastic,” Jack cursed grabbing his phaser and his boots. “Contact the CO and complete a shipwide scan to locate her. I will be in security command in three.” Jack’s irritation was redlining as he stumbled about getting dressed in the middle of the night like it was some academy drill.

==================================
Commander Heathcliff Rinker’s quarters
==================================
Ten minutes later, at about 0130 hours, a loud banging could be heard on Commander Heathcliff Rinker’s door as Jack’s voice began to bark out the psychiatrist’s name through the comm badge.

Jessa Novar

It wasn’t common for people to bang on doors. Most communication was done by comms and it was far faster than going to whatever location and knocking. It was even more rare for the two things to hapoen at the same time.

“Come,” he called as he tapped his badge resting on his night stand. +^+Rinker=^= There was n’t much he could add since he had no idea what was going on, and the more he talked the longer it took for him to learn something.

Rinker

Jack entered Rinker’s quarters and stood in the living space knowing Heathcliff was most probably getting out of bed. “Heathcliff we have a problem.” He winced slightly hearing his voice echo through his badge, in the next room, and through his own ears. It sounded like a weird echo almost and was more disconcerting than physical. Knowing Rinker would want a succinct version of why he was standing in the man’s quarters in the middle of the night, Jack began his sit rep.

“We enter people’s rooms without permission now?” He had hoped that this wasn’t a side effect of taking the CMO position. He was a psychiatrist more than a general practitioner, but he could handle most of the things that were needed on a Starship.

“What,” Jack held out his hands in more of an exasperated husband gesture than aggressive as he saw Rinker walking out of his bedroom. “You said to come in.” Shaking off the miscommunication, Jack continued with why he was barging into the Commander’s quarters at such an ungodly hour.

Rinker shook his head, “Yeah, two conversations at the same time.” It was weird that people thought that since he dealt primarily with communication that he never had a communication error. “My bad.”

“The Captain and Ian are indisposed. Jessa was alone in their quarters with Beck and Paulson standing guard. She came to them about forty-five minutes ago complaining about not feeling well. They took her to sick bay but some medical emergency was going on. Jessa slipped out in the confusion. She removed her comm badge so we had trouble finding her on the ship. Without the comm badge, it took a hot minute. People forget that mythology-class ships are not small even though they are starships.” Jack was irritated and did not take a psych degree to see that. His normally laid-back demeanor and slightly southern drawl had been replaced with squared shoulders and crisper words. “I am zip-tying a comm badge around her neck like a dog collar in the morning. Anyway, we found her. I thought you would be the best person get her back to her quarters from the arboretum. I have the area cordoned off.”

“Two guards for a twelve-year-old?” He said sarcastically. “Although, I’ve seen what she and her friends have done. Maybe two isn’t enough.”

“A battalion would not be enough if she engaged the armor,” Jack agreed with Rinker somewhat. While Jack did not deny that Jessa could be dangerous, he also was against locking her away like a convicted criminal based on her ideology. “It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth supporting the lock her up, throw away the key, and pretend like the event didn’t happen option. Away from her lunatic overlords she has just been a teenage obnoxious.” Jack shrugged So many of the crew did not have children and were casting opinions about said child. Jack didn’t think Rinker was in the lock-her-up brigade but then again he only had a casual relationship with the man. “Thank god it’s above my paygrade to make those decisions. I just follow orders.” In a well-honed persona, Jack gave the country boy a non-commital smile and shrug as if he had nothing personally invested in the situation. Playing the dumb security officer served him well over the years. People accepted what they saw with their eyes and made him less threatening because they did not know what he was thinking.

“I’d like it to be above my paygrade as well.” The problem was that they would probably ask him what he thought but psychology was an art as opposed to a science and the terms he would use is likely or unlike which isn’t too specific and definitely wasn’t guaranteed..

“Okay,” He shrugged, spinning about looking for his uniform. Failing to immediately find that. He picked up the closet outfit and his medical bag.

If Rinker didn’t want to go, Jack would do it but probably with much less finesse. The short turbo ride to the Arboretum would let Rinker ask any questions he needed before they got there. “Shall we go,” Jack motioned to the door.

Jessa Novar

The space was devoid of people partially due to the late hour and partially due to the security guards condoning the space off. Jessa was sitting in the grass under a large tree with her backpack next to her and some sort of bottle in her hand. Since it was night, the ceiling replicated the starfield around the ship instead of the azure blue sky with fluffy white clouds. She stared hard out of the large floor-to-ceiling viewport into the vast inky darkness. Only the sound of Jack and Rinker’s footsteps on the path a few feet from her broke her stare. Glancing over at the two men, Jessa held up a hand. “Please go away. I just want to be alone.” Even in the dim lights, it was evident, Jessa had been crying. It was not the hysterical bouts of tears she exhibited at times during sessions but the kind of crying one did when they thought they were alone. There was something else in her voice. The slight slur of words only alcohol could create.

Jack shifted his weight to the balls of his feet rocking his posture as he second-guessed his decision to approach Jessa. The parent in him struggled with conflict. The Dad side, was fueled by empathy to comfort a distraught kid. The Father’s side, wasfueled by the FAFO mentality of letting the kid learn from a mistake. Without a gut instinct, Jack held the perimeter close enough to step in if needed.

“Why are you here? I didn’t call for you,” Jessa wiped the back of her hand over her eyes. Rinker had seen her cry plenty of times in his office. Jessa felt exposed and far more vulnerable outside of his office, with other people around. She could not see them exactly, but there were always there lurking. “It’s late and you are always talking about getting enough sleep to improve emotional stability. The last thing we need is you to be emotionally unstable.” Rinker had never used those words directly to her; yet, it was evident she had heard them from somewhere.

“I was told you were sick.” He said not unkindly. He held out the module scanner that detached from the medical tricorder. He didn’t really need the device to see what was going on, but it never hurt to have verification. Plus there was a range of ‘illness’ that she could have inflicted on herself.

The medical scans would show she was drunk with a BAC of .06%. This was well in the range of impairing her judgment and decision-making. The scans would show Jessa was still within the low range of a healthy weight for her size but also indicate she had lost almost 5 pounds in the three weeks she had been on the Atlantis. Aside from this, there was no indication of any illness on the screen. “I was but I feel better now.”

“Well, you are a small person, so alcohol is going to a much quicker and disproportional effect on you.” She wasn’t in danger of dying from the amount she had consumed. In fact she would still be allowed to drive, if she was old enough to drive.

“And that actually won’t make you any better. It will make you feel different for about 2 - 4 hours and then you will feel the same or worse. Its like an emotional loan. You might feel better now, but you will pay for it, with interest later. Its a bad plan.”

Pulling her eyes off the two men, Jessa brought the large bottle to her lips and gagged slightly as she took a large sip. Every adult she knew drank some sort of fermented beverage when they were sad or upset. Based on the number of fermented ale bottles in Ian and Kelly’s quarters, the pair must be the most unhappy couple on the ship. The clear amber liquid burned her mouth and throat however the discomfort in a way felt good. It was at least different than the constant scared feeling she had lived with for almost three weeks now. She had heard people say one could drink themselves to death and part of her wondered how much it would take to do that. “I promise I am not going to hurt anyone or cause a problem if you let me stay here.”

“In the Federation, individuals of your age are not allowed to drink.” He glanced at the bottles then at the results of the scan.

“Lucky for me I am not part of your Federation and look at that. We finally agreed on something. Check,” she held the bottle out and made a flourishing gesture that matched her word. Jessa giggled after finding her words far funnier than Jack or Rinker seemed to. “Oh come on,” she looked between them, “that was funny.” Her attempt at humor fell short allowing the frown to replace her forced smile.

“I’m going to have to report both the Captain and the CDO for inadequate guardianship. You are going to bed guilty as well, of course, unless you regularly drink you are going to be punished quite a bit in about 4 hours.”

“No no no please don’t do that.” Jessa shifted her position from sitting with her back against the tree to kneeling perpendicular to Rinker. “They didn’t give it to me. They don’t know I am here. I,” she let her voice trail as her mind struggled to complete the sentence. Rinker was intelligent and fair. He didn’t go out of his way to get people into trouble and worked hard to keep them out of trouble. If she gave him a plausible solution, Rinker would accept it. “I stole it. I stole it from them so they are the victims. The Federation is just. They don’t persecute victims. Right?” Jessa felt sick and nervous, unsure if it was from the drink, Rinker’s statement, or a combination of both. “Please,” she put a hand on his pant leg tugging slightly. “I am begging you. I will have nowhere to go. It isn’t their fault.” Rocking back onto her heels, Jessa thumped back into the tree trunk she was sitting next to.

“That’s not really how things work on this side of the galaxy. You are responsible for your stuff.” He nodded at the bottle she held. “That’s not your bottle is it?” He continued since the question was rhetorical. “The owner of the bottle that you now have is responsible for it. If they left a gun out and you shot someone, that would be both of your faults… not just yours.”

“But I didn’t shoot anyone.” Rinker had no idea the vast amount of information he was going to have dump truck style fall into his lap. Jessa zeroed in on the more criminal side of her visit to the Atlantis rather than taking Rinker’s analogy as just an example. The alcohol was chipping away at her arrogance as a Guardian and exposing the scared kid underneath. “I left the gun that your people gave me on my ship before the attack. I didn’t need that gun. I just needed my armor to escape. No one cares that those people said take this and do that. No one cares that people dressed like you on your ship,” she falsely vented her anger and frustration on Rinker as if he had any control over that situation, “were using your beaming device to take me out of sickbay whenever they wanted and telling me to do stuff that was bad. Everyone just wants to blame Ian and Kelly for everything. That is not fair.” Jessa was old enough to understand the power that came with guns, weapons, and her armor. She knew that using them against anyone would result in death for anyone on the other side. She was too indoctrinated to understand both sides were weaponizing her as a child soldier. To her, if she didn’t use the power, then she was managing the power they were giving her responsibly. Jessa had never thought about how she should never have been given that power in the first place.

“I wasn’t literally talking about guns,” although her connection to the weapons she had access to wasn’t a poor analogy. “In this case, you are ‘shooting’ yourself by drinking.” He did the air quotes with his fingers, although it dawned on him that she would have no idea what that meant from the other side of the universe.

“And I didn’t really steal it. They told me that I could have anything in their quarters. I saw this and took it.” Nodding her head, Jessa seemed to be soothed by her reasoning. “It stops them from having any culpa,” she stared of suddenly having difficulty remembering the word. “Cupal…cupofability in the situation. That means they can’t be blamed for something that isn’t their fault.” Turning her face to Rinker, her expression became stony. “If anyone says anything else I will lie. I will tell anyone that I found it in the trash or…or…or that I stole it from somewhere else. It will be my word against theirs and that will create doubt. You need proof to convict someone of a crime. At least you do where I come from.” A knot of sadness welled up inside Jessa. Pressing the palms of her fists into her eyes, she struggled with how fast her emotions changed from happy to angry to sad in a blink. This place was slowly destroying her. To protect Ian she had to say Rinker was a liar. To protect Rinker she had to minimize her contact with the mind seer. The lies she created to protect all of them when the Union arrived were becoming too much to manage.

“Actually they are still responsible to keep dangerous things safe from people who might misuse them. In this case that is you, and again on this side of the galaxy you are too young to drink alcohol. And frankly it isn’t good for your biology.”

In for a credit in for a bar. The old saying popped into her mind as Jessa blurted out rapidly, “so just pretend you didn’t hear anything Jack.” Maybe by labeling Jack as anyone, Rinker would not assume she ever directed the comments at him. Above all else, Jessa could not afford to lose Heathcliff Rinker. He was the only place she felt truly safe.

“Sure,” he agreed. “I just would like that if you were going to wager heavily it would be something that was worth the risk. You will gain nothing in the long term and might lose a lot.”

The arrival of Jack and Rinker meant she would be removed from this space sooner rather than later. Instead of screaming or fighting, Jessa turned her gaze off them and back out into space. What was going to happen was going to happen. She was coming to realize that she controlled nothing in her life or her future.

Jessa Novar

Rinker sat down next to her and tugged the bottle out of her hand and took several deep swallows, finishing almost two third of what was left in the bottle. He didn’t really enjoy beer all that much, but it was better in him than in her. Belying that plan, he returned what was left to here. “You shouldn’t drink alone.”

Rinker

“I have more,” Jessa responded rapidly. There was no excitement in her voice but more relief. Taking the bottle from him, she shoved it between her legs and grabbed her backpack. She had only a total of four so by giving Rinker one of them, Jessa would be out. She hesitated for a brief second before handing it to Rinker.

“I was just participating… I wasn’t trying to stop you.”

Fixating her gaze on the starfield in the viewport, Jessa spoke. “I have really triffed up, Rinker.” For the first time in the 21 sessions, Jessa participated in, this was the first Jessa admitted fault without blaming someone else. She had intended to throw back the last sip. Instead, Jessa missed her mouth and the liquid spilled down the front of her shirt. Completely unphased by this, she pulled the last bottle from her backpack repeating her statement. “I mean I really really have triffed up.” Balling the neck of the bottle into her sweatshirt, Jessa pulled hard losing a quarter of the ale again on her shirt as she opened it.

“Maybe,” he said non-committedly.

“I used to have a family, self-safe, and I threw it all away on a promise.” Her statement was punctuated by a watery laugh followed by a sniff of her nose. “Now I am alone, scared, and always hungry. You say you have all the food anyone could ever want but you don’t. Not for everyone like me.” Jessa did not temper the accusatory tone in her voice.

“You had a lot of things, but was any of that real?” he pursed his lips, “I don’t know if you threw something real away. We often mistake consistency with right. Comfort for logic. In reality, what did they give you versus what did it cost, versus what did you really lose.”

Why did Rinker ask questions that were so hard to answer? Nothing was a simple yes or no. It was all questions that made her think. “It cost me the ability to get a snack.” She needed a minute to process what he was asking. It was easier to give a soft answer.

“It’s not so easy to get food from your machines when you don’t know what to ask for? Do you know what Vrokala cubes or Arcaico berries are? No…” she kept the angry accusatory tone made at the universe right now, “well neither does your machine. So how am I supposed to get something to eat on my own? I don’t! I have to wait for someone to offer me something and if I don’t like it I am triffed again. Even when I remember one of your foods, your machine wants to know how I want it or how much.”

“Is that an analogy? Or do you really want to know, because the replicators do pictures, samples, or even will create a menu off your tastes.”

“My ship is gone so I don’t have any food samples. I can’t draw. None of the food is the same so it will never be the same.” The more she talked, the sadder Jessa became. The party was over. Reality was harsh and Jessa did not want to live in her current reality.

“I don’t think you are really worried about the food.” People always picked a ‘safe’ target to project their emotions on, one way or another.

Taking several long gulps, Jessa winced at the sour taste before continuing her monologue rant. “This is why you can’t get Kelly and Ian in trouble for tonight. I wanted coffee. I thought I was smart. I asked for Kelly’s homebrew and got this drak.” Laying her head against Rinker’s arm Jessa let out a deep sigh. She had lied about never feeling safe. There were a few places and people that made her feel safe. “If I swear on my life to be honest, could you maybe ask me a question about something? That way we could call this a session and whatever I say to you in a session is private right? You would not have to report it and I could stay with Ian and Kelly?” Her last sentence was both a question and statement. Jessa thought she was correct in her assumption but not 100% sure.

Jessa Novar

“Yeah,” He tipped the bottle down, cutting off her drinking without taking the bottle from her. “You want to drink, go ahead, but if you are doing it in front of me, you will do it right. Which means actually tasting what your are drinking. If not I’m going to decide you are just trying to harm yourself and then I’ll take it from you.”

Jessa listened intently to Rinker’s rules. Ian had used the term FAFO. She did not want to discover if the man was serious about his statement. Rinker was fair but his expectations were extremely clear cut and he did not seem the type to waste his breath on an idle threat. Nodding, she took a much slower sip and wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t like the taste. It is easier to drink fast.”

“Ale cures all ails,” she parroted a quote spoken by many of the adults in her life. “I also heard that you feel no pain when drinking. Pellan used to make that comment when people were drunk and fell down. I don’t want to go through the Altar of Cleansing when the Union arrives. Maybe if I am drunk it will hurt less and I will be more brave so I don’t embarrass everyone.
Maybe I will be gone before they come and then everyone will be better off.”

“Well you know the rules about therapy pretty well, but the problem is, I was told about what happened outside of therapy. And if you remember, harming yourself and others is one of the conditions that I’m obligated not to keep information private.”

Rinker

“Don’t worry. I am not going to hurt myself or anyone else. I am just really really sad.” Jessa could have given him a snide and sarcastic remark instead of the truth. She could have stood up and walked away but Jessa didn’t. “You asked me what I lost or what I think I have lost,” she took a much smaller sip of the ale. Gulping it hid the taste. Sipping it made her taste every gross swallow. “I don’t have a family. My mom hasn’t been around since I was three. She said she was coming back but she never did. I want to think that it wasn’t her choice. If she had a choice and chose not to come back then I probably am that horrible person everyone thinks I am. I mean what mom doesn’t want her kid?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Jessa felt sick. She had about as much self-reflecting as she could take. The last thing she needed was for Rinker to point out she was a psychopath with no soul so she answered his question. “I lived in a large dormitory with other kids my age for the last seven years. I went to school with them, ate with them, became friends with them. I know they were supposed to be enough.”

Jessa Novar

“In theory you could be harming yourself by drinking.” Not that normally hit criteria, but there were extremes. At her age and weight six bottles could actually be harmful. He looked back at his tricorder results. He suspected her nanities would ultimately protect her even in their limited state.

Her scans showed that she was well on the road to slipping past tipsy. Jessa didn’t like the taste at all but she had learned a while back that when Rinker set a ground rule there was no sidestepping or ignoring it. The man gave her lots of latitude which meant it was always her choice if she was going to slam face-first into his line in the sand or walk alongside it. She did not want to stop drinking because drinking or not gave her a false sense of control. She could stop drinking the foul brown liquid or she could finish it so she just continued to nurse it taking barely a sip eve though she lifted the bottle for much longer periods of time.

“Sometimes we say things that aren’t true to protect others. Other times we don’t have as much control over the situations as we wish we did. I told my mother I’d come home. I almost died twice in the last week, and frankly I was as good as dead yesterday if you didn’t save me.” He shrugged, “maybe you should give yourself and your mother a break.”

Rinker

There were several long minutes where Jessa mulled over what Rinker had said. She was tired of playing adult games. She wanted her old life back with someone who would tell her things were going to be okay and for her to believe them. “I haven’t lied to you but I haven’t always answered your questions as completely as you might have wanted.” Her confession was more of an admission of what she had been doing in therapy. Jessa however knew that the unspoken rule of therapy was create a road she and Rinker walked together instead of making a fork every time she did not like his question. “I want to change that.”

He knew she spent nearly as much time evading his questions as she did answering them. That was the nature of therapy. There were truths people weren’t about to confront and lying or not acknowledging them were much easier than confronting them.

Taking a deep breath, Jessa took a sip of her beer and scrunched up her face. General Vyce was known for the toast For Courage as he took a drink of alcohol. Jessa now wondered if he meant the drink or the action he was about to partake. Right now she needed courage to ask Rinker for something she thought he might not want to give. ” Okay, so Ian plays this game with me to get me to talk to him and I don’t want to. It is twenty questions. Do you know it,” she asked.

“I want to play with different rules tonight. You can ask me any question and I swear on my life I will answer it truthfully and completely but,” she let her voice trail off for a moment. Jessa did not want to look at Rinker, scared of his response to the next part. Fixing her gaze on a random star out in the inky blackness she continued.

“But I don’t want the truth from you okay? I want you to lie to me in every answer.” Jessa set the ground rules blinking rapidly to stop the tears from falling. “So if you can do that. If you can lie to me…no matter what I ask, I will tell you the truth,” she restates the rules. Jessa tensed, wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve, waiting for his response. “I know you said no lying in a session but you also give me what I need in a session. Since I know it is a lie, it really isn’t lying. If he said no, Jessa might break. Like all epiphanies, hers came out of nowhere tonight and had her teetering on the edge, barely holding things together. Reaching to her side, Jessa put a hand on his arm and whispered, “Please.”

Jessa Novar

“Okay,” ironically say yes, meant no, but he suspected that she didn’t mean the first statement.

“Tell me how to save your mother? If you don’t know that… tell me what happened to her?”

Rinker

“I don’t know what happened to her.” Letting out a deep breath, Jessa continued. “The last time I saw her was nine years ago. I only know that because the school she enrolled me at started with kids who were three years old. Since I am twelve it had to be that long ago.” She paused for a longer moment but kept talking. “It was a residential school so I lived there. I remember some things about Nuat back then like…before the school we lived in a tiny apartment. There was no yard to play in so my mom and I would go to the park every day. I loved going to the park. There was a school across from the park. In the afternoons the kids from the school all came over to play and I could play with them. There was also this bench under a huge tree. My mom and I would sit there and talk, read, and cuddle,” Jessa’s voice trailed off as she closed her eyes lost in the memory. The tree she and Rinker were sitting under was not like that tree but it was similar enough that if she kept her eyes closed and concentrated hard enough Jessa could imagine for a moment she was on Nuat and not the Atlantis.

This might all be true, but that didn’t seem consistent with the story she had told him previously. She stated that her mother was a prisoner of some sort and was she was trying to save her somehow.

“The last day I saw her we spent the entire day at the park. Just before sunset, my mom sat me on her lap and told me she had to go somewhere. She told me that I could not go but she would be back. I just needed to be patient and wait for her. It was then that I noticed the Proctress from the school. After my mom and I said goodbye, the Proctress took me to the school.” Jessa felt her sinuses tingling and her chest tightening. Hopefully she had given Rinker enough information for him to answer her question.

Turning her head she looked at him. “Remember our rules ‘kay.” Taking a sip of her beer she asked, “My mom didn’t leave me because she didn’t love me or because I disappointed her right?” Rinker never spoke in absolutes. His words were always vague and left lots of room for interpretation. Tonight Jessa didn’t want to think about anything he said. She just wanted to believe what he said.

Jessa Novar

“I don’t believe she would have left you for any reason, unless she had to. Probably to protect you. There is no greater love then to let your loved one go so they can survive.”

“From what I gather from your religion. it is very strict, without mercy an does not let people question anything. Those factors and the love your mother showed you, makes me very confident of that.””

Rinker