"Yummy!" Lily says delightedly. "I he'p? Wa'be good." 

Lily is being especially lovely this morning and Evelyn would be pleased about how well she's getting along with Iomedae - among other things, it might be a reason for Iomedae to stay rather than running off to be a holy warrior of God - and Lily does need self-esteem boosting. But. She is not sure she totally loves that comment. 

She's not going to start a conversation about it while they're pleasantly making pancakes together, though. She smiles at Lily. "You're a very good girl." 

Iomedae can receive live commentary from Lily on how pancakes are made. Lily is TOO LITTLE to cook on the stove but she helps mix. 

Iomedae will attempt to memorize pancake-making on this weird stove. She's seen camping stoves but this one isn't much like them, and they didn't make pancakes. 

And eventually a tall stack of pancakes is brought to the table! When she has a full house of younger kids - especially boys in the 8-11 range, who can eat a shocking amount of food - Evelyn prefers the style where she makes pancakes continuously and the kids come up with their plates, but for this she wants a sit-down meal. She suggests that Lily and Iomedae could work together to set the table, and Lily is delighted to point out where the plates and cutlery and syrup and cups and juice live. 

Evelyn makes herself an actual coffee, and brings that over instead of juice. "Iomedae, love, please have as many as you want. Lily went a bit overboard measuring the pancake mix and we can't eat all this without your help." 

And then, once they're all sitting down and have had a few bites of pancake,

"- I have to say, I'm curious what inspired all this cleaning?" 

"Lily and I want do nice thing for you! And Lily want be good when big and to be good if you do bad things you also do more good things, make it right. If Lily is so good, maybe holy warrior with me!"

Um. 

There's...a lot to unpack there, but there are several layers on which Evelyn is not super comfortable with this!

Iomedae should not be encouraging the traumatized seven-year-old to be a "holy warrior" like her! Evelyn is also pretty uncomfortable about Iomedae getting her weird intense religious guilt all over Lily! (...That's an uncharitable framing. Evelyn will try not to be uncharitable.)

Also it definitely sounds like Iomedae told Lily that she was bad and needed to make up for it by doing kitchen chores that are not even slightly her responsibility and that doesn't necessarily mean she hinted that Lily would go to Hell otherwise - do little kids even go to Hell? you would think that that would be a real asshole move on God's part - but there's definitely an implication there and Evelyn is extra uncomfortable about it in combination with the fact that Iomedae has definitely been talking about Hell in general. 

She's separately frustrated that there's no possible way she can get a straight recounting of the morning out of Lily, and trying to ask Lily how it made her feel is an even more hopeless endeavor. Even before you get to Lily's diagnosed language delay, it's normal for abused children to have a hard time being aware of how they're feeling, let alone talking about it. Lily has the emotional memory of a goldfish and half the time doesn't even remember having had a tantrum five minutes later, let alone why - and in some ways it's probably a blessing for her, that she lives so thoroughly in the present - and maybe that means she also won't be ongoingly distressed about the concept of Hell, but still.

Evelyn is not going to leak any of her many feelings right now because it won't help. She needs to talk to Iomedae alone, which is going to be hard because today is a Saturday and Lily won't even be in school. 

"It was very sweet of you," she says, smiling at Lily and squeezing her shoulder but then mostly addressing Iomedae. "But Lily knows that she doesn't have to clean. It's my responsibility because I'm the grownup." That...does not feel like it's even close to addressing all the problems here. 

(Lily is definitely not going to notice anything wrong. Evelyn is good at being unruffled; she has a lot of practice. Iomedae is more perceptive, though, and probably will be able to pick up that Evelyn is upset about something, and specifically upset with Iomedae about something, though not exactly angry.) 

Of course Lily doesn't have to clean; it wouldn't be a good apology for smashing valuable possessions if it was her chore in the first place. Evelyn's upset, though, and she doesn't understand about what, so she won't press. She'll just smile at Lily again. 

And eat all of the pancakes that no one else has eaten, though she's slightly suspicious that this is a deliberate effort to get her to eat food without complaining that it should really go to the needy.

Evelyn is definitely tracking that concern in the back of her mind! (She doesn't like lying to kids, but she has absolutely no qualms about a bit of manipulation to nudge them toward healthier choices, and also Lily really did dump in way too much pancake mix by trying to pour it directly out of the box into the measuring cup rather than scooping it out.) 

After breakfast she cheerfully suggests that Lily can watch her favorite Saturday morning cartoons. She'll get Lily settled with her teddies and put the TV on to the right program and snuggle her for a minute, and then, "- I'll come catch the end of the episode with you, love, but I've seen this one before. Iomedae can help me with the dishwasher." Glance at Iomedae? 

"Yes, ma'am." She isn't sure what the dishwasher needs helping with but she's sure she can do it.

The dishwasher is full of clean dishes from last night, which need to be taken out and put away in the appropriate cupboards and drawers so that they can load in the dirty breakfast dishes. The pancake pan should be washed in the sink, the nonstick coating isn't dishwasher safe. 

Evelyn reminds Iomedae where clean plates go and starts bringing over the pancake plates to scrape into the sink, and gives it a minute or so of working companionably. She finds that cooking or doing a chore together has some of the same helpful quality as being in the car, in terms of making kids more comfortable opening up. The going theory among her fostering friends is that kids feel less self-conscious and put on the spot if they're not the sole focus of an adult's attention.

She doesn't think that Iomedae really needs that structure, but Evelyn herself kind of does. 

"I wanted to talk to you," she says, keeping her voice low - though the cartoon soundtrack should drown out conversation - and her tone light. "About Lily, and -" dear god no she should not present this as a house rule, 'you aren't allowed to talk about your religion' is a terrible house rule, "- and what I think is healthy for her to hear about at her age and maturity. ...Were any of those words you don't know?" 

"Maturity, but I can guess. You think this morning - bad for Lily?"

"Maturity is - being more like a grownup, but it's not a yes or no, really little kids are less mature than older kids. Lily is...less mature than most children her size, because she was - we think she was - treated very badly, hurt badly, before she came to live here." This is more than she would usually say to a foster child about another child, but it feels like context Iomedae needs to know. 

Evelyn scrapes a plate into the sink. "I don't know if this morning was bad for her. She doesn't seem unhappy. She likes you and I think you're good with her. But she's - I don't think it would be healthy for most people to try to be holy warriors of God, even if it's right for you. And I don't think it's healthy for Lily to be worrying about whether God would think that she's bad." 

"I want her not worry that. 

If she no good holy warrior, God not pick her. Lots people no good holy warrior."

Which probably seems like a totally sensible response to Iomedae, and Evelyn feels terrible being frustrated at her about it, but she is frustrated. How is that not even worse! Now Lily will be disappointed when she inevitably doesn't get "picked by God" to be a "holy warrior." Also this part isn't Iomedae's fault, exactly, but Lily has a terrible time sense and probably expects to get picked by God next week if she manages to be good. 

The problem is that everything Evelyn wants to say is probably going to go over disastrously. She wants to say that not everyone is very religious, and that's okay, and no one should try to argue with Iomedae about her faith but also Iomedae shouldn't pressure other people into being as religious as she is. She wants to say that Lily has never even been to church and was doing just fine before this without ever thinking about God. She...is pretty sure Iomedae will be somewhere between politely befuddled and outright distressed and indignant about that, because in the world of Iomedae's childhood, God is the one who gives you water and makes you immune to disease (though apparently decided not to do anything about her sick siblings?) and dying in God's service isn't even a tragedy because you go to Heaven, but going to Hell is pretty much the worst thing that could happen to someone. 

She has no idea how to simultaneously be respectful of Iomedae's deep and genuine faith, and also convince Iomedae that she shouldn't indoctrinate Lily into her family's fundamentalist beliefs. 

She wants to say that modern America is a secular society and some people believe different things about God, or worship God but don't believe in Jesus, or even worship entirely different gods, or are Buddhist and - wow okay she remembers like 1.5 things about Buddhism but she's pretty sure they don't really believe in God, just the cycle of karma and rebirth or whatever - and some people don't worship anything at all, and that's fine and no one should go around judging anyone else. Honestly that is a conversation she needs to have at the very least before Iomedae starts school, and she has no idea how Iomedae is going to react, but it's really not a conversation she wants to navigate in ten minutes over a dishwasher while Lily is watching cartoons in the other room. 

She wants to say that Iomedae's family's religion is unusually...intense...even for Christian churches, and most people who go to church still don't believe that God miraculously heals people or sends them visions to be holy warriors, but it feels like that also falls into a slippery morass of conversations she doesn't especially want to have. In hindsight, Evelyn could really have seen it coming that taking a placement for a very religious child would mean having a lot of awkward conversations about religion. 

Okay. Focus. This doesn't have to be a huge philosophical dive into comparative religion, which is a conversation Evelyn is deeply unequipped to have and she should point Iomedae at a...priest, or something. They do have to have another conversation about how to avoid making things really weird at school, but that's not this conversation and will be a lot easier once Iomedae has more vocabulary. All this needs to be is a conversation about Lily, Evelyn's foster child, and what she needs to be healthy and happy. Evelyn really ought to be qualified to have that conversation. 

She chooses her words carefully.

"I think that if Lily sees you worrying about whether you're - as good as God wants you to be - then she's going to worry too, because children are sensitive and they learn how to behave by watching their grownups. . And - I know your family did things differently - but personally, I think children Lily's age shouldn't hear things about Hell, just like they shouldn't - um -" her go-to example of something that kids do not need to know about at age seven is the Holocaust but, once again, way too much context, "- watch violent television shows where a lot of people die. Because you need to be mature to - understand it, instead of just being scared and sad and confused about it. I think some seven-year-olds might be mature enough, and maybe you were, but I think Lily isn't." 

" - I understand. I not tell Lily - well, I tell Lily bad people go Hell, but kids no go Hell, I tell her kids no go Hell, and I not tell her what Hell is like. 

I no want anyone scared Hell. But have to - have to fix Hell, for that. No just - look away."

It is UNFAIR that Iomedae said she doesn't want hugs and so Evelyn can't hug her when she wants to on so many levels. Evelyn has so many feelings and cannot make any of them Iomedae's problem.

(It's - not even that it's tragic to hear those words coming out of a kid's mouth, though it is. It has the nature of...Evelyn can never quite put this feeling into words, but something like "I see how you took your tragedies and made them part of yourself and found something it could mean to you where it would make you stronger", which sounds pretty stupid when you do try to put it in words even in your head but it's a way she's felt a few times. Except this is even more than that. It's not just a kid moving past their awful history and succeeding anyway against the odds, it's - something pure and bright and admirable, a way of being that makes you think "wow, that kid is going places".) 

Aaaaand she is calm and chill and loading scraped plates into the dishwasher like this is a lowkey normal conversation. "I'm glad you were keeping that in mind. ...What did you tell her, exactly, just so I know?" 

"I said in fight with Tar-Baphon soldiers sleep hard rocks, and she ask who Tar-Baphon so I say he evil we fight, maybe me, when I stronger holy warrior. She ask how become holy warrior. I say if you very good and very brave God see all the good in you and God give you the holy warrior things. And then all know you are a holy warrior, and keep them safe and fight for them. She ask about God. Where he live. If he like dogs. What he do if he see bad. I say, he wants bad people to stop being bad, so they can go to Heaven and not Hell or other bad places. She says, she do bad things, she break your things, will God see bad in her. I say, she not go to Hell, kids if they die they go to Limbo. And I can see bad in people sometimes and don't see bad in her. And she should do good things, to make up for bad things, like, if she break your things, we can clean the house. So we did that."

Iomedae didn't say what her answer was to whether God likes dogs, which is such a characteristic question for Lily to ask that she has to swallow a giggle, and now the unanswered question is dangling in Evelyn's head like the stupidest imaginable unmatched-open-parenthesis. 

"I don't actually know what Limbo is," she says, which is a pretty inane answer but she needs more time to process how okay or not okay Iomedae's description of the conversation is. (Also, she more or less trusts Iomedae to be honestly reporting what she thinks she said to Lily, but that's not necessarily the same as what Lily heard. Even Evelyn is still sometimes caught off guard when she learns, later on, what Lily actually took away from a conversation they had.) 

"is where dead kids not big enough for - I no have the word - go. It is not good, but it is not Hell. If your dead kid there you pray to angels to go find them, take care of them."

That sounds...maybe vaguely familiar? Evelyn is going to have to spend some time on Google later.

...Iomedae definitely knows the word for Heaven. 

"Can you tell me in other words about the - thing you don't know the word for? I might know the English word."

(She probably doesn't. In her memories of Sunday School they definitely just talked about Heaven and Hell - with less emphasis on Hell, and really not that much time spent on either, mostly they read Bible passages about Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, and then Jesus doing various impressive things. Also this was forty-plus years ago. Evelyn went on to take a comparative religion class in college but even that was thirty years ago.) 

"Look at all you did in life, decide if Heaven or Hell or other places I no have name for. - we also think of Heaven in two parts, where I from."

Evelyn nods. "I don't think I know the word for it, if it's a different place than where little kids would go. Sorry. I can try to look it up but probably you should talk to a priest at some point." She's finding that she's actually pretty curious, there's - a lot of stuff going on in Iomedae's head that she hopes to learn more about, as time goes on - but now is not that time. 

She smiles reassuringly.

"Lily seems happy, and that's the most important thing. I'm glad you're - trying to think about what would or wouldn't be good for her to hear. I think it might help if you tried to imagine her as even younger than she is, because I think you had to grow up faster than people do in America. I think Lily isn't big enough to - be like you, or think about being good the way you do - and I don't want her to feel sad or guilty about that. I want you to remember that her life is very different than the life your littler brothers and sisters had, and things that were helpful to say to them might not be helpful to say to her. ...I don't think you did anything wrong, Lily seems fine, I just - want you to remember that in future. Okay?" 

"Yes, ma'am. I want her to be happy. And I want her to know I care for her, but I not stay long maybe, so I do not want her - all built me."

Evelyn is unhappy about the reminder that Iomedae is still thinking about very politely running away, and it makes her feel like she probably screwed this up somehow, but it's - also just a good thought to remember. Even if Iomedae ends up staying here until she's eighteen, Lily might move on, Evelyn hasn't heard anything back yet but Social Services is presumably looking for distant relatives who might take her once she's, well, calmed down a little more. 

She smiles at Iomedae. "Thank you. I'm glad. Though I hope you'll stay long enough to do some school." 

The dishwasher is dealt with and Evelyn has stress-washed the frypan significantly more thoroughly than she normally would. She sets it in the drying rack. "Let's go catch the rest of the episode with Lily - I suppose you've probably never seen TV before...?"