A Quiet Day for Bitty - New Project

It was a Saturday, but it didn’t feel like one.

The Stargate was still out there under Ervin’s old fort. Ocean was in the garage trying to fix a drone. Harbor was on the couch with his three-string guitar from Jeffrey, strumming soft. Dassah was in the kitchen making mud pies out of pudding cups.

But Bitty wasn’t anywhere.

Mom Brandy noticed first. No little footsteps. No “Mom, watch this!” No Jeffrey song humming from down the hall.

She found her in the bedroom, sitting on the floor by the bed, knees pulled up, crying quiet.

Not the loud kind. The tired kind. The kind that comes when your heart feels heavy and you don’t know why.

“Oh, my lovely lady,” Mom whispered, and sat right down on the carpet next to her. She didn’t ask what was wrong yet. She just opened her arms.

Bitty climbed in. She was warm and sniffly and didn’t say anything for a long time.

Go-Diddy came in next. He saw them and didn’t say a word. He just sat on the other side and put his big hand on Bitty’s back, right between her shoulders, where little kids carry the big feelings.

They stayed like that. No fixing. Just holding.

After a while, Mom said, “You don’t have to go anywhere today, sweet girl. You don’t have to do anything.”

Bitty nodded into her shirt. “I’m sad. And tired.”

Go-Diddy kissed the top of her head. “Then we sit. And we be sad and tired together.”

Mom brushed Bitty’s hair back. “Can we pray with you? You don’t have to talk. We’ll talk to Jesus for you.”

Bitty nodded again, tiny.

So they prayed. Not big words. Just honest ones.

“Jesus,” Mom said, “Bitty’s heart feels heavy. Will You sit with her the way we’re sitting with her?”

“Lord,” Dad said, “You see her. You know why she’s tired. Please hold her better than we can.”

They didn’t rush. The room got quiet, except for Rowdy snoring in the hallway and the sound of the wind in the spruce trees outside.

Then it got quieter than that.

Bitty took a deep breath. Like she’d been holding it all morning. Her shoulders dropped. Her hands uncurled from Mom’s shirt.

She whispered, “I feel warm.”

Go-Diddy smiled. “That’s Him. That’s how He feels sometimes. Not loud. Just warm.”

Mom opened her Bible on the floor and didn’t even flip pages. It fell open to Psalm 34:18. She read it out loud, soft:

Bitty blinked. “That’s me. I’m the brokenhearted.”

“And He’s close,” Mom said. “Right here. Closer than us.”

Bitty sat up a little. She wasn’t bouncing. She wasn’t fixed like a math problem. But she wasn’t the same either. Something inside had shifted, like a door opening just enough to let light in.

“Jesus loves me,” she said. Not like a question. Like she just remembered.

Go-Diddy tapped her nose. “He sure does. More than the Stargate, more than Moinks, more than floop fruit. More than all of it.”

They stayed on the floor a long time. Harbor peeked in once, saw them, and whispered, “Is Bitty okay?” Mom nodded, and he tiptoed away with his guitar.

When Bitty finally stood up, she was still a little tired. But her eyes were clear.

Mom made grilled cheese. Dad poured chocolate milk. Dassah gave Bitty half her pudding mud pie “because that’s Lovely Law #1.”

They didn’t go to another planet that day. They didn’t need to.

That night, after teeth were brushed and prayers were said and Rowdy was asleep, Mom and Dad tucked Bitty in. She was holding the little leaf whistle from the Whispering Woods, but she wasn’t scared.

Mom kissed her forehead. “How’s your heart?”

Bitty put her hand on her chest. “Warm.”

Go-Diddy sat on the edge of the bed. “Wanna do the count?”

Bitty grinned, small but real. She reached out and grabbed Mom’s hand and Dad’s hand.

All three of them together, in the quiet bedroom in Wasilla, yelled:

“1… 2… 3… thank You, Lord Jesus!”

And it echoed down the hall, where Ocean heard it and smiled over his notebook, where Harbor heard it and strummed a soft chord, where Dassah heard it and whispered “amen” with her eyes already closed.