Thursday Afternoon
June 29, 1967
- Abby pays Mother Barker a visit, and Mother Barker—who is super old and hard of hearing at this point—complains about the way other people read the paper to her. She prefers Abby's way best.
- Abby's parents are doing just fine (yay), but Lily Norene opted to marry some dude who's no good instead of finishing her high school education. So that's a bummer.
- Also, the foreman (a.k.a. Mother Barker's man) isn't doing so hot these days.
- Abby totally nailed high school and graduated with honors. It's awesome… except for the fact that she wants to go to medical school and there aren't any around. No worries, though; Abby's not ready to venture out into the wider world just yet.
- Abby recites a poem to Mother Barker and then Mother Barker commends her on getting her high school diploma and doing so well in school. When Abby tells her about the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Christmas program performance, Mother Barker gets all serious and drops a truth bomb about how there's always going to be bitter and sweet in Abby's life, reassuring her that her singing voice is tucked away deep inside her somewhere.
- Mother Barker proceeds to tell Abby that she wants to take her on to teach her "about healing, about birthing, about fixing." Looks like Abby's going to get that medical education she wants after all, even if it outside of the mainstream.
- As far as Mother Barker's concerned, Abby's been destined for this knowledge since day one.
- When she's finished learning, Abby will be super powerful, able to make awesome good and terrible bad happen. And she has to learn the good and the bad—it's the only way to complete her education.