Uncanny Magazine Issue Sixty

It’s the same polite smile you give the doctors. You know who I am, but my identity is just a fact shoved into your brain, equally weighted alongside millions of others:

I hover like a stranger, or worse, a guest. I shift the shopping bag from hand to hand, moving to set it down, then holding it close again.

Dr. Zhou nods encouragingly. She’s sitting in on our first sense-therapy session to help us through the process. I expected she’d make us do awkward, performative hugs and talk about our feelings, but I’m surprisingly glad she’s here.

“I’m well, thanks. How are you, Mira?” It’s a rote response, and it stings that there’s no good to see you. An I missed you would be too much to hope for. Your words are probably truthful, though, and the sentimental stuff might not be. Physically, in this new-made body, you’re as healthy as you’ve ever been. Mentally, though…

Your mind traveled hundreds of light-years to come home to us, but you feel farther away than ever.

That’s why I’m here. As the neurologist put it, to help sculpt the neurons in your new brain into the uniqueness that is you. Everyone on your reintegration team uses poetic language like that, I think because for all their expertise, this process the Venmeshki taught us is still half magic to them.

You frown, as if that’s a hard question. “I don’t think so, but I don’t feel full, either.” Your eyes flick to the clock. “But it’s lunchtime. I’m sorry. Dr. Zhou has been encouraging me to check in with my bodily sensations. I know you’re here for lunch.”

Our scientists have known for a long time that sensory input, emotion, and memory all work in concert. It was the Venmeshki’s suggestion to bridge the gap between knowledge and emotion using the most powerful sensory vehicle: food.

“This might seem silly, but I thought we’d start at the beginning, with the first meal you ever made for yourself. Do you remember?”

“I guess the ingredients were a giveaway.” My heart drops. You sound as excited as if you were filling in answers on an exam. “I, uh, know it’s not gourmet, but it’s easy to assemble. So.” Another too-long pause. “Come help, sis. Unless you’ve forgotten how?”

“I’m not senile. My memories are intact.” For the first time, there’s emotion in your voice: hurt.

You were four, and I must have been eight. I remember pulling up a chair to the kitchen counter for you to stand on. The intense concentration on your face as we spread peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on supermarket bread. No matter how careful we were, we always ended up with white sugar-goo on our fingers, our faces, our clothes.

Now we stand side by side again, with bread and jars and butter knives, but everything has changed. You look bored.

“Well, shall we?” I pick up my sandwich, lift it as if making a toast. To old memories.

You take a bite. I try not to over-analyze your every facial expression. For me, it’s a quick hit of home. The marshmallow is pure sweetness, taste without flavor, an intensity of sugar almost too much. But the peanut butter, thick and lightly salty, balances the fluff into something sublime.

“It’s good.” You’re still polite, impassive. You start to say more. Then the sugar must reach your tongue, and the peanut butter sticks your teeth together, and you laugh—a brief spark of joy, a spark of you, then gone.

“I remember, I had to help you open the jars, because your hands were so little. You felt so proud when you could finally open them yourself.” You nod, and I keep talking to fill the awkwardness. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find old-style marshmallow fluff. I went to three stores! At least the bread was easy. Do you—”

“That’s right. If I’m going to let you eat this junk, at least let me pretend there’s some modicum of nutrition in it,” I say in my best Dad impression.

You don’t laugh. My own chuckle catches in my throat. That wound has scabbed over for me—I’ve had years to get over being mad at you—but I have no idea what you feel when you think about him, about how you left him. If you can feel anything at all.

I wait for you to ask. It’s a simple question, and even if you can’t care about the answer, you should recognize that it needs asking. I’m not going to volunteer the information, not until you ask for it. If that’s a tiny bit petty of me…well, maybe that scab isn’t as thick as I thought.

Afterward, Dr. Zhou catches me in the hallway. “I know it’s hard, but that was an excellent start, Mira.”

“She had a momentary breakthrough there, with the sandwich. She’s not ready to talk about her feelings yet—”

Her reassuring smile has the opposite effect. “Doctor, I don’t know if I’m the right person for this. Maybe someone else, our father or her friends…”

“This process requires one anchor person, the one who knows her best. More than one would overwhelm her. Moreover, she requested you for this upon her departure, when she was still herself.”

Not quite true. You thought I was the only choice. That doesn’t mean I can help you.

We could spend a year re-creating meals you love—loved?—but Dr. Zhou gently reminds me to keep it simple. We’re rebuilding your entire life, here, but giving you emotional grounding points as a foundation to rebuild it yourself. She gave me guidelines: foods that are memorable, as in associated with strong memories for you, but also specific, recognizable. And, because of the constraints of the clinic, portable or easy to assemble.

Your favorite college breakfast would best stir up your sense-memories if you were wretchedly hungover, but Dr. Zhou vetoed that, so we’re sober when we peel back the foil wrappers and bite into flour tortillas, fluffy eggs, greasy potatoes, and cheese. They’re bland and half-warm, but that’s normal. Mmm, fat and carbs, soft and chewy with no redeeming nutritional value.

You chew slowly, frowning, and reach for something. Then pause, looking around, confused.

You’re right. I felt it too, but blamed it on my nervousness. Then it hits me: “Crap. I forgot the hot sauce.”

The brain, Dr. Zhou tells me, is among the last great frontiers of discovery, and memory one of its most mysterious attributes. We’ve learned more about its workings in the past few decades than in all of human history, but we still have untold questions. The Venmeshki are far beyond us in their knowledge of neuroscience—they know more about the Human brain than we do, and their technology for neural encoding has been revolutionary for everything from treating traumatic brain injuries to training essential skills in crisis zones.

Part of me believed that you’d get uploaded into your new body like in a sci-fi movie, despite all Dr. Zhou’s reminders that memories don’t sit in the brain like files on a computer. Sensory info, facts, and emotion are all tangled up in memory, but in your new-formed brain, they’re unraveled. They need to be woven back together.

The reintegration process is a delicate thing, full of potential missteps. And on day two, I’m already screwing it up.

I try to fix it. I ask you about college: ex-girlfriends, roommates, reckless adventures when you were supposed to be studying. You talk about your International Studies classes and research projects, factual recountings as if you’d read them off your transcript.

When I ask why you chose International Studies and diplomacy, hoping for a glimpse of your passions, I get the same answer you used for job interviews. I should know—I helped you rehearse it.

“Are you still…” You trail off, reconsidering the question. “What are you up to these days?”

This is less of a non sequitur than it might seem. I can trace the leap of your thoughts, from your own dreams to mine (if I had any), to the job I took right out of high school doing home energy audits. You thought insulating other people’s houses wasn’t good enough for me. I kept telling you I liked it, that it might not be glamorous, but I was doing my bit to make the world better. It wasn’t a lie; I was proud of my work. You always said: but you could do so much more.

Thank goodness it wasn’t until after graduation that you figured out the truth: that I picked up the trades so we could afford college for you. Dad was on disability by that point, so if I didn’t pay for it, no one would. If you’d realized, you’d never have let me. Before you left, you made sure to get us both on your fancy health insurance, as if that made up for you not being here while he was sick.

Now, you want to know if I’m still “stuck” in the same job, or if I’ve “made something of myself.”

I shrug. “You know me, I keep on truckin’. Hey, remember that time I came to visit you at school for a long weekend? We went to that bar near your apartment, that smoky dive, what was it called?”

“That’s right! There was a great band. I hadn’t gotten that drunk in ages, and the next morning you went out and got breakfast tacos while I was moaning in bed.”

You would never have apologized before. You’d have teased me for being a lightweight. I wonder whether you’d be doing that now, if only I’d remembered the hot sauce.

Dr. Zhou assures me I’m doing fine: that everyone processes emotions differently; that negative emotions matter as much as positive ones; that you’re steadily progressing. So despite my doubts, I keep showing up, sticking with the theme of sandwiches.

“I hope you don’t mind. You used to say sandwiches were the perfect food.”

You smile (more than politely? Perhaps that’s my imagination), and my heart aches like a broken bone trying to heal. “They’re practical, portable, and delicious. What’s not to like?”

The Grand Tour is what we called our sister trip around the world. You’d never been out of the country, so for a graduation present, I took you traveling. It’d taken two years of saving up money and vacation time, and even so, we did it on the cheap, sleeping in hostels and letting airfare dictate our destinations. Fortunately, street food is inexpensive and so good.

You play along. “Hmm. We had falafel in Israel, banh mi in Vietnam, gua bao in Taiwan, but none of those are grilled.” She nods to the panini press that Dr. Zhou helped me get. “Maybe…arepas? No!” You correct yourself before I can give a hint. “It’s the croque monsieur, of course.”

“Ding ding!” I unload the bag to reveal thin-sliced ham, pungent Gruyère, a stick of butter, a tub of béchamel sauce (store-bought, but it’ll do), and slices of thick white bread, crusty and fresh from the nearest bakery. Paris wasn’t easy to visit on a budget, but we both picked it as our one big splurge.

We assemble the sandwiches, slather them in creamy sauce, and watch them sizzling on the grill.

“That smell.” You breathe it deep, that buttery, golden-brown perfection. “Is it still one of those questions people ask each other? Where were you when?”

I know exactly what you mean. “Not as much as they used to, but yeah. I can’t have even a grilled cheese without thinking about that day.”

There’s a short list of events that everyone remembers exactly where they were when it happened. 9/11 for our generation. The Kennedy assassination for Dad’s. And for people the world over, no matter your country or language or politics, the day the Venmeshki arrived.

We watched the news on our phones at a Paris café. We’d eaten rich, salty-sweet croque monsieurs for the past three days—we couldn’t get enough of that crispy toasted cheese and crusty bread—but that day they sat forgotten, congealing on the plate. It was raining, stiflingly humid outside, so the café was packed—and suddenly the chatter got extra loud.

“I didn’t know what was happening. You spoke much better French than me. I was afraid it was a bomb.” It’s less weird telling you about this than reminiscing about our childhood, maybe because I’ve recounted this story over and over. We all tell each other about that day, not because our experience was special, but because it was universal.

“I was confused, too. I knew it wasn’t terrorists, but I was sure I must be misunderstanding the word for spaceship.” You bite into your sandwich. “This was the taste in my mouth while we watched the livestream. I couldn’t think about food. All I could do was watch and wonder if it was really real.”

The bread crackles between my teeth, and salty cheese melts on my tongue. If it falls short of my memories, it’s still enough to bring me back. “You know, I don’t remember anything else about Paris. I know we went to the Louvre and toured the catacombs, all that tourist stuff, but I couldn’t think about anything besides the news. And you…”

“All I could think about was coming home and finding a job in extraterrestrial diplomacy. I enjoyed our trip very much…” You sound warm, for once, like you not only mean that, but feel it. “…but our world felt small after that day.”

“That’s only natural, considering your goals had just gotten so much bigger.”

The past two days, I’ve focused on pure sisterly memories, the fun stuff. Waiting for you to ask about Dad, but like a coward, not offering you an opening to talk about him. I almost chickened out and brought something innocuous like the American-on-white “classic” grilled cheese you lived on during training, but…we have to do this eventually.

You watch me suspiciously as I unpack the ingredients, multi-grain rolls and egg salad. When I pull out the jar of sandwich pickles, like a dare, your eyes narrow.

You came home, properly home for the first time in a year, to tell us in person that you’d been chosen for the first interstellar diplomatic corps. You vibrated with excitement; even you, my serious, studious sister, had such nerves you could barely tamp it down.

You made Dad’s favorite: egg salad with blue cheese and pickles, a combination you found revolting. You wanted to show how much you loved him. Or maybe to apologize for not loving him enough to stay.

Passing a plate, I say, “He wouldn’t have let you pass it up, even if you offered.”

You didn’t offer, though. I won’t say it, but think it loudly: you could have offered to stay, for him. The lack of it mattered.

I take a bite, and you mirror me reluctantly. It really is disgusting, the sharpness of the blue cheese and the sourness of the pickles warring with each other instead of melding, and I don’t even hate pickles the way you do. You look ill, but keep eating like it’s a penance. My stomach, too, rebels with nausea against the chasm of years and unspoken words between us.

“But he said it was the best he’d felt in months, because he had both his girls with him.”

I don’t remember that part; it sounds too sentimental for Dad. Maybe not, though. Despite being the reserved type, the man had wanted children so badly he’d gone to the effort of adopting not one, but both of us. Our whole lives, he’d loved us with a quiet fierceness. He loved you enough to let you go.

I set aside my sandwich and stare at you. That was not the question I’d been waiting for.

“Dad’s alive. He’s in remission. I thought…there’s this new treatment. I assumed you knew.”

You’re the one who always knew everything, who set up alerts for new treatments and clinical trials, the one who made a spreadsheet for me to track his medications and set calendar reminders to call after each of Dad’s doctor’s appointments, even though you couldn’t be there in person.

I assumed someone told you. It never occurred to me that you didn’t know. That you didn’t ask how he was doing because you thought he was gone. It explains the flavor of these silences between us.

You look like you might throw up. “He’s alive. Dad’s alive. I didn’t abandon him.”

I shove away the dark pulse of resentment. I shouldn’t be mad at you. I told you to go, insisted on it. So did Dad. We wouldn’t have let you miss this opportunity for anyone else’s sake. I have no right to be feeling this way.

“I thought you knew. Why didn’t you ask about him?” You don’t answer. “For that matter, why aren’t you happy?”

I’m not sure what awful thing I meant to say, but you slam your palm on the table, cutting me off.

You don’t look at me as I pull on my coat and go. The briny aftertaste on my tongue tastes like regret.

“Why didn’t you tell her about our dad? That he didn’t pass away like we expected?” I demand, turning the question around on her. Unfairly, but I don’t care.

“I assumed she knew! That she looked it up, or asked someone. She never asked me, that’s for sure!” My breathing is ragged. I’m not about to cry or anything, but she reacts as if I might, her voice gentling.

“Don’t blame yourself. Misunderstandings happen, and now that this is cleared up, it’ll be easier to move forward. Are you all right?”

I shake my head. “She thought she’d never see him again, and now she can. You’d think she would be glad.”

“Mira, I’ve worked with a lot of patients with different sorts of neurological disorders, and I can tell you, Eva is struggling with putting words to her feelings, especially complex feelings. Strange though it may seem, it’s harder to fully experience an emotion when you can’t name it. If you’ll excuse me saying so, it seems like your family doesn’t talk much about feelings.”

“No.” I laugh without humor. “No, we’re the ignore it ‘til it goes away types. When Dad wanted to say I love you, when we were kids, he made us fluffernutters.”

“I see.” I don’t look at her, not wanting to see her judgment, but she pats my shoulder. “It sounds like you’ve ignored something the whole time your sister has been gone, yet somehow, the problem’s still here.”

My plan for today was your going-away dinner. Dad and I wanted to make it fancy, while you just wanted grilled cheese and fluffernutters. So we compromised: fancy grilled cheese with aged cheddar, sun-dried tomato, and caramelized onion, with marshmallow sandwich cookies for dessert. We had a picnic with all your friends, but I kept zoning out, staring up at the moon, the stars…

I missed our appointment today. Okay, fine, I skipped our appointment because right now, I would only make things worse.

We didn’t really talk at your going-away party. We said the things you’re supposed to say, like “congratulations” and “good luck” and even “I’ll miss you,” but nothing that mattered, nothing that might hurt later on. Never mind the things that hurt from going unsaid.

But really, it’d been much longer than that since we talked, because I barely saw you during your training years. Too busy even to sleep, you survived on what you called “real” grilled cheese, your quintessential sandwich: sliced yellow American cheese on white bread, fried in butter. It tastes of comfort, no matter how stressed you’re feeling.

I ate my share of those, too, back then, using all my sick time and most of my mental energy taking Dad to his appointments. You helped as best you could—I see that now—but always from afar, in your spare moments, reminding me of things I needed to do or asking questions I’d already considered. There was that period where you were determined to pull strings and use your new status to get Venmeshki treatments for Dad, maybe even a clone-body transfer like yours. I wasn’t surprised that the answer kept being no—too new, too expensive, too risky for a brain as old as Dad’s—because the truth was Dad wasn’t “important,” not to anyone but us. I’ll admit, you did keep trying, making phone call after phone call while you cooked grilled cheese on a hotplate.

So instead of buying fancy bread and cheeses to share with you today like I planned, I fall back on the one thing I can count on. Alone in my motel room, I peel the plastic off two yellow squares that look like plastic themselves, slip them between two pieces of plain old supermarket bread, spread butter on the outsides, and grill it on the panini press to a buttery golden-brown.

I bite into it, warm and gooey, tasting of grease and exhaustion. My eyes sting.

I should be grateful for this whole ordeal. If the Venmeshki hadn’t given us the technology to beam minds across space, you’d have traveled to their planet at relativistic speeds, and I’d have been old when you got back, if not dead. Dad would’ve been gone for certain. By implanting your memories into a cloned body there, and again here on your return, you’ve missed a few years, not decades. I’ve got you back, and thanks to modern medicine and a good dose of luck, Dad does, too.

And I’m glad for that. So glad. But still, despite all their warnings and explanations, I imagined this would be easier. Like an episode of Star Trek: wake up disoriented, have a few conversations, and be back to normal within the space of a forty-minute episode. Not this mess of old resentments exhuming themselves.

My phone buzzes, startling me back to myself. The last corner of my sandwich sits on the plate, cold and plasticky now.

I wipe my buttery fingers on my pants, and draw a deep breath before I swipe and Dad’s face appears on the screen.

“Oh, it’s going. Slow but steady. The doctors say she’s making good progress.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call last night. There’s a lot to do.” I get a mental image of Dr. Zhou, her brows arching high. Wow, she was right. We really don’t talk about feelings in this family. “Actually, Dad?”

I consider my next words. It would hurt him and Eva both if I told him the substance of our argument, though I knew he’d wave it off. But I wanted fiercely for him to tell me it’d be okay.

“It’s…hard. No matter what the doctors say, I feel like I’m doing it wrong. It’s like I don’t know her anymore, or never really did.”

His tired little sigh surprises me. He’s always been the strongest person I know, even when the cancer hit. Especially when the cancer hit. “I regret not doing better by you, Mira. You should have had all the same opportunities as your sister, and instead you had to grow up too fast. And that’s on me—”

“It is. And it’s also come between the two of you, and I’m sorry for that most of all. But maybe you two have a chance to start over, yeah? What was it the doctors called it in those pamphlets, neuroplasticity? The way the brain is always changing and reshaping itself.”

“You were always the sort to look to the future, both of you. Instead of stressing because you can’t rewrite history, why not make some new memories?”

We chat a while longer, about his garden and the neighbors. When we hang up, I brew a cup of tea and curl up on the couch with the materials the clinic gave me. They’ve dumbed down the science for the families of patients, but it’s still dense. I read it over and over until I think I understand.

The more we revisit our memories, the more they’re reinforced in our brains. The more emotion associated with a memory—the more we let ourselves feel those emotions—the more vividly we recall it. It’s true for sad emotions and for happy ones. We’ve dredged up both this week.

Maybe I can tip the balance to the happy side and make our memories of this week together less bitter, too.

The next morning, I have a plan, but it takes longer to pick up lunch than I expected, so I’m running late. As I sign in at reception, Dr. Zhou pops out of the nearby office.

I have a moment of panic that she’s going to send me away, telling me I’ve done enough harm. An awful part of me feels relieved.

“I understand,” she says, which isn’t the same as it’s okay. “I wanted to let you know today will be the last day of this food therapy exercise. I know we originally planned for two weeks…”

“No! I should have been clearer: we’ve decided to move on with her treatment because she’s gotten as much as she can from this one. I know it may not seem that way, because she’s still different than you remember, but her progress is remarkable. Tomorrow she’s scheduled to rest, and Monday we’ll start a new neurotherapy treatment.”

“Oh.” I feel unbalanced, like I’ve missed a stair and tripped. “Well, that’s great.”

“I’ve explained all this to her already. Thank you, Mira. You’ve really helped her.”

“It’s the least I could do.” Literally. I could have been the mature big sister and resisted my petty impulses. I could have focused on her recovery instead of upsetting her. I could have told her the good news about Dad.

“You’re free—encouraged, even—to keep visiting, and we’ll start allowing other visitors, too. The company of friends and family will help ease her transition. But on a personal note…I hope we’ll see more of you, because I think that’d be good for both of you.” The doctor clasps my arm briefly, and then she’s gone.

Yeah, no, I won’t be coming back after today. It’s not like you’ll want me around.

“Hi, sis! Sorry I’m late, but I’ve got something special today. Call it an apology lunch, I guess? I’ve probably got it all wrong, so you’ll have to tell me how it should be.”

I really, really want today to go smoothly, to patch over the roughness between us. Especially if this is our last doctor-arranged meeting. We’re not going to heal everything between us, not today and maybe not ever, but I need a solid place to move forward from, and right now everything is brittle and sharp-edged.

“I got these from the embassy.” I busy myself with unpacking the cooler. I looked up the names of these foods, but can’t remember them now: thick, tart-smelling pastes in different colors, pink and green and bruise-purple, and some crunchy bits, and slabs of something dense and chewy that takes the place of bread. “They weren’t kidding about them having no rising agents, huh? You must have missed real yeasted bread. The Venmeshk at the front desk told me it’s not totally authentic, because their food printers don’t get the nuances of flavor—”

“But I hope you’ll like it anyway, and maybe you can tell me some stories? About what it was like?” I look at you, and a lump catches at my throat. “Can you show me how to prepare this?”

You take me by the shoulders. “This is really sweet, Mira. Thank you. But today, I’ve got something for you.”

You take out a white cardboard sleeve full of cookies. Big, cake-like yellow cookies, glued together with an unholy amount of fudgy chocolate frosting. The plastic crinkles as you tear it open, and I gape, because you can’t get those just anywhere. These are the cookies of our childhood, the treat of a hundred Saturday shopping trips and birthdays and good-grades rewards. They’d have been as hard to come by as…well, as Venmeshki food.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” you say. “I’ve had time to think, and to talk with the therapist here. And I did so much journaling. Do you know, they gave me a list of one hundred and twenty English words for emotions, and none of them fit right? I’m not sure I can explain, even now. But I’m going to try. For you.”

You open a notebook to a bookmarked page. You’ve written out what you want to say, which is entirely like you. I wish I’d done the same. I sit across from you, hands clasped in my lap so hard the knuckles are white.

“At first, when I started reintegration, I didn’t realize how much I had to sift through. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about things, but the caring was more like a fact, something I knew, while the actual feeling was locked deep down with nowhere to express itself.” You draw a rough breath. “How can I tell you what it’s like, seeing one of my favorite people who I’ve missed so much, and feeling nothing? It’s hell.”

“Then every meal with you started bringing up these feelings…but the wrong feelings, not the ones that belonged with those memories. I felt…guilt. Fear. Defensiveness. That’s why I didn’t ask anyone about Dad. Because I knew he would be gone by now, and I left him. I couldn’t bear hearing how hard it was for you, having to be there for him through it all…same as you were always there for me.”

“Mira.” There’s a brittle, wry edge to your voice. “Don’t tell me how I feel. I’m trying to be honest, with you, with myself. To be vulnerable. You know I don’t do vulnerable, and it’s taken a lot of work to get here, so don’t tell me I’m wrong about my own feelings.”

“Sorry,” I murmur. Vulnerable, right. If you could do it, why couldn’t I? “I shouldn’t have said that. I just hate the thought that you feel guilty about it.”

“Do you?” You tilt your head, studying me. There’s much more emotion in your face than when we started this process. I hadn’t noticed.

You go back to your journal. “I’ve come to realize that I do feel guilty about how you took care of me. I couldn’t have gone to school, could never have been an ambassador, without the sacrifices you made. It’s uncomfortable to think about. I tried not to let it make things awkward between us, but it got harder once I joined the diplomatic corps. And when I left…” You let out a shaky breath, close the book, and look at me. “I assumed that you resented me for leaving and you were hiding it. No, burying it. I know you were proud of me, but I left you alone to take care of our dying father. Weren’t you angry, too?”

Your brown eyes bore into me, and a long moment passes before I realize you expect an answer. Something shakes inside me, harder and harder, until finally it shakes loose.

“Yeah.” I look down at my hands, then back at you. “I tried not to be, but I guess I did resent that you were going off to have an adventure.”

“Thank you.” Those little words are strangely emphatic, like this is the biggest gift I’ve given you. Not the visits, not the food, but admitting I was mad at you when I didn’t want to be.

There’s a glimmer in your eye, and I tense. “Dammit, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry! Don’t—” But you’re squeezing my hands, and tears stream down your cheeks, and you’re smiling. Suddenly, I’m crying, too. “Okay, then. If you want to.”

Other sisters would hug now, sobbing into each other’s shoulders, but that’s not us. I grab a cookie and stuff my mouth, dropping spongy crumbs and flakes of chocolate frosting, the sweetness highlighted by accidental drips of salt. “These are so good,” I say, mouth full.

“Sugar coma in a box,” you agree. We eat in silence until the tears die down, then you start arranging the Venmeshki foods I’d brought. “Here, I’ll give you a galactic culinary tour…on the condition that, while we eat, you tell me about yourself and Dad. How things have really been for you.” A pause. “I want to get to a place where I can see him. Will you help?”

You dip a finger into one of the Venmeshki pates, such a weird shade of purple that I can’t even guess its flavor, and cock your head as you regard it. “I wonder how this’ll taste to a new body. Only one way to find out.”

Jo Miles writes optimistic science fiction and fantasy, including the Gifted of Brennex space opera trilogy beginning with Warped State, and their short stories have appeared in magazines including Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and more. Fueled by tea and sunshine, they spend their time dreaming up strange new worlds and serving the whims of their two cats. They live in Maryland.

Find a complete list of Jo’s books and short stories at www.jomiles.com.

A Menu of First Favorite Meals