“I’ll come with you tonight and actually join in.” Trina laughed at the stunned look on Katie’s face before taking another sip of tea.
“You’ll try this time?” Katie pushed the dinner plate away, her face a muddle of excitement and wariness. “They won’t understand if you snub them again.”
“I didn’t mean to. It was just overwhelming. I’ll do better.” Trina’s words rang with conviction. She’d walked back from Grandfather’s cabin never once ducking into the tunnels, though her hand slipped to the panel tool a couple of times.
The colonists she’d passed looked surprised when they didn’t recognize her, but no one stopped Trina after she smiled. Everything seemed different. She’d kept her back straight and only tensed in fear with the first few encounters.
“You think it’s time? Why the sudden change?”
Her sister’s voice held sarcasm built in months of useless pleading. Trina couldn’t blame her.
Trina shrugged. “I want to meet Aaron.”
Katie gave a tight laugh. “As if I haven’t been begging you to all these months.” She shrugged. “I suppose I’m just glad you’ve decided. Do you want to go now?”
Trina waved to Katie’s full plate. “Let’s finish our dinners first.”
Katie gobbled her food and rushed Trina to hurry as if worried she’d change her mind, standing over Trina as she ate her last few bites.
Waving her sister to sit down, Trina reached in her pocket for the painting. “I have something to show you first.”
“Can’t it wait? You’ll change your mind. I’m sure you will. Let’s just go now.”
Trina laughed at her sister’s impatience. “I’m not going to change my mind. I just think you should see this. Grandfather gave it to me.”
She pushed the frame across the table, watching her sister. She hadn’t told Katie about the painting or her failed attempt to steal it. She didn’t know how Katie would react. Now that the painting lay on the table between them, she wished she’d kept it for later.
Katie had been looking at Trina, but her eyes tracked the movement and finally glanced down when it proved too much of a lure.
Trina watched as Katie’s face went still. Water pooled in her own eyes as tears started down her sister’s face.
“It’s Mother, Trina. It’s Mother.”
“I know.”
“But how? How’d Grandfather have a picture of Mother? If he knew all along, why didn’t he come for us?”
Trina wished she had a simple answer but knew nothing about their birth had ever been simple. “Even if he’d tried, do you think Mother would have let him? She wanted our father, not his family. She was content to wait for a message from Jared, a gate pass of her own.”
Katie dragged a sleeve across her eyes and sniffled.
Trina picked up the frame, looking at it for a moment. “We can’t change the past, but now it’s like she’s a part of our future. Just as Grandfather wants to be. Where should we put the picture?” She let her statement about Grandfather pass without comment, giving Katie time to adjust.
“I think we should put it in the center of our table. It’ll be like she shares meals with us.” Katie paused. “That’s where you’ve been? With Grandfather so much of the time? I’d thought spacers were trying to steal you away.”
Trina nodded, relieved to offer a version of the truth. “He wants to meet you. Always has, but he’ll wait until you’re ready. I made sure of that.”
Before Katie could respond, Trina remembered something else she’d kept hidden. “It’s not a picture but…” She went to her shelf and dug deep through it to find what she’d taken from Grandfather’s house. “It’s our father’s pen. It needs cleaning if we ever want to write with it, but for now, it’s a piece of him to be with Mother.” She realized how strange it sounded, but Katie just nodded and held out her hands.
Passing over the pen, Trina watched her sister carefully arrange both items on the table. “Welcome to our home, Mother and Father,” she whispered under her breath.
Katie adjusted the frame one last time before stepping back to look at them. “And now, we’ll introduce you to your new life so you’ll have something to tell our parents about.”