on the beach and watched our mates glide to the opposite shore, dark slashes in the pristine water, and before I knew it, I was reclining on the sand and listening to quiet conversation.
Two tall women rose out of the water, and my gut clenched. I scrambled backward and whimpered, but they didn’t approach.
Pulse thundering in my throat, I stared at them until I realized neither of them was her.
“What do you want,” I gritted out, unsuccessful in calming my racing heart or shallow breaths, even with the realization. I couldn’t turn off my body’s response—and I refused to apologize for that.
“We wished to see the face of our beloved daughter,” the shorter of the two said.
“I already have a mother,” I said.
“We know,” the taller one said. They parted, and my mom stepped between them.
“Mama?” I said, my voice shaky. The last time I’d thought she visited me, I was weakening from neurotoxin.
“I am so proud of who you’ve become,” she said. Standing there with her helmet at her hip and wearing her flight uniform, I saw not only the woman I had idolized, but something more: I looked just like her, down to the short hair, since her employer, Space Global, had restrictive hairstyle policies. Mine was growing back rapidly and now rose to the same height as hers on the day she left.
“I was so proud of you, too,” I croaked out, overtaken with emotion.
“My baby,” she said, and a tear escaped down her cheek. “When they told me what you’d gone through ….”
Steeling myself against my own tears, I tried to be strong for my mother.
But then she was kneeling at my side, and I rose up to hug her, our knees sinking in the sand, and I cried it out. All of it. The years of missing her, of not knowing. The trespassing, the hacking, my dog’s death. Dad’s illness and death, every time someone used my race against me. David’s death, finding out about Kerberos 90. And the hell that was torture at the Ikma’s hands. I would have given anything to cry on my mama’s shoulder, to have her pat my back like she did right now, to have her whisper how much she loved me like she did right now, and to ask her advice all those years ago.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you all this time,” she said after she pulled away and wiped her eyes. They still shimmered, brown satin and warm love bright within. “Now you’re grown and more beautiful and keener than I ever could have imagined. You are absolutely radiant, Cecelia.”
“Thank you,” I said and sat back on my heels. Looking down at the sand, I cleared my throat and cast a glance at the two tall green women to my left who reminded me of the Ikma before meeting my mother’s eyes. “I might have to—to make a tough choice soon. I’m afraid of making a mistake.”
Linnea Pain, Wing Commander for the RAF first, and later for Space Global, a black woman, a pilot, an astronaut, and my mother, held my face in her strong hands and looked into my eyes. “What do I always say, baby?”
Nodding, I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat. She smiled and nodded and took mercy on me.
“Your heart will be here,” she said and pressed my hand to her chest.
Finding strength, I held her hand to my forehead. “And my reason will be here.”
Warmth filled my entire body, and my mama filled with light until I couldn’t see her anymore, and she was gone.
The women stood where they’d been the entire time, and I gave them a single nod.
“Thank you,” I said.
They nodded and turned as one, sinking into the clear placid lake until the water covered their heads, and they were gone, too.
Sitting with a huff, I looked around at the empty beach and thought there was something I was waiting for, but no. I’d been waiting for my mama for a long time. And she finally came home.