It was really, really hard to adjust. She learned the days of the week. She learned how to count. She learned how to read clocks and how to count money and how to press the numbers on a calculator gently enough so that she wouldn’t break it. She learned history, she learned trivia that was relevant to her fabricated childhood, and she learned enough about sports to passably pretend that she had played t-ball as a kid.
So it was okay. Or--it wasn’t okay but she had no other choice so it had to be okay. She was doing it. She was fine. Even if Jeremiah was gone and Alex was crushed and Eliza was lonely. It was all okay. She was fine. Things were going to be totally fine.
The school year had ended, finally, and Kara found herself laying in bed on most mornings, not really wanting to get up. Eliza had to go to work and Alex had to babysit Kara so no one was allowed to do anything fun. Ever. And Kara was afraid that it was all just part of the growing resentment brewing between Alex and herself. Alex was being punished because Kara couldn’t be trusted to be alone.
She lay quietly in bed, Alex snoring softly in the bed next to her, when she heard Eliza moving around in the kitchen. There was the bubbling of the coffee maker. The clink of mugs. The fridge opening. And then--
A sharp, horrified gasp and Eliza calling for them to get up.
Alex bolted upright, disoriented and half-asleep, and blinked across the room at Kara. It only took Kara a moment to zip down the hall and halfway down the stairs, looking cautiously before walking down at a normal pace.
Someone was standing on their porch.
She was tall and beautiful and Kara was struck by how much she looked like her mother. But it couldn’t be. It wasn’t. Except--
Eliza was saying something to her, ushering her back up the stairs frantically, trying to block Kara from her mother’s view, but Kara didn’t hear it. All she knew was that her mother was on the porch and her mother was alive and Kara--Kara wasn’t alone anymore.
She was out of the house and through the door in a moment and she didn’t hesitate before she threw herself into her mother’s arms, clinging to her desperately. There were a thousand questions spinning in her head but she couldn’t find the words to ask them. “Mom,” she cried as she hid her face in her mother’s shoulder, overwhelmed by everything.