It was weird to think there had ever been a time when she hadn't been a part of the family. She'd been so young that, if she didn't think about it, she felt like she'd been with them her entire life. As if they were her real flesh-and-blood familys. But there was a before, a time when she was just another orphan. Her father had been lost to the deep of space, and her mother taken away by an illness.
Her birth mother had stayed alive long enough to give her a name, at least. Adoette. She had that much.
Helen, Cassandra, and Matteo were there the first time she met her parents. They would've been only a little older than her. She remembered how the twins' hair looked like dark halos, backlit as they were by the golden lights above them, and how Matteo had watched everything with sharp eyes and barely said a word. How Dad's laugh sounded like the rolling thunderstorms Adoette enjoyed listening to. How graceful Mom's hands seemed as she dropped spoken language and switched to sign.
Realistically, Adoette knew the immediate and strong feeling of home she felt around them was her adult self projecting happiness onto what was likely a confusing day for young her. But she liked to think that even then, she had some idea she was almost home.
YOU ARE READING
The Edge
Science FictionThere is no known edge to the universe. Cosmonauts have long tested this theory, flying further and deeper into the reaches of space. They explored, they discovered, they found new homes and settled down. But they could never find the edge. The long...
