Sunflowers (the care and keeping of)

Her Sister's Letter

The day of the fifth is wet and cool. Kia stands with her arms crossed as she watches down the rail for the trolley that was delayed for two weeks. Her team behind her shifts on their feet, impatience showing now that they have had to wait two extra weeks and another hour because the trolley is running late.

She hears a rumble down the trolley line but doesn't hold her breath. They are waiting right across from a commuter rail and the commuters have had more luck than the relief team.

It isn't until she sees Ilo's boy hanging out of the approaching trolley to smack the unoccupied sign over to occupied that she relaxes her stance.

In tune with her, the rest of the relief team unwinds as well, quiet voices murmuring in excitement. 

There's a second car attached to the trolley; Kia eyes it uncertainly. They've been doing the relief packages for months now, and have never had two cars. What happened that they needed another trolley car and to delay two weeks?

Kia spies the familiar family crest on the second car and recognizes some of the faces that jump out as the trolley stops. Her people don't wait either. They start directing where the supplies were going. Greetings and conversation strike up between the groups, friends they've made throughout the months catching up.

Kia doesn't move; her job here isn't to lift or maneuver supplies and it's less her job to make sure the inventories line up. She's mostly a figurehead at this stage in the process, an overture of collaboration and friendship. She might not need to attend the next drop off. Her family could try to visit then and that is something Kia cannot have happening.

Her cousins and sister need to stay in A'uli, and she'll remain here in Iwimi'u and everything will work out.

Ilo's boy surprises her as he drops down from the trolley almost on top of her. He barely spares her a glance and throws a "Sorry, kungoko" over his shoulder before running off to help.

Kia smiles after him. He's the youngest in the envoy, barely old enough to travel with his father on the trolley. The amount of energy he possesses is admirable and enviable. His earnest desire to help with everything left him tongue-tied in front of her for two months.

It's as she follows his winding path through the crowd that the family crests on the side of the trolley catch her eye.

Family crests.

As in more than one.

Mama? is all she thinks as she stares at her mother's family's crest plastered proudly next to her cousins'. 

In the four years since Kia moved, she has communicated with her mother directly exactly three times; first to say she had arrived, second to inform her that she was expecting, and the final one to announce the birth of her son. Kia specifically went to her aunt and cousins for the wildfire relief for A'uzimi to avoid having to talk to her mother. Kia would have received nothing from her mother except a rehash of their argument about when Kia was returning to Sirasi. Kia says never, her mother demands yesterday, and they don't talk for three more years. And every month except for this one, the trolley arrived with one family crest on the side.

Daraja, who must have finished checking the inventory, comes up to Kia's elbow and says, "What's with the turtle now?"

In Kia's pocket there's a stamp that has the same pattern of a turtle and four stars inside a sun. "It's my family's."

She isn't looking at Daraja, but she can feel the upraised eyebrow. "Wasn't it always your family?"

"Yes." There's not enough time to get into the politics of why her family crest is different than her aunt's, especially since Daraja has declared that she doesn't care each time Kia remotely thinks about explaining it.