Well, thought Dorothy, at least the guys in this family are getting along.  Her Earthling grandfather Jacob, her dad Liam, and her brother Raymond were all at work together, fixing one piece after another in Building 29's empty-but-currently-being-reoccupied apartments.  The Martians had done their best to fix things up ahead of time, but there was only so much time, and only so many people to do the work, so some of the lower priority things had not been done yet.  Wall outlet covers, window shades (for apartments that had windows), cracked floor tiles, tricky light activators, and so on.  Not important enough to rise to the top of the priority list, but still annoying.  About five minutes after Jacob had been introduced to Liam and Raymond, the three of them had been going through Liam's list of unfinished tasks.  It was, for three rather quiet people, a handy way to fill in the silences, and seemed to be as good a way to bond as any.  They left Liam and Olivia's apartment to go through the rest of the building, carrying tools and talking little except to discuss the work to be done.

On the other hand, thought Dorothy, I am stuck here in this apartment, with two crazy women, plus Ruth.

At first, it had seemed to be going fine.  Dorothy liked her grandmother Sarah, who had an easy manner and seemed to know about many of the same Earth shows that Dorothy watched, and was eager to hear about the ones she didn't know.  Dorothy never was able to talk about her shows with her mom, who just said something like "when I was about your age, the shows stopped coming from Earth for a few years, and after they started up again I never got back in the habit."  Then she would try to get Dorothy to talk about medicine or electrical engineering or hydroponics or chicken farming.  Sarah, though, was almost as fun to talk to as Mildred, although in a different way.  Mildred was sarcastic and ironic, Sarah voice's was gentler and, frankly, she was rather gossipy.  She loved talking about the Earth shows.

She also was good with Ruth, who was soon up on her lap and asking for stories about kids on Earth.  Sarah seemed able to keep up with parallel conversations with both of them, somehow, and keep them both happy.  She also smiled a lot, with her eyes as well as her mouth, and laughed often at any joke Dorothy or Ruth made.  If it was not a joke, she listened carefully with wide eyes and rapt attention.  Without realizing it consciously, Dorothy began to feel that she was special and interesting and fun, instead of slightly disappointing, which is how she thought of herself after talking to her mother.

Then, at some point after the guys had left to start fixing things in other apartments, Sarah had asked Dorothy to take Ruth into the next room so she could talk about some things with her mother.  Dorothy had put Ruth in front of her favorite video game, and returned to watch her mother and grandmother through the slit between wall panels that she had discovered years before.  Sarah was still seated, looking over at her daughter with wide eyes and an anxious look on her face.  It felt odd to Dorothy to imagine that her own mother was someone else's daughter; even though she had of course known about Sarah's existence all her life, some part of her mind was just now coming to grips with this.

Olivia was working, sorting compost into quick and slow decomposing matter, cleaning dishes, and several other tasks that seemed less important than talking to her mother who she had not seen in person in two decades.  Her eyes were resolutely turned away from Sarah, towards her work.

"Maybe I should show you where your and Dad's apartment is now?" she asked softly.  "Or if you think you could find it yourself, you can go on, no need to wait for me, I'm sure you're able to."

"Olivia," said Sarah, just a tiny bit of pleading in her voice, and she slowly stood up and took a half step towards her daughter.  Olivia kept her eyes resolutely down.  Why doesn't she look up? thought Dorothy.

"Yes," answered Olivia, after a very long silence, still not looking up.

"I think we should talk," said Sarah, wringing her hands, her eyes wide open and tearing up a bit.  It looks like she's scared of mom, thought Dorothy.  What is going on?

"We are talking," said Olivia, softly.  With a shock, Dorothy realized that Olivia's voice was very soft because she was in danger of crying also.

"Would you like to ask me any questions?" asked Sarah.

"What would you like to eat for breakfast tomorrow?" asked Olivia, still not looking up from the kitchen sink, although she was no longer doing anything with her hands, which were palm down on the counter, as if she needed their support to remain standing.

"Not that kind of question," said Sarah.  "Would you like to ask something about...the past?"

There was a very long, awkward pause.  Finally, still without looking up or turning around, Olivia silently shook her head no.

Sarah looked a little bit deflated, then, but only for a few moments, before she raised her eyes towards Olivia again, and stepped closer to her.  She was now standing close behind her, her hands clutching each other as if she was trying to keep herself from giving Olivia a hug, for fear that Olivia would pull away if she did.

"Like, maybe, why didn't I teach you better about what adult life was like?"

Olivia shook her head no, and Dorothy realized (from her perspective she could see Olivia's face, even though Sarah could not) that Olivia was crying now.

"Why didn't I tell you more about what was going on, and what was coming?"

Olivia covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders shook a bit.  She's sobbing, thought Dorothy.  She had never seen her mother cry before.

"Why did I leave?"

Sarah was clearly about to cry also, but reached a hand out to gently touch Olivia's shoulder.  Olivia spun round as if stung, and Sarah flinched, but did not step back.

Olivia said something, then, but Dorothy couldn't make out exactly what the words were, because her sobbing had distorted her face and the muscles in her throat.  Sarah probably couldn't tell what she had said either, but the meaning was clear to her.  Especially since it was more or less exactly the questions Sarah had just been suggesting.  Finally, Olivia managed to get out the word "WHY?!".

Dorothy was shocked by the impact of her younger sister Ruth, who suddenly hugged Dorothy from behind, frightened by the noise from the next room.  Dorothy put on arm around Ruth, and patted her on the top of the head, but did not take her eyes from the tiny slit through which she was watching the two women in the next room.

Sarah was talking fast, now, crying but speaking clearly.  It occurred to Dorothy, later, that it sounded as if it was something rehearsed, almost, like reciting a memorized speech, which made no sense to her.  In fact, Sarah had been thinking over this conversation for years.  Olivia, on the other hand, had been spending those years trying very hard to think about anything else, and was caught completely off-guard by her own emotions.

"Sweetie, I panicked, I just panicked, I'm so sorry.  Whenever things were broken I would go to your father for help and I didn't know what to do.  I shouldn't have gotten on the ship, but they wouldn't let me take you with me, and I thought you would be in good hands here.  I didn't know they would all die, it never occurred to me that it was even possible, I didn't think you would be alone.  I shouldn't have done it, I should have stayed here, I knew it immediately as soon as the ship lifted off, but I didn't know what to do, and I just panicked and ran for your father.  I'm no good at fixing things, and everything seemed to be breaking, and I just panicked and didn't think it through.  It was a stupid, stupid thing to do and I'm so sorry, I just didn't know what else to do, but I wish..."

"Are you leaving?  Are you going to stay, or are you leaving again?!"

Up until this point, Sarah had been emotional, but unsurprised.  Unknown to Dorothy, Sarah had been imagining this conversation in her mind nightly, for eighteen years.  She had thought of what Olivia might say, what she might criticize her for, what she might demand in the way of apology.  Sarah had also thought over her answers, her explanations, her apologies, what she would say in her defense and what she would not try to defend.  She had never been so prepared for a conversation (notwithstanding which, she was genuinely crying and emotional).  But, it is not uncommon that no matter how a human tries to anticipate the future, another human can effortlessly surprise them with their response.  It had somehow never occurred to Sarah that her daughter would expect her to leave again.

Olivia, for her part, had locked up all of her feelings about her parents in a hermetically sealed box in her soul, and had attempted never to think about what was in that box for over half her life now.  She had instead spent those years attempting to anticipate and prepare for every medical or engineering emergency that might occur.  She was bewildered by her own emotional outburst, and the questions she asked were as surprising to herself as to Sarah.  The two women stared at each other, eyes as wide with surprise and shock as they were filled with tears, and there was a long silence.

Finally, Sarah shook her head.

"What?  No, no!  No, I'm never leaving, not ever.  Your father, of course, that's his job, to go back and forth between Earth and Mars.  But I'm here, as long as you don't order me to leave, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and your kids, and, and..."

But by then, Olivia was buried in her mother's arms, and both their words were more or less incomprehensible, perhaps even to each other, certainly to Dorothy in the next room.  Dorothy found it all very emotional, and teared up in sympathy for the two women in the next room who were obviously both very upset, but she had no clear idea what was going on.  Her mother had always seemed in control, poised, thoughtful, and practical.  She hardly ever even mentioned her parents, even in the last few months before the spaceship arrived.  Dorothy found it all very much out-of-nowhere, like a crazy outburst.  She patted Ruth on the head some more, and whispered, "it's ok, it's going to be all right, don't worry."  But, she thought, she had no idea it was true that it would be all right.  What if their mother was a crazy person now?

When, within fifteen minutes, both women were calm again, eyes red but smiling and sitting at the table again holding hands, chatting away and occasionally laughing while still crying, Dorothy was completely convinced that they were crazy.  Ruth was back at her video game, happily playing it now that there were no upsetting noises coming from the other room.  Well, thought Dorothy, perhaps Ruth is right and we don't have to care.  Who cares if they are crazy, if at least they are happy about it.