"Miss Ross wants us to make the map and color ," Miriam said, digging through her art box for something to cut up her paper with. She pulled out a pair of turquoise plastic scissors, then put the box back down next to her as she gathered her worksheets up to start on. "We have to label the continents and where our family is from. Most people are just gonna be marking stuff in England, but Alana's mum was born in a place called Jamaica. Alana got to go last summer."
"Oh, Jamaica. That's quite far." Amy stood behind the counter. She had called in sick to work, not being sick at all, but it was just one of those lovely sunny days that she would rather spend sitting in the kitchen with a little girl. They had walked home from school together and then washed dishes by hand, because the machine was broken. Amy's stomach was still wet from being sprayed with water. She put the last dry dish into the cabinet before walking to the table, leaning against the back of Miriam's chair. Amy placed her hands atop Miri's head to ran her hands through the wild blonde hair, but the child ducked and pulled out of her way.
"Stop, mummy."
"Do you know where your mother was born, Miri?"
"Scotland," Miriam said, cutting the shapes of the continents out of the paper with her safety scissors.
"Not me," Amy said, taking a seat next to the girl and pushing the pieces of paper into the way they would be arranged on the map. "Your other mum. Your first mum. I know you remember your first mum, don't you?"
Miriam nodded as she finished cutting out the last shape, South America, then looked up at Amy for instruction on where to place it. Amy pointed to the correct position and Miriam placed it there, looking upon her work with satisfaction. "Where on here was my first mummy born?"
"Oh," Amy said. She placed her finger at the United Kingdom then began to trace upwards across the table, past Europe and Greenland and the Arctic Region. It continued past the fruit bowl and Miriam laughed when Amy got out of her chair, letting her finger jump up off the table and over a chair, across the counter. "Your mummy was born a long, long way from here. So far you won't even be able to find it on the map." Her finger finally came to a still on top of the refrigerator. "She was born on an asteroid I don't even know how far from Earth, called Demon's Run."
"What was she doing there?" Miriam reached across to the fruit bowl to get an apple. Amy plucked it from her hands and washed it before passing it back to her, then sat back down at the table.
"Some very not nice people took me there," she said, her voice going serious as she would allow it. Amy stared into her child's eyes, Miriam staring back as she chewed a piece of apple. "And she was the only person I had for a while, because I couldn't go home. I knew the instant I held her that I loved her so much, though. And I know your mum felt the same way about you." She then smiled and tapped the tip of Miriam's nose.
"Sometimes I forget that you're my first mummy's mummy," Miriam said, blinking her eyes and scrunching her nose as she laughed. "It seems funny."
"It does, doesn't it?" Amy said softly, reaching across the table for the package of construction paper. She started to pull out a pale blue sheet, but Miriam began bouncing in her chair, shaking her head.
"No, no, I want orange!"
"For the ocean?"
Miriam reached for the paper herself, spreading her body halfway across the table to draw the orange sheet out. "Oceans can be orange." She said it with the most matter-of-fact assurance, and Amy did not doubt her. Sometimes Miriam would drop small hints that would sound like little kid nonsense to most, but Amy knew were memories, even if Miriam herself didn't realize it. She would imagine a small, pudgy Miriam-baby sitting in between River's legs as they watched the Doctor run through orange waves. He would bring back bizarre-looking shells and try to explain the life cycle of the Mecraruvian Star-Shelled Sea Crab, but Miriam would be far more interested in digging her little fists into the pink, violet or lime-green sand.
"And my daddy?"
Amy's mind stepped away from alien shores and neon-colored sandcastles, back into her kitchen. "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying- what did you say?"
Miriam was now spreading copious amounts of glue stick on the backs of the continents and sticking them to the orange construction paper. "My daddy. Not daddy-daddy, but the other one. If I had a first mommy, I had a first daddy, too, right?"
Amy twisted her lips, unsure of how to answer. She touched the ridiculous River-curls on Miriam's head, then let her hand fall until she was cupping her cheek. "Do you not remember your other daddy at all?" Amy didn't know if this made her sad or not; it was the Doctor's own fault. He was her friend, though, and she loved him still. Besides, whatever his cowardly motivations, he had given them Miriam. "Not even his silly bow tie?"
Miriam shrugged and smiled, going back to her project. Amy knew the answer was barely, if at all.
"I think I'm just going to mark where you and Daddy were born. Daddy-daddy. Where was he born?"
Amy picked up a pen and leaned over Miriam, smiling as she marked the map with a little dot. "Leadworth," she said. "England."