Disclaimer: Not mine I know, I'm just playing
This story was written for the "Here an R, there an R" contest at Voyager Central and won second place. Thank you to everyone who voted for it! The challenge was to write a story without using the letter "r".
I missed my Katie. As a Mom I needed to know that my baby was safe, but how could I know that when she was so distant, so lost? We had been told that the ship had been found, but that didn't mean they would get home, it didn't mean they would be safe and it didn't mean that my oldest child would be happy.
When they came and told me that Katie was missing I was adamant that she would be back some day, that she was out in the depths of space fighting to come home. When the messages came telling us that the ship was safe but such a long way away I could find no joy in the fact that my conviction had not been misplaced. My baby was still decades away and knowing that she was alive didn't stop me missing my much loved child.
I missed my Katie when I made coffee that she wasn't with me to enjoy. I missed my Katie when I watched Phoebe playing with the kids who had yet to meet the Aunt who was only a name to them and who didn't even know that they existed. I missed my Katie when I looked at the holoimages of my husband and saw my baby's face. I missed my Katie with each piece of news that told me she was safe but didn't tell me she was home. And then one day the news changed. They had made it. They had come back to us. Katie was coming home and she wasn't alone.
My baby was home and she had found love and a new family to add to the one she had left behind. The joy I felt in the moment that I saw them walking up to the house was like nothing I had known in the past. I have a handsome son-in-law with the most delectable dimples, a beautiful little angel to call me Nana and a chuckling, bouncing baby boy with his daddy's skin tone and his Mommy's eyes. The blessing of these additions to my life has made all the pain and longing fade away. We have two Katies in the family now and I'm keeping them both close-by. I don't want to spend a single additional second of my life missing Katie.