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Signy set her fork on her plate and smoothed a lock of Cora’s hair behind her ear. “But now and then, you’re not.”

Cora nodded, watching the kids play. “I guess I don’t feel like there’s any point in talking about it anymore, because, like, what else is there to say, y’know? It’s always the same old hurt. It doesn’t change. I change, but it doesn’t.”

Signy mirrored her nod. “Exactly why you should talk to people who feel the same, I think.”

“It’s so fucking long ago,” Cora sighed. “It’s crazy, kind of, to think that so many of us are still stuck on—Oh, whoops. Uh. Uh-oh.”

Cora set her pie down on the bench and hurried over to the kick-the-ball crowd, where one kid—Harmony—had managed to punt said ball straight into little Wally’s nose. Blood gushed, and wailing followed.

“Whoa, hey, hey, you’re okay, you’re okay—” Cora knelt down on the ground and took Wally by the shoulders. The others circled around in somber concern—all except Harmony, who was also in tears and fleeing for some hiding place. As Cora was maxed out with crying kiddos for the moment and couldn’t chase after the accidental culprit, she turned her head toward Signy. “Can you grab some napkins or a towel or—”

Signy headed briskly for the bakery door, where other alerted adults were sticking their heads out.

“Tip your head forward,” Cora said, guiding the freaked-out five-year-old’s chin down. “And if you need to spit, just spit, it’s okay.”

“She hit me on my face!” Wally howled.

“Yeah, yeah, I see that,” Cora said. She didn’t think his nose was broken, but if the kid’s parents weren’t in a findable radius, she’d take him to the clinic to make sure. She kept her voice steady, and her smile soft. “Don’t worry, buddy. Your Aunt Cora’s gonna clean you up.”

Chapter 40 Cora, The Stables

There were lots of tricks for dealing with comedown after leaving the saddle. Some pilots liked to do body scans—focus on your pinky toes, focus on your big toes, focus on your heels, and so on and so on, all the way up to your scalp. Some pilots liked to watch a movie, listen to a show, find a distraction. Some pilots swore by cold sponge baths; others just wanted to sleep until it was over.

Cora’s go-to was playing five things, which was best if you played it with someone else, but you could also do it solo. “Okay, let’s do . . . five . . . drinks,” Cora said to herself. She’d been back at the stables for about half a day now, and wretched as she felt, the recovery room was helping, as it always did. The lights were low and warm, the music she’d requested wordless and calm. Her bed was nice, too. Real beds weren’t possible in space, but a micrograv bed had a lot going for it. It was essentially a sleeping bag with armholes, strapped into a cradle lined with gel-filled cushioning that mechanically molded itself around your body so you wouldn’t drift around. She turned her head from side to side, enjoying the feeling of the liquidy fabric against her cheeks.

Cora had cheeks. Colibri didn’t have cheeks, but Cora did. It was important, to remember things like that.

“Five drinks,” she said to herself again. She’d forgotten she was playing. “Chicory. Hop Pop. Kombucha. Lemonade. Chicory.” No, wait, she’d already said chicory. “Black tea,” she said. The thought made her smile. “Okay. Five . . . vegetables. Broccoli. Kale. Okra—”

It was odd, it was odd to eat plants, Colibri had told her. Colibri did not eat organisms, she ate gases and vapors, the inorganic, the never-alive. Does it trouble you, to eat organisms? Colibri had asked, and Cora had replied, No, otherwise I’d die, and Colibri asked, But are they in distress when you eat them? and Cora replied, I hope not but I guess I don’t know. I can’t communicate with them, and Colibri said, You cannot communicate with me natively, either. Would you eat me if you could? and Cora replied, No, never, I would never eat a friend, and Colibri said, Does Signy eat her plants? and Cora replied, Yes, some of them, the ones that are edible, and Colibri asked, Are Signy’s plants not her friends? and Cora replied, I don’t think so, no, and Colibri had been confused and asked, But are Signy’s plants not of her love? and Cora hadn’t known what to do with that, because of course Signy’s plants were of her love, but—

“Five. Vegetables.” Cora shook her head briskly, as if the drift in her mind were ash in her hair. “Start over. Broccoli. Kale. Okra. Chard. Toma—” Cora paused. She was about to say tomatoes, but Signy had taught her such an annoying thing about them. Tomatoes were fruit, apparently, and vegetables weren’t a thing at all. Broccoli was a flower, kale was a leaf, okra—wait, fuck, was okra a fruit, too? Okra didn’t seem like a fruit. Cora didn’t want it to be a fruit. But okra had seeds, and she’d come to learn that if something had seeds, then—

Her head spun. Her sense of balance flipped. Cora took a deep, practiced breath, trying to ride above the part of herself that couldn’t make sense of this room.

Are Signy’s plants not of her love?

The door slid open, and Dr. Coleman floated in. Had it already been two hours since her last check? Must’ve been. “How are we doing, Cora?” Dr. Coleman asked, a smile on her face and a tablet in hand.

“Do you think okra is a fruit?” Cora said.

Dr. Coleman, who probably got asked a thousand weird questions by fucked-up pilots every day, went along for the ride. “Uh, no, it’s a vegetable.”

“There’s no such thing as vegetables,” Cora replied. “Not botanically.”

Dr. Coleman was focused on the medical readouts on the wall panel next to Cora’s bed, but she spared a glance. “Are you loopy, or are you being serious?”

Cora grinned at her. “If I was loopy, how would I know the difference?”

“Heh,” Dr. Coleman said. “Fair enough.” She made a few notes on her tablet, then stopped to think. “I swear you are evening out a lot faster than you used to.” She tapped and scrolled, working her way back through Cora’s chart. “Wow, a lot faster.”

“What?” Cora said.

“It’s nothing bad—it’s good, actually. I’m just not sure why this is happening.” Dr. Coleman angled the tablet, sharing graphs and numbers Cora wouldn’t have understood even if she hadn’t been a mess. “See? The change is incremental, but if you look at where your readings were at a year ago, there’s a steady trend of your blood pressure stabilizing faster, your cognitive abilities returning more quickly, your digestion settling—all of it.” She frowned at the data, puzzled. “You’re not on any medication that would do this. Are you eating differently? Less caffeine?”

“Oh . . .” Cora said.

Shit.