I transformed from Ayumi to Kiyo in San Francisco, and later into “Violet” during and after World War II, when my husband, Tomo, said we needed to hold on to who we were but that we had to play their game to survive. We packed our bags as the soldiers waited outside our door. I packed my daughter Michiko’s bag, put on her coat and hat. I looked back on our home, on our city we had grown to love. Our neighbors peered through their windows—the O’Sullivans and Vaybergs and Cohens. Michiko waved to them from the street. No one spoke for us. No one stood up. In the stables of the Santa Anita Park racetrack in Arcadia, I slept, curled into Tomo and Michiko, crying for what the world had become. I sang to my daughter in alien languages that I had not spoken in centuries, hoping to find a melody to calm her once she realized we were not going home.
“We’re going to be okay,” I whispered in Michiko’s ear. “As long as we’re together.” I told her this in the camp yards before I sent her to play with the other children. I told her this after days of blood on her pillow and my husband’s pleas to the guards that sent him to the infirmary. I still have the doll I made from an old dress she held on to that last night, her shoes, the sound of her laughter. Nothing remained for me and Tomo when we finally returned to our old neighborhood save for a box of books and some clothes that the Cohens had been able to hide.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep the facts straight after so long, to remember all that has happened （though the emotions remain like stains）。 I want to say I did right by Tomo, but he looked too much like our daughter. I want to say we talked, and I kissed him goodbye, that he saw me disappear over a hill into the fog. Even with my mind being what it is, I find myself playing roulette with these moments at night. Sometimes it feels like I’ve imagined entire lifetimes. I tell myself that some confusion is okay, even forgetting, so long as I hold on to what’s most important—where I’ve come from, who I’ve loved, how the world （and I） can be better, and the hope that I’ll hold Nuri again.
*
Half the planet attended the launch of Earth’s seed, perhaps a few thousand at that point, some coming from as far as the polar continents. My daddy was the center of attention. I could tell from the way the others talked about him that he was a kind of hero in their eyes, a world builder from a respected family whose assistance on my seed and numerous others had become the stuff of legend. Remember the time you . . . Oh, that was an incredible species . . . Fine work you and your father did on Rylia, the damn asteroids ruin everything. My husband played with Nuri beyond the crowds.
Seeds did not launch into the sky or leave a plume of smoke like a rocket. The cradles that held them disrupted the fabric of space, opening a corridor to the target star system. I placed my hands on the cradle and entered the coordinates for Terran space. And before long, the seed began to shake and slowly sank into a whirlpool of the night sky, until a few ribbons of light were all that remained.
After the launch, we held each other, glowing as one. My husband turned to me and said it was time. No receptions or banquets, no delay. We decided to be quick about it. I thought it would be better if it just happened. Nuri approached cautiously and I held her tight. I love you, I said. I’ll love you forever. I gave her one of two pendants I had made containing possibility from the core of our planet. Outside our world, the crystals would glow like tiny stars when near each other, beacons lighting the way. Come find me, I said, wiping away our tears. I crawled into the cradle that once held Earth, and it closed shut like a shell.
*
I didn’t always allow myself to grow old and have what most would perceive as a natural death, but the life you see now will likely end this way—a sickness, a fall, peacefully in my sleep or struggling for my final breath （then always a sleight of hand before burial or burning）。 For a time, I stopped looking for Nuri, believing the more I wanted this future, the longer it would take. I became a child again for the first time in millennia, growing up among flower power and marches for freedom and fists raised in the air. I believed change was possible, that my creations were finally going to get it right. Keiko Irakawa became Nova Moon during the sixties, marched against the Vietnam War. As Clara Miyashiro, I tried to stop the globe from warming as the glaciers and permafrost melted, knowing my oldest mistake might be unlocked from the past—the plague that took my first Earth daughter, my first humanoid family and friends. Yes, it was my fault, you see （but it was also me who found the cure）。 I was so afraid of losing everything if I told you, after everything you’ve lost. No, it was a mistake, you see. I don’t regret finding love and always thinking about possibility—maybe that’s the biggest part of myself that went into creating this world. It’s what I loved about you when I first saw you talking about the stars.