Unexpected Reunion

A series of hesitant taps at the door yanked Kirah out of her doze. She paused before sitting up. Had that really happened, or had she half-dreamed it? Was it her door or her neighbor’s?

Another series of taps, this time more sure. Kirah sighed and swung her legs out of bed, standing and stretching before padding over to the door on bare feet encapsulated by too-long pajama pants.

She tried looking through the peephole, but couldn’t really make anything out, so she shrugged and opened the door just enough to see through.

A strange woman stood in the hallway outside her apartment, fiddling with her hands. She had dark brown curls and dark brown eyes. She had a similar physical build to Kirah–small, nice legs but little else to speak of.

“Can I help you?” Kirah asked.

“Are you Kirah?” The woman said.

Kirah just nodded.

“This is…hard to explain.” The woman began. “Do you…recognize me at least?”

Kirah shook her head. For some reason, that seemed incredibly distressing to the woman. She blinked several times, and her eyes had turned red and watery. Her lip trembled, and her voice shook as she continued.

“I…should have been better prepared for that. You were just a child, after all.”

Kirah didn’t move. Her watch vibrated on her wrist, letting her know she had an incoming call from her dad. She’d call him back after the woman left.

“My name…is Kahri.” Kirah blinked, swallowing. That had been her mother’s name, before she’d died of illness when Kirah was too young to remember. She did look like Kirah’s aunt, her mother’s sister. But this wasn’t possible. Kirah didn’t remember the funeral, but she knew there had been one. Her mother had been cremated, so there hadn’t been a body…but there were death certificates. Kirah had inherited several of them after college, though she was never sure why she would ever need even one, much less eight of them.

“Can I help you?” She said, buying herself time. The woman’s face crumpled for a second.

“I thought…you would have recognized that, at least.”

Kirah took a deep breath and held it for a second. “I do.” she said at last. “But I also know…that what you seem to be implying is impossible.”

“I know…I know it should be. But I’m here.” The woman looked at her with a desperate expression. “I…I can prove it. You were born July 21st, 1994, at six minutes past noon. I was sick, and you were twelve weeks premature. Not many people believed either of us would make it.”

Kirah hesitated. “I don’t even know what time of day I was born.” Kahri’s face crumpled.

“Did he…move on?” She whispered, her voice breaking.

Kirah opened her mouth, but couldn’t make herself say the words. Her father had remarried a little over a year after her mother’s death, which seemed cruel. It had felt cruel to the three-year-old Kirah who had simply been told ‘this is your new mom now.’ She had promptly thrown a massive fit, and she and her stepmom had hated each other for pretty much her entire life after that. It wasn’t either of their faults…how her father had handled such things. But he’d always been like that.

“How long?” Kahri whispered, wet tracks leading down her cheeks. “How long did it take him to erase me entirely?”

Kirah swallowed.

“Did he even tell you about me?”

Kirah shook her head. “Not really.” She said quietly. Actually, all mention of her birth mom had been punished, even when it had been for a school project.

Kahri fell silent, her shoulders falling, as she looked down at the ground. Kirah’s hand tensed on the door frame, before a quiet meow sounded behind her, and she felt Whisper brushing against the backs of her calves. She swallowed again, and opened the door.