When she came back to her senses, she was breathing hard, gasping. Tears rolled down her cheeks. M’Umbha was rising from her chair, moving closer. “Binti? What is it?”

Her mouth worked, torn between sobbing and grinning. “I remembered something! I…” She broke down, unable to say more.

Malcolm was by her side a second later, checking her pulse. “Breathe, Nyota. Slow, deep breaths.”

Once she had her breathing under control, she took a long sip of cold chai, emptying the cup. Omar took it from her, fingers brushing against hers. “I’ll get you a fresh cup.”

“All these years… nothing but vague sensations, emotions… usually not even that. This was… actual words, images. The experience…” She laughed out loud. “Mama, I remembered something! It’s not all gone. Nomad didn’t take it all!”

As mother and daughter embraced, Malcolm stood close by. “It makes sense. The brain is too interconnected for any memory to be cleanly, perfectly excised. There would still be a web of associations connecting to other parts of your brain. A strong enough reminder could help reconnect the severed pathways.”

Nyota wept freely as his words sank in. All this time, she’d retreated from her past connections to avoid facing the pain they triggered, the certainty that she would never recover what Nomad had burned away. If she had sought out her past instead, if she had faced the loss alongside her family, how much more could she have recovered?

Her mother saw all this in her eyes and stroked her hair forgivingly. “It’s all right, my love. You’re home now. We can begin anew.”

The Uhuras moved to the living room and talked well into the night, teaching Nyota about her own life—her formative years in Nairobi and Mombasa, her annual vacations in the country with Babu Uchawi and her cousins, her visits to her mother’s family in Zambia, the family jaunts around the Sol system with her father and Uncle Raheem. M’Umbha and Malcolm regaled her with tales of her father, including the embarrassing details of how Alhamisi Uhura had earned his childhood nickname Damu Pua, “Bloody Nose.”

Only a few of the tales they told sparked buried memories in Nyota, and then only fragments and flashes—but even that was a blessing she had never expected. She eagerly absorbed everything they told her, amazed to discover her younger self through their eyes—a self at once very familiar and entirely unexpected.

In time, the discussion came around to the purpose of her visit—not without reluctance on everyone’s part, for none of them wanted the visit to end too soon.