Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, amateur effort not intended to infringe on the rights of the author or any other copyright holder.
Memory, when you are small, is a funny thing. Your brain is occupied with absorbing everything the world has to offer. It becomes a jumble of isightsoundsmelltastewordbookpicturethoughtmemoryexperiance/i. You can remember how to play a game, but your own past might become hazy.
(Mumma?)
Dee knows she once went by another name. But when she tries to think of her mother's cheerful voice, sometimes tense with worry, calling it, it becomes mubled.
But Dee is close enough. It may have been Deanna or Delilah or Deborah or Denise or Derry. Dee is for lots of things.
(Dadda?)
Her father was kind, wide and soft and huggable. He liked wearing fur coats, and Dee always found comfort in curling against the soft material.
When she found herself wandring in the forest, unsure what way she came from, she attached herself to the first thing that resembled her memory.
She knows now that Ted is not her father. But he is kind and hugs her and feeds her and tucks her in at night, and most days that's all she needs.
Ted and Blake and Vachel are always there for her, and there are always new friends to be found. They go on vacations and bake cupcakes and eat dinner together. They're a family. They have good days and bad days and fun days and sad days and adventures and tells stories and have cake every day.
(Can't you see me?)
But sometimes, when she's all alone, she remembers fragments of before.
Her mother laughing in the kitchen.
Her father painting her room (though she didn't like the color).
The swing in the backyard, where she felt like she was flying.
Her father's telescope, where they'd sit in the backyard and look at the stars and moon. Her father liked the moon.
(I'm on the moon.)
It's too easy to get lost on Earth.
Maybe from here they'll see her.
Maybe here on the moon, her family will find her.
Dee waits and waits, arms outstretched, waiting for her father to pick her up like before. She begins to cry, wondering why it's taking them so long.
"Dee! We found you!"
Ted scoops her up in a hug, and she's overcome with anger and frustration (Not Dadda! Not Dadda!) but even through two spacesuits, he's comforting and she can't stay angry at him.
"Hey, hey . . . shh . . .it's okay, it's us. I know you were scared."
She lets him hug her, wraps her arms around his neck. If nothing else, he's there.
"There-there now. It's okay. I'm sorry we lost you. We'd never abandon you. We came as quickly as we could."
Did her parents stop looking? Why hadn't they found her yet?
But they wouldn't abandon her, not this family she had found. They would always bring her home, put her into her pyjamas and give her hot chocolate by the fire. They were always there.
Dee relaxes and hops down to the moon's surface. There was still lots of moon to explore, and fun things to try with the moon's gravity.