As they walked, Kate thought about that, about whether or not anything had felt different when she and T would come home. It always did, somehow, yet nothing at all had changed and she had to wonder now if what was different was how she felt about T. Every time they did something stupid and fucked up, she found her feelings changing a little, growing more impatient with T.

"The furthest my mom and I went was a scummy hotel about a half hour away from home," she admitted with a small smile. "She was really my mom that time, not one of the alters. I should have tried to convince her to take us to Italy."

But things had felt different that time, too. They'd gone and Tara had transitioned and for the first time in her life, it had been up to Kate and Kate alone to take care of her mom. She'd been the one to talk T away, to convince her to leave before she did something really stupid. Nothing had changed when they'd come back, but it had felt different anyway.