My Summer With Mom Sis -

When Mom finally video-called from her job overseas, she asked, “How was your summer with Mom Sis?”

By August, their tiny apartment ran like a two-person crew. Jess made edible spaghetti. Mia learned to set an alarm and pack her own camp bag. They still fought over the remote, but now they had a rule for that too: “Rock, Paper, Scissors — best two out of three.”

Jess smiled from the kitchen, holding up a perfectly flipped pancake.

“This is useless,” Mia whispered one night. “You’re not Mom.”

The first week was chaos. Jess burned pancakes, forgot to buy toothpaste, and let Mia watch a scary movie (then regretted it at 2 a.m. when Mia crawled into her bed, shaking).

Mia thought. “Hard. But good-hard. Like learning to ride a bike and realizing you didn’t fall because someone was holding the seat.”