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I love you was the first thing she ever learned. Middle and ring fingers down, pinkie and index straight up, thumb out. Truly, the full sentence was with arms crossed across the chest, ending in a pointing finger at the object of affection, but the simple ILY version was much easier, and was the one her mother formed her hands into when Hera used to crawl into her lap.
Mother was another one of her first few, a thumb against her chin and fingers straight up but separated. This one sometimes came with wiggled fingers for exasperation or a couple taps against the chin for trying to signal that something important was about to be said. Sometimes she'd use an A first, her fingers popping open in a quick call for attention. Dad wasn't learned until after she could speak. She remembered only signing that once, her hand moving up uncertainly to her forehead, the tip of her thumb brushing the edge of her hijab and the question in her eyes being answered with only a quick shake of the head and a flat hand making a quick flick from facing in to out. Hera never asked again.
Boy and Girl always felt nice when she got to sign them. She liked siding her thumb down her jawline, liked tipping an invisible cap. Sometimes she'd mix the two together, first a cap, then the fingers curled and the thumb moves along her jaw. Boy-girl. Or the opposite, thumb reaching her chin and her hand reaching up for her invisible hat. Girl-boy. Boy signs tended to be towards the forehead, while girl signs were along the jaw and chin. Sometimes she'd do a girl sign along her cheek, just to see if anyone noticed. Not many did. When her mother referred to her, she'd often just pat twice at the air around hip height Child, and avoid the gender entirely. Hera was often glad for this.
One that she saw her mother do often was a quick tap of her index finger on one side of her mouth to the other. If she was tired of answering, the index finger would become a clenched fist, following the two taps as her free arm held her daughter close. Not Married. Sometimes she explained with a quick spiral of the index finger and the thumb against her chin, fingers popping out from the previous motion. Single Mother.
When the first letter came from Goddard Futuristics, Hera made sure to tell her mother with index fingers pointing inward and fingertips tapping a diagonal up her cheek to Come Home. A flat hand made small clockwise circles over her heart. Please. It was the only way she could say it without stuttering.
Rhea had said her mission would last a matter of months, with a dominant index finger tracing a leapfrog over it's non dominant-twin. When the index finger months were replaced with closed fist years, Hera knew she would never see slender brown fingers sign for her again, never see the dark eyebrows quirk into an expression that gave extra meaning to the movement of her hands, never see how those eyes sparkled when she looked at her only daughter.
Hera got a mental glimpse of those brown fingers when her shaky ones opened her own letter from Goddard Futuristics, saw the quirk of the eyebrows when she met the crew and had to physically keep herself from signing a joke across the room at the grinning communications officer, saw the sparkling eyes when she looked out of her quarter's windows and into the stars.
Without thinking, she pulled a thumb to her chest, then put both palms up and made a small outwards circle with them, finishing with her thumb against her chin, fingers up. I'm here, Mom.
She could almost see her mother's reflection in the glass, one flat hand motioning in towards her chest. Welcome.