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Amara Ilesanmi-Vance
Engineer, mother, and first teacher of grounding
Mara and June’s mother, not a second name for Mara. Amara helps run the family’s Lake Michigan sensor cooperative and gives the novel its first lesson: put a hand on the surface before trusting the system that describes it.
Connections
Contains full-book spoilersReveal the complete character arc
Amara dies before the main events, but her teaching moves through the entire book. The brass plumb bob, the wet dock, and the difference between a reading and a guess become Mara’s inherited grammar—and later, something Mara passes to children with less fear and more openness.