Page 14 of York

Runa and I were mostly silent, save to answer a few of her questions.

But outside the tortoise enclosure, she’d met up with another little girl, and the two of them got to talking.

Runa took a few deliberate steps back, and I followed.

“She’s chattier than I expected.”

“Yeah, she’s a big talker. Which I encourage. Especially when it’s other kids. She doesn’t get to spend a lot of time with them.”

“She’s not in school?”

“Not yet. Soon. Maybe.”

“Why maybe?”

“We… move around a lot,” she admitted.

“That why you’re here? Because you’re tired of moving around a lot?”

“Well, I mean, we’re here now because I got that tip. I’d all but given up hope about it.”

“How’d you get a tip?”

Runa’s face scrunched up. “Well, that’s a little humiliating. But I put up posters.”

“Posters? Of me?”

“Yeah. I found someone who did sketches, described you to them, and they produced something that looked a lot like you. So I had posters made up.”

“What’d they say?”

“That’s the embarrassing part. They said, “Help me track down my baby daddy.”

“Oof.”

“Yeah. Sorry. But I didn’t think anyone would give me any directions if they saw a picture of you. People pretty universally hate deadbeat dads. I mean, not that you are one. You didn’t even know you were a dad, but I—”

“Runa,” I cut her off. “It’s alright. You were trying to find me. I don’t care what you lied about to do that.”

She nodded. “I drove all around New York state and posted them up when I was over that way, not sure I’d get anywhere, but figuring it was worth a shot. I wanted you to know you had a daughter. Whether you wanted to be involved with her or not.”

“I do. For the record, I do want to be involved.”

Her gaze flicked away, but not before I saw the relief there.

“Been hard?”

“Raising Denali? No. I mean, yes. Babies are hard, obviously. Especially alone.”

“So you were alone.”

“Yeah, I was alone. But I was young. And didn’t sleep that much anyway. And Denny was a really good baby. I think she slept through the night by four months. It wasn’t that bad. The first year was actually pretty good. We had a nice little place, and I had a decent job. We were doing well.”

“Before all the moving around.”

“Yeah, before—”

“Mommy,” Denali cut in, making us both realize her little friend had moved on. “What’s next?”