White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Fifteen

Liu wrestles briefly with the mail envelope—that never works—then hops up to retrieve a pair of scissors. She walks back from the kitchen already pulling out smaller envelopes, reading off names. "Dea, Dea, me... Tobias... me again... Dea... Tobias... Dea..." She stops on the next one and frowns at the name. If it's me, I think I'm going to be sick.

But Liu's face splits into a grin. "Awww. 'To daddy, from Ana.' She learned how to write!"

Krüger has a kid?

I make a conscious effort to keep my shock from showing on my face. I did my research on every member of this team while planning this mission, and I never saw a kid in Krüger's record. Kwon's, yes—she's got two adult sons—but no others.

Liu dumps most of the envelopes on their respective recipients, but hands Krüger the one with a small child's chicken-scratch on the front like it's something special. Krüger is smiling, but there's something pained in it. He sets the envelope on his pile of personal items, glances over his other two, and drops them on top. Then he goes back to a box of new microscope parts.

Liu plops back down. "You're not going to open it?"

"Not right now."

"Where's she staying? With your parents?"

He nods absently. A single dad, then? I wonder if he only recently got custody. Even that aside, though, I've never heard him mention a daughter, and I know he spends more time in the field than at home. Several times more. They must barely see each other.

"How old is she?" I ask quietly.

He glances up, startled when he sees that came from me. His pained smile returns. "She turns four this week."

I can tell he doesn't want to talk about it. I lean back so he knows I'm not going to press. "We should meet her sometime," I say, and leave it at that.

"You know who else we should meet?" says Liu. I look over to find her looking directly at me. All the breath is knocked out of me as she slides a slim white envelope across the space between us.

It's Yahvi. I don't even need to see the name. I'd know that handwriting anywhere.

"You know Yahvi Sanghera?" says Liu, and Krüger genuinely chokes on his coffee. Kwon thumps his back.

"Wait—what?" he manages when he can breathe again. "Dr. Sanghera? Like, from Neelambar?"

My pulse is kicking me so hard, it blurs my vision, and my stomach is going to overturn at any moment. It's been three years since I heard from her. Part of me wants to cry that she found me again. That she's still sending letters. She didn't even use the Neelambar Research Group stationary; this is personal correspondence. How many of these has she sent over the last three years, that never managed to chase me down on a moving F-300, or in a temporary hotel room somewhere in the UIS?

The other part of me is approaching panic, listing off all the possibilities of what I might find when I open that envelope. She has every right to be furious with me. What if she is? What if she isn't? I want to read the whole thing, and I want to burn it without reading a word. I take it from Liu, set it beside me, and return my hands to my mug before the others can see them shaking.

"Is it?" says Krüger again.

I nod.

"They used to work together," says Kwon, sparing me. Liu and Krüger both look dumbstruck. I keep forgetting Yahvi is a legend in the research world. She was always trained as a scientist, but my memories of her predate her new profession in astrobiology.