Pissed at losing all that unpaid domestic help, Wy thought, and was immediately ashamed of herself. A traditional lifestyle was why Alaska Natives had survived millennia in some of the most difficult natural conditions on earth, and there was no call to disrespect the people who still lived by those precepts. Their traditions were responsible for the existence of the Yupiq part of her DNA. She had been raised by white adoptive parents and she had never lived a traditional lifestyle, and while she might have written off her relatives in Ik’iki’ka she knew what she owed the people who came before them.

Besides, Alexei might have been angry but he hadn’t forbidden his daughter to leave the village. He could have, and he could have made it stick, too.

“There’s an online database that collates DNA samples. Even if the DNA of the person you’re looking for isn’t in it, sometimes you can trace them through the DNA of a relative of theirs whose is.”

Erik had a second cousin in the database, and the connection was made.

“It took me a long time to find him. He was in eastern Africa, working for UNESCO. I wrote to him. The next thing I knew he was here, in Blewestown.”

“This was in June?”

She nodded. “He wrote to me that he was here. I told my mother. She was really angry, and she told me if I told Dad that she would never forgive me.” She wiped her face dry with her hands and met Liam’s eyes. “Erik told me Mom never told him about me. He never even knew I existed, that he had a child. He told me he came back to the Bay to meet me, for us to get to know each other. I didn’t transfer down here until a month ago, like I told you, but he would drive to Anchorage once a week and we would meet for a meal or a walk. When I moved back to the Bay, we would meet here and talk. That’s all. That’s really all.”

“That scarf.”

She touched it. “Erik brought it back from Africa for me.” Her lip trembled. It would be the only thing she ever received from the hands of her birth father. “I forgot it the last time I was here.”

“Do you think your mother told Alexei that Erik was your father?”

“She would never.”

“Do you think Erik told Alexei he was your father?”

“No!” This time she was shouting. “No, he didn’t. He promised, and I believed him. Nobody told Dad anything, not Mom, not Erik, not me.” She sniffled, and Wy looked around for Kleenex and settled for a paper towel. Sally mopped her eyes and blew her nose and crumpled the towel between her hands. “We talked about it. Erik didn’t want to meet in secret.” Her lips trembled into a smile. “He was proud of me. Proud that he had a daughter. I think I—” Her voice broke. “I think I could have loved him. If we’d had time, maybe we could have made Dad understand.”