Page 120 of York

I never agreed with that saying about the days being short and the years long. It seemed the exact opposite for us. Days had been long, lingering, and joy-filled. The years seemed to fly past us too quickly to hold onto.

We went from having a sweet little doe-eyed little girl to a young woman who was on her way to her new life.

Away from us.

All the way to New York City.

We hadn’t had more children. It honestly didn’t even seem to occur to us to consider it for several years. We were so wrapped around Denali’s finger that we didn’t feel like we were missing anything.

Maybe having other kids at home still would soften the blow of this loss.

As it was, we were both raw about it while trying to appear as happy as we could for our girl, who was nothing but excited to take her first real steps toward adulthood.

“Don’t be sad,” Denali said, her eyes looking watery as she came to step in front of us.

“We’re so happy for you,” Runa insisted.

“But sad for yourselves.”

“It’s just hard to watch you go.”

“You’re going to see me at Thanksgiving!” she reminded us.

We would.

Because she was cooking it.

She still loved cooking, like Eddie taught her.

She still knitted, like Maud had.

Still fiddled with woodworking projects, bird-watched, did martial arts, liked glamping, loved a fair. She was a blend of everyone she had ever come in contact with.

Perfect.

She was absolutely perfect.

“We love you. So much,” Runa said, wrapping our girl up tight. Then I wrapped them both up.

“I love you too. More than anything. It’s just three months,” she reminded us as she took a step back.

“It will fly by,” Runa agreed, mostly lying. It was going to fly for her, but drag for us.

“Alright. You’ve held onto him long enough,” Denali said, looking pointedly toward the capybara stuffed animal that was tucked under my arm. “He’s coming with me.”

I handed him over and she one-arm hugged the stuffed animal that started it all.

“Oh, and here,” she said, grabbing the last box sitting in the driveway. “I got you guys something. But you’re not allowed to open it until I’m gone.”

There was another hug, promises to call, then she was off, pausing only to belt the capybara into the passenger seat.

Then she was gone.

We watched the car until it disappeared before turning to the box and unfolding the tuck.

Inside were two smaller boxes.

We each took ours and opened them to find little capybara keychains.

“Do you think she would notice if we just… bought her apartment building and moved in across the hall?” I asked.

Runa let out a watery laugh as she wiped a tear from her cheek.

“She’ll be okay. We did good with her.”

“Yeah, we did,” I agreed. “I have a surprise for you too,” I said, reaching into my pocket to produce my phone to show her the hotel reservation. “Same room and everything,” I told her. “Let’s take a trip back to where it first started.”