"He works too much," Esme said, rueful. She'd gotten in the habit of stating things that should have been questions. It could be interpreted that she was simply in the habit of jumping to conclusions. Or...
"No," she said. Her mind flashed to her father, but not to home--to the home she'd known in her dreams, impossibly far away and never within reach no matter how far she walked, across a wide, aching tundra. "I don't know where my father is. Traveling, if I know him." This much at least was true. They exchanged letters every once in a while, but he always initiated--she had to know where he was to send him a reply, and there was only ever enough time to send one or two back and forth before he was gone, moved on again. The last one she'd received had been from somewhere in Canada, and then nothing for several months.