Page 29 of Single Mom's Daddies
“There,” she says, pointing. “That’s a monarch. See the black lines along the wings? How clean they are? That’s how you know it’s not a mimic.”
“A mimic?” Mila echoes, incredulous.
“Yeah. Some butterflies evolve to look like monarchs so predators think they’re poisonous too. But real monarchs taste awful. The fakes don’t.”
“That’s cheating,” Mila says.
Saffron laughs. “It’s survival.”
Alex raises his hand like he’s in a classroom. “Do they get tired from flying so far?”
“Definitely. Monarchs travel thousands of miles when they migrate. Some go all the way to Mexico.”
Mila’s eyes go wide. “Like on vacation?”
“Kind of.”
“You a butterfly scientist?” she asks.
“No,” Saffron says. “But I wanted to be. When I was in school, I loved bugs.”
“What happened?”
“My parents wanted me to be a nurse.”
Alex tilts his head. “Are you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I had my daughter instead of finishing school.”
The kids absorb this the way only children can—with no judgment, just interest.
I step off the path and onto the grass.
Saffron glances up and sees me. Her expression doesn’t change much. Maybe a flicker of acknowledgment. Maybe something else. But she doesn’t jump up, doesn’t try to fix herself. Just sits back on her heels and watches me approach. “Victor, good afternoon. Want to learn about butterflies?”
“Only if there’s a quiz.”
Mila looks up at me with a look that’s all mischief. “There will be.”
“Of course,” I say, and crouch next to Alex. “Which one is this?”
“A monarch,” he says proudly. “Miss Saffron says they taste gross.”
Saffron chuckles. “Not that we’re planning to test it.”
I glance at her. “You went to school for nursing?”
“For a while.”
“Where?”
“St. Carthan.”
That catches me off guard. “You’re joking.”
She shakes her head. “Two years. Then I dropped out.”
“Roman, Nikolai, and I all went there. Graduated different years, obviously.”
