I don’t know if my heart has ever broken.
There were high school and college girlfriends, but they were who I was supposed to date whether my heart was in it or not.
Even Margot was who I was supposed to date.
Safe.
Easy.
I loved her the only way I knew how to love her—the safe, easy, nonconfrontational, agree-about-everything way.
Theboringway, as Daphne would say.
I’ve never thrown my entire heart into something I loved so much that I couldn’t walk away from it, that I’d fight for it, that I’d bend all rules of time and space and reality to hold on to it.
Talk about feeling inadequate.
I don’t know if I even knowhowto love someone.
Not the way Daphne loved her dog.
She pats Angelina Juliana Priestly on the head, then holds up a stack of cash. “Here’s the deal. Whenever you want to donate a small fortune in cash, put the small bills on the outside of the wad so that they think it’s a bunch of ones and fives. Garage sales are good cover stories. Had a garage sale, wanted some of it to go to a good cause. People are tipping servers less and less in cash these days, but that’s still a reasonable cover, especially in more rural areas, like where I live. Bea gets a handful of cash at her burger bus every week. It’s believable.”
“So we’re long gone by the time they realize it’s more than fifty bucks.”
“Exactly.”
“How much is that?”
“No idea. I didn’t count. I’m hoping there’s a donation jar inside. If there’s not, we’ll pet the animals for a few minutes, then shove an envelope of cash in their mailbox on our way out. Just—let me do the talking.”
I let her think I agree to let her do the talking.
But I’m making plans to insist she gets a chance to pet the animals when she reaches the door, tugs on it, and then sighs.
“Closed,” she mutters.
“Mailbox?”
“Yep.”
We leave somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars in the mailbox, straight up hundred-dollar bills, with a note asking them to give the animals an extra hug from two animal lovers.
It’s almost the truth.
Daphne has clearly loved a dog or two in her lifetime.
My family had pets, but the staff took care of them. And in the case of my mother’s cats, whoever could handle their hissing dealt with them.
“I should get a pet when I’m settled,” I murmur, almost to myself, as I put the car in gear again.
“A big, fluffy, happy golden retriever,” she agrees. “You’d love that.”
We stop at a second grocery store in town, where she easily buys a thousand dollars’ worth of Visa gift cards with ten hundred-dollar bills, and management is asked to check my two hundred-dollar bills when I attempt to use them in a different checkout lane to pay for restaurant gift cards.
Back in the car, she takes one look at me, and she cracks up laughing so hard that she nearly can’t breathe.
“I give up.” I toss my hands in the air. “I can’t evenspendcash, much less give it away.”
