Panic in my own head that I’m missing some kind of subtle clue that I’m supposed to pick up on beyond the obvious, which is that she has a very different relationship with people and with money now, and this isn’t about me.
Except maybe it is?
And if it is, what do I do about it?
This Daphne? This woman who’s been with me this past week?
I like her.
I more than like her.
And I don’t know what to do about it because this road trip will come to an end, and she has a day job that she clearly loves, and this can’t last forever.
Eventually, she sighs. “My parents used their money to try to control me,” she grumbles.
“I know.”
“You’re from that world.”
“Was. Not anymore.”
“Oliver. We’re drinking a bottle of wine that probably costs half my annual salary. With hot dogs and s’mores.”
“I might keep some parts of the old world.”
Her lips tip up, but she’s also half scowling at me.
“I’m not expecting anything from anyone that we’ve left cash with the past few days,” I tell her.
“I know.”
“Maybe I’ll get a list of all of the nonprofits M2G donated to in the past few years and use the rest of my fortune keeping all of them going.”
She stares at me.
Not blinking.
Possibly not even breathing.
“You’d do that?” she whispers.
The reverence in her voice—like I’ve proposed a way to save the polar bears—it makes me squirm even as the answer—the only answer, the absolute truth—comes out of my mouth.
“Yes. Of course.”
“You’d keep funding going for every nonprofit Miles2Go contributed to on your own if they cut it off?”
The math isn’t hard.
M2G wasn’t very profitable when I took it over, and though profits—and thus charitable donations—grew significantly in the past two years especially, I can afford to make sure none of the nonprofits suffer if things don’t go my way when my resignation and recommendation are formally submitted to the board of directors in a little over a week.
“I don’t want or need that much money, Daph. If it makes you feel better about me donating to Beeslieve for me to donate to all of the rest of the nonprofits that the M2G Foundation funded too, then it’s an easy yes. I picked all of them for a reason,and I hadn’t considered the potential that they’d have their funding cut without me there to oversee things. I hadn’t—you’ve helped me see through the fog I was living in. See the difference I made. The difference I want to keep making.”
She’s staring at me in the firelight, and maybe it’s the wine making everything seem softer, or maybe it’s the crackle of the fire mixed with night insects setting the mood beneath the half-moon and the stars, but in this moment, everything feels perfect.
Exactly as it’s supposed to be.
I’m who I’m supposed to be. I’mwithwho I’m supposed to be with. We’re exactly where the universe wants us, and this is right and good and everything.
