That is different. I have leftover chicken. " He said, "And I could make something with it. " He makes really good chicken soup. Ava said, "When it's the leftover chicken, it's not soup yet. " Marcus said, "It's a plan to make soup. " Same thing, Ava said. Again with that absolute economy of truth. Victoria thought about the Birchwood Inn.
She thought about room 6. She thought about 39 notifications and the board call on Wednesday and the life in Atlanta that was fully intact and fully waiting. Okay, she said dinner. Ava made a small fist pump that she thought no one saw. They both saw it.
The soup was extraordinary. She didn't know how it was possible for leftover chicken to become something like that in under an hour. But Marcus moved through his kitchen with a quiet efficiency that produced results that were impossible to be indifferent to. It was the kind of food that had history in it. Recipes that came from people who knew that feeding someone was a language all its own.
She sat at the table with Ava, who was telling her about the political dynamics of who had won the most at the ring toss and what that said about the structural advantages of longer arms. And she listened and added responses and ate the soup and thought. This is what the word home is supposed to mean. She didn't say that out loud, but she thought it. After dinner, after the dishes, after Ava disappeared to her room to read with the rubber duck positioned ceremonially on the nightstand, Marcus and Victoria sat in the living room with the quiet that she had come to understand.
Was his natural state generous and full and requiring nothing from her. I have to go back tomorrow, she said. I know, he said. I have a board call Wednesday and a performance review Thursday and an acquisition in arbitration that's been stalled and been stalled weeks. That sounds like a lot.
It's exactly what I signed up for, she said. I just didn't know what I was signing away when I signed up for it. Marcus turned his cup slowly in his hands. Not avoiding her, thinking, "Can I ask you something? " "Yes, when you go back," he said. "What are you going back to? " She thought about the answer honestly.
The company. She said the work it's I've built something. It matters. It employs 4,000 people. I know.
He said, I'm not asking about that, she met his eyes. He held her gaze steady, not demanding, just clear. What are you going back to? He said again. That you want to go back to?
The question sat in the room like a stone dropped in still water. She didn't answer right away. She looked at the photo of Dana on the wall. She looked at Ava's latest crayon drawing on the refrigerator. Visible from where she sat, a drawing of three stick figures in front of a house.
The middle one in what appeared to be a green jacket. She looked at the green jacket that was currently on the back of her chair. She looked at Marcus. I don't know, she said. That's honest it is.
He said it also means something. What does it mean? He took a long moment. It means whatever you built out there, you didn't build it around the right things. And you know that you knew it before you got in that car on Thursday night.
She said, "I'm starting to wonder if I know how to build around the right things, to want things for myself, not for the company, not for the board, not because something needed to be done, and I was the one who could do it. " She pressed her hands flat against her knees. I've been the person who does things for so long. I'm not entirely sure what I want when nobody needs me to do anything. Marcus was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You wanted pecan waffles this morning. " She blinked.
"You wanted to win that cake with Ava. " He said, "Even though you claimed it was her win. You wanted to be here for dinner tonight. You want something right now. You're just not used to letting yourself name it. " She looked at him. He looked back at her, she said very quietly, Marcus.
Yeah, he said. I want to come back, she said. Not to impose. Not because I think that, she gestured vaguely between them. I know this is 3 days.
I know I don't have the right to. You don't need a right, he said. You just need to say what's true. She breathed in. She breathed out.
I want to come back. She said clearly without hedging. I want to come back and I want to not pretend to be Sarah Wells or Victoria from Vague Software Atlanta. I want to come back as myself and I understand if that changes things for you. I understand if knowing who I am makes this Victoria, he said.
She stopped. I know who you are. He said, I knew last night. I looked you up after Ava went to bed. She stared at him.
Forbes Bloomberg, your company's website. The profile in the Atlanta Journal from two years ago. He held her gaze. Victoria Hail, 42, founded Hail Technology Solutions at 28, took it public at 38. Revenue last year, $812 million.
Her heart was doing something complicated. You knew this morning, she said. I knew this morning, he said. And you didn't. I wanted to see what you'd do.
He said. When you had the chance to tell me yourself, he put down his cup. You did it tonight without me asking. She felt something crack open behind her ribs. Not painfully.
The way ice cracks in spring, the sound of something that was frozen beginning. Finally to move. I should have told you earlier, she said. Yes, he said. I'm sorry.