She recognized it after a moment. Paper folded the shape of banknotes inside. "That stage fare to Fort Collins," he said. "And two weeks wages." She looked at it without touching it.
You told me last night you decided to stay, he said. I believe you. But I don't want you to stay because you don't have the means to leave. He met her eyes. The means should be yours regardless of what you choose to do with them.
If you look at that money and still want to be here in the spring, then you'll know it was an actual choice. Odora looked at the folded paper on the table. She thought about how long it had taken her to understand what kind of man this was. Not because he'd hidden it, but because the particular combination of restraint and steadiness and fundamental decency that Garrick Voss carried in him was easy to mistake for emotional distance from the outside. She had made that mistake for weeks.
She did not intend to make it again. She picked the money up and put it in her apron pocket. Thank you, she said. He looked slightly surprised. He'd been expecting some version of refusal.
She could tell she didn't offer one. The money was hers now. She would use it or she wouldn't. And either way, the choice would be real. I'm still going to need you to understand something, she said.
Tell me. If I stay here and nothing formally changes, in a year or two, I'll leave anyway. She said it without apology because it wasn't something to apologize for. It was a simple true statement of how the situation worked. Not because I want to, because being wanted and being properly asked are different things, and I have enough experience with the first in the absence of the second to know how it ends.
She met his eyes. I'm not setting conditions. I'm describing reality. Garrick nodded slowly. You said last night that a conversation would be possible in the spring.
Yes. A specific kind of conversation. Yes. He looked at her with the directness that had been costing him less lately. She noticed he was practicing it or it was becoming more natural, one of the two.