Your pricing is too low, Victoria said one morning, reviewing the spreadsheet Ethan had reluctantly shared. You’re undervaluing your expertise, especially given your specialized training. A combat medic who can also rebuild transmissions. That’s a unique skill set worth premium rates. My customers can’t afford premium rates. Mrs. Patterson lives on social security.

So, you charge Mrs. Patterson what she can afford and charge the Mercedes owners what they can afford, which is considerably more. It’s called tiered pricing, and every successful service business uses it. Victoria tapped the screen. You’re leaving money on the table because you’re uncomfortable charging what you’re worth.

That feels like taking advantage of people. It’s not taking advantage. It’s running a sustainable business. You can’t help anyone if the garage goes under because you’re too proud to charge fair rates. She softened her tone. Ethan, you’re an incredible mechanic with skills most people don’t have. You deserve to be compensated for that.

It doesn’t make you greedy or mercenary. It makes you professional. He’d implemented her suggestions incrementally, raising rates for luxury vehicles while keeping them low for customers like Mrs. Patterson. Within 2 weeks, the garage’s profit margin had improved noticeably. Ethan had shown up at Victoria’s door with flowers and an admission that she’d been right.

He’d been stubborn, and he was grateful beyond words. I still feel guilty charging the Tesla owner three times what I charge Mrs. Patterson for essentially the same work. He’d said the Tesla owner can afford it and won’t even notice. Mrs. Patterson will notice if she has to choose between car repairs and groceries. You’re not being unfair.

You’re being equitable. There’s a difference. Their friendship developed an easy give and take that felt natural despite their vastly different circumstances. Victoria helped Ethan with business strategy. Ethan helped Victoria remember to eat regular meals and occasionally leave her house for reasons other than work.

Mia provided running commentary on both of them. Her 8-year-old observations frequently more insightful than either adult wanted to admit. One Saturday afternoon, Maya convinced them both to go to the park. Victoria couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to a playground, possibly not since she was a child herself, but Mia’s enthusiasm was impossible to resist.

“They spent hours there,” Mia demonstrating her skills on the monkey bars while Ethan and Victoria sat on a bench watching. “She’s fearless,” Victoria observed as Mia attempted a particularly ambitious maneuver. “Where does that come from?” Sarah. She was the brave one in our relationship, always pushing me to try new things, take risks, live bigger.

Ethan’s expression turned distant. Maya has her mother’s courage, but not her trauma. She doesn’t know yet that the world can break you. I’m trying to let her keep that innocence as long as possible. You’re protecting her from what hurt you. Is that wrong? I don’t think so. But eventually, she’ll face her own pain, her own losses.

The best thing you can do is teach her how to survive them. Victoria watched Maya, who was now attempting to teach another child her monkey bar technique. You’re doing that already. Teaching her that people show up for each other, that asking for help is okay, that community matters. I’m trying. Some days it feels like enough.

Other days he broke off as Maya called for them to watch her latest trick. They both turned their attention to her, applauding when she successfully completed a flip off the bars that made Victoria’s heart leap into her throat. Later, after Maya had exhausted herself and they’d stopped for ice cream, Victoria found herself thinking about family.

Not the broken version she’d grown up with, absent father, dead mother, a childhood spent in emotional isolation, but the kind Maya and Ethan had built from grief and determination. It looked different from the conventional nuclear family, but it worked. It was filled with love and laughter and the kind of messy authenticity that Victoria had spent a lifetime avoiding.

“Can I ask you something personal?” Victoria said as they drove back toward her house, Maya drowsing in the back seat. “Of course.” “Do you ever think about dating? About finding someone to share your life with?” Ethan’s hands tighten slightly on the steering wheel sometimes. But it feels complicated. Maya has to come first.

And most people don’t understand that. And there’s Sarah’s ghost. Not literally, but the memory of her, the life we had planned. It feels disloyal somehow to move forward. Sarah would want you to be happy. I know. Intellectually, I know that. She told me explicitly actually during one of her clear moments near the end. Made me promise I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life alone, that I’d find someone else to love. his voice roughened.

But knowing something and feeling it are different things. Victoria understood that intimately. I’ve never really dated a few relationships in my 20s that didn’t go anywhere. Nothing serious in almost a decade. I told myself it was because I was too busy building the company, but the truth is I was too scared, too afraid of needing someone, of being vulnerable, of giving someone the power to hurt me.

And now, I’m starting to think maybe loneliness is worse than risk. Maybe the only thing more terrifying than letting someone in is dying alone in a parking lot because you built walls so high nobody could reach you. They were both quiet after that, the weight of their respective fears and hopes filling the truck cab. Maya woke up as they pulled into Victoria’s driveway, immediately asking if she could show Victoria her latest drawing.

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