“That’s what you get,” Maria said, “for asking to eat with us.”
And David realized, with perfect clarity, that a little girl asking one desperate question in an upscale restaurant hadn’t just changed one evening—she’d changed his entire life. She’d reminded him that wealth without purpose was just numbers, that success without connection was just loneliness in expensive packaging, and that sometimes the most important question anyone can ask is the simplest one: Can I stay?
His answer would always be yes.
