My pulse accelerated.
“Daniel was a brand strategist.”
“I know.”
Of course he knew.
“He consulted for us for six months.”
I shook my head.
“He never mentioned Kane Foundation.”
“It wasn’t a major contract.”
“That doesn’t explain your face when I said his name.”
Adrian looked at me.
“No.”
The quiet stretched.
Finally he said, “Daniel was the person who told me I was destroying something I claimed to care about.”
I blinked.
“That sounds like him.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“I was twenty-eight and absolutely certain I was the smartest person in every room.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m merely certain in most rooms.”
A laugh escaped me.
It surprised us both.
He continued.
“The foundation had become obsessed with numbers. Donations. Reach. Press. We were measuring everything except whether our programs actually mattered to the people using them.”
“And Daniel told you that?”
“In a meeting with eleven people.”
I could picture it instantly.
Daniel leaning back in a chair, sleeves rolled to his elbows, saying the one thing everyone else was too careful to say.
“He hated corporate politeness,” I murmured.
“I gathered that.”
“What happened?”
“I asked him what he thought we should do instead.”
“And?”
“He told me to stop trying to make the foundation look important and start making it useful.”
My eyes burned unexpectedly.
That was Daniel.
Not a saint.
Not the softened, perfect version grief had sometimes turned him into.
Daniel had forgotten anniversaries and left wet towels on the floor and once purchased an enormous kitchen appliance we used exactly twice.
He was also brave in ordinary ways.
He said what he meant.
He believed usefulness mattered more than appearances.
For three years, I had carried memories of him mostly alone.
Hearing one returned to me by someone else felt strange and precious.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“I assumed you did.”
“No.”
Adrian glanced toward his desk.
“There’s something else.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
He opened the bottom drawer.
For several seconds, he searched through a stack of folders before removing a thin black portfolio.
He placed it on the desk.
