CHAPTER 15
The Expansion Pitch
Northlight's board, roughly eighteen months after Eli was born, green-lit an expansion into manufacturing partnerships, and Ryan found himself, without any particular say in the matter, assigned to lead a pitch to a small, well-regarded firm in Sparrow Lake, Minnesota, a name that stopped him cold when he first saw it on the itinerary.
He told himself it was certainly a coincidence, a common enough town name, and spent the entire flight unable to fully believe his own reassurance.
Ryan spent the flight to Minneapolis reviewing the pitch deck without his usual focus, some part of his attention snagged on the town's name printed at the top of every slide, unable to fully shake the specific, irrational hope that had started forming somewhere over Wisconsin.
Ryan's assistant, booking the Minneapolis trip, mentioned in passing that the Sparrow Lake firm had an unusually strong reputation for operational consulting, praise Ryan absorbed without much specific reaction at the time, unaware how personally that particular detail was about to matter.
Ryan reviewed the pitch materials one final time on the flight, and found his mind repeatedly drifting to a version of Sparrow Lake he'd never seen, imagining, despite his own best efforts not to, what kind of life Emma might have built there, what kind of town had earned her trust enough to become home.
The itinerary, printed and clipped to his travel folder, listed the client meeting simply as Sparrow Lake Manufacturing Partners, no further detail, and Ryan found himself staring at the address for a long moment before finally, deliberately, setting the folder aside and trying, without much success, to focus on something else for the remainder of the flight.
Ryan spent the evening before the pitch reviewing his materials in a Minneapolis hotel room, unable to fully shake a growing, specific unease he couldn't quite name, some instinct telling him that this particular trip was going to matter in ways that had nothing to do with the deal itself.
Ryan's business partner, noticing his distraction on the flight, asked whether everything was all right, and Ryan found himself, for the first time, offering an honest if incomplete answer rather than his usual practiced deflection, admitting only that the destination carried some complicated personal history he wasn't quite ready to fully explain yet.
Ryan thought, checking into his Minneapolis hotel the night before the pitch, about how differently this trip felt compared to his usual business travel, a specific, nervous energy he hadn't experienced in years, since long before Northlight had trained the nervousness out of him in favor of practiced, professional composure.
Ryan's business partner, noticing his uncharacteristic quiet during the drive from the airport, asked whether everything was all right, and Ryan found himself, for the first time, offering an honest if incomplete answer rather than his usual practiced deflection, admitting only that the destination carried complicated personal history he wasn't quite ready to fully explain yet.
Ryan checked his phone twice more before the plane finally landed, some anxious, hopeful part of him half expecting a message that never came, and understood, gathering his bags, that whatever happened next in Sparrow Lake, he was walking into it with no guarantees at all.
Ryan's assistant flagged the Sparrow Lake meeting on his calendar with a note reading simply key partnership opportunity, entirely unaware of the personal weight the destination carried, and Ryan found himself staring at that ordinary, businesslike phrase for longer than it warranted.
Ryan's driver, picking him up from the Minneapolis airport, made easy small talk about the weather the entire ride, entirely unaware that his passenger was spending the drive silently rehearsing, and discarding, every possible version of a conversation he didn't yet know for certain he was even going to have.
The Minneapolis skyline came into view as the plane began its descent, and Ryan found himself, watching it approach, thinking not about the pitch waiting for him the next day but about the specific, complicated hope that had been quietly building in him since he'd first seen Sparrow Lake's name printed at the top of his itinerary.