It’s not that surprising actually when you look into it; however, just like everything else, there’s always room to improve,” I explained before pausing to glance up to gauge Reiner’s reaction.
“Aha…and?” Reiner prompted for me to go on.
That was a good sign. The fact that he hadn’t asked me any challenging questions meant that so far what I said still made sense to him.
“I think the basic idea is to reduce the cost per head in taking care of a child. That comes down to optimizing the cost for food, educational materials, and this suspicious bucket here that is labeled as ‘others’,” I explained further.
“Others…” Reiner murmured as his eyes fell on the bucket of costs that I had been referring to.
“Exactly. No one really knows what goes into that ‘others’ bucket and that is going to be one of our priorities to find out tomorrow when we make our visit to the orphanage,” I said before giving Reiner a pointed look.
“I see. Sounds like something…” Reiner replied thoughtfully as his eyes scanned through the paper once more.
“If we can reduce the cost per child then we can take care of more children at the same cost. On top of looking at the variable cost, I’ve also taken a look at the main buckets of fixed costs,” I continued to explain.
“And?” Reiner prompted once again for me to share my insights.
“Frankly, the building maintenance cost doesn’t make sense. When we went there the building was all nice and pretty, the gardens were well maintained as well, but I still can’t imagine the recurring sum to do all that to add up to this much. What do you think?” I asked as I pointed to the cost figure on the paper.
Reiner’s blue eyes followed my finger before he sucked in a breathed and sighed. I could tell from his expression that he also thought that it was unreasonable.
“Unless labor is super expensive on this island, I don’t think a facility of that size should have a maintenance cost that is this high. Oh, and this is also a recurring maintenance fee. Like really?” I said with clear suspicion.
“Another thing to look into. If the gardens are so expensive to maintain, maybe the orphanage doesn’t even need a garden…” Reiner said before nodding his head in agreement.
“Whether this is just loose management or something more suspicious, we’ll probably find out tomorrow or while we’re here this week,” I pointed out before heaving a sigh.
Celine and her team members were so nice and welcoming to us the last that we were there that it was hard for me to believe that something fishy was going on with their management of the place. All the staff seemed to care deeply for the children, so I didn’t want to believe that they were unethically benefitting from this.
“We’ll see…” Reiner murmured as his large hand patted my head before he started to stroke my hair.
“Yeah. It’s not fair to doubt people without some thorough investigation first. There may be very good reasons for this that we don’t yet know or understand,” I said before I smiled up at him.
Reiner smiled down at me and his blue eyes were so gentle and kind. The way his hand stroked my hair tenderly made my eyelids feel so heavy. If he doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to fall asleep…
…
“Do you want me to cook something, or would you rather grab something on the way?” Reiner asked.
I trudged out of our bedroom with a blurry mind and even more messed up hair. Getting sleep last night was a challenge. I wasn’t sure if I was too excited about getting to work on cracking this problem or I was too worried about catching Celine being up to something nasty in her management of the orphanage. Whatever it was, the result was the same: I couldn’t really go to sleep at all last night. My body and mind were already starting to pay the prince for that.
“What about coffee?” Reiner quickly offered once he had laid eyes on my zombie state.
“Yeah…coffee…” I agreed absentmindedly.
“What about taking sick leave for the day?” Reiner suggested with a small laugh.
“No…no sick leave…” I muttered before making my way to the dining table.
Reiner quickly got up from his seat and helped me onto a chair. I gave him a weak smile as I wondered if I looked like I was about to fall flat on my face and then realized from Reiner’s reaction that that was probably the case. How pathetic have I become?
“I’m ok…really…” I told Reiner before I smiled bravely at him.
At that point, I wasn’t sure if I was saying it to reassure him or to reassure myself. Reiner shook his head at me before he left me there to make me some coffee.
“You’re such a great husband…do you know that?” I told him when he placed a mug of coffee on the table in front of me.
“You’re not making any sense. Drink your coffee and go take a shower, Natalia…” Reiner replied curtly.
I watched as he took the seat next to me before I reached for the coffee mug. What would I do without him?
Because Reiner felt like I wasn’t fit to do my job starting in the morning, we ended up heading to the orphanage in the afternoon instead. Just like the last time, Celine was there to greet us warmly as if she had been expecting us. The state of the orphanage had not changed at all from the last time that we were here which was to be expected since not that much time had passed. After sharing polite greetings, Celine led us to a meeting room where we could get down to business with what we needed to discuss.
Honesty, when I first came to this place, I never thought that I would be put in charge with auditing and improving the operations of this place. Although this charity project had nothing to do with the main business of the company, I felt extremely motivated to work on it because it had monumental impact on the children’s lives.
–To be continued…