Chương 12
“I don’t know.”
“I can do a speech.”
“No.”
“A very long speech.”
“No.”
“With a slideshow.”
“Dad.”
He smiled.
“Okay.”
She pointed a spoon at him.
“You can come, but you can’t talk to the judges.”
“They’re not judges.”
“Good.”
“You think I bribe everyone?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Daniel felt it.
So did Lily.
She lowered the spoon.
“I know you didn’t.”
“I know.”
She squinted.
He held up both hands.
“Sorry.”
The showcase was held in a university engineering hall.
No trophies.
No scoring.
Children stood behind tables and demonstrated projects to families, students, and engineers.
Lily rebuilt the glove dryer in a cleaner enclosure.
She painted it navy blue.
Daniel was not allowed to help.
His contribution was driving to a hardware store when she ran out of heat-resistant tubing.
On the morning of the event, she placed Claire’s ash-darkened trophy at the back of her display table.
Daniel noticed but did not comment.
A girl from Colorado Springs asked about it.
Lily said, “My mom helped me make it.”
The girl nodded.
Then she pointed at the blackened edge.
“What happened there?”
Lily’s hand rested on the table.
For one second Daniel thought she might cry.
Instead she said, “Someone threw it near a fireplace.”
“Why?”
“She was mad.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah.”
Then the girls started talking about fans.
Daniel stood thirty feet away with bad coffee.
Margaret came beside him.
“You’re hovering.”
“I’m across the room.”
“You have a hovering face.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
Ethan joined them carrying a pretzel.
He had grown tired of the whole story faster than the adults, which Daniel suspected was healthy.
“She’s fine,” Ethan said.
“I know.”
Margaret and Ethan both looked at him.
Daniel sighed.
“Fine.”
Halfway through the showcase, a man approached Lily’s table with a phone.
Daniel moved instinctively.
Margaret grabbed his sleeve.
“Wait.”
The man asked Lily, “Are you the girl from that resort video?”
Lily looked at him.
Daniel’s body tightened.
She said, “I’m the girl who built this.”
Then she switched on the glove dryer.
Warm air moved through the vent.
The man looked at the device.
To Daniel’s surprise, he laughed.
“Fair enough.”
He lowered his phone.
“What does it do?”
Lily explained.
Her voice shook for the first two sentences.
By the fifth, it didn’t.
Vanessa’s lawsuit continued.
Months passed.
Her attorneys challenged the for-cause termination.
Mercer Lodging produced the investigation records.
Vanessa produced emails showing that senior leaders, including Peter and previous board members, had approved decisions later attributed to her.
Some of those emails mattered.
Daniel had to admit it.
Vanessa had not created Northstar’s culture alone.
The old board rewarded revenue and punished delay.
Executives praised her when she cut staffing costs.
People called her decisive when those decisions succeeded.
After the acquisition, some of those same people described her as toxic.
Daniel disliked the hypocrisy.
So did Maya.
“Cases become dangerous when the villain has receipts,” she told him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your company benefited from the behavior it now condemns.”
“I didn’t own it.”
“No, but the entity did.”
Daniel hated corporate law.
He understood it better than most people and still hated it.
Mediation was scheduled for May.
Maya expected settlement.
Daniel resisted.
“Why should we pay her?”
“Because litigation is expensive and uncertain.”
“She retaliated against employees.”
“And we have evidence.”
“She humiliated Lily.”
“Which is emotionally powerful and legally mostly irrelevant to the employment claim.”
Daniel stared at her.
Maya continued.
“She also has evidence that prior ownership rewarded some of the conduct now being used against her.”
“So she gets paid.”
“She may get consideration in exchange for releasing claims.”
“That’s paid.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked out the conference room window.
He was tired of results that did not feel morally proportionate.
Maya said, “You’re still looking for the fireplace ending.”
“What?”
“One clean moment. Bad act, immediate consequence.”
Daniel looked at her.
“That isn’t how most things end.”
He knew that.
He still disliked hearing it.
A week before mediation, Vanessa requested something unusual.
A private conversation.
No attorneys present.
Maya advised against it.
Samuel asked why Daniel wanted to go.
Margaret told him Vanessa could manipulate wallpaper.
Ethan said, “Absolutely not.”
Lily asked, “Do you want to?”
Daniel did.
That embarrassed him.
Not because he wanted Vanessa back.
He did not.
But a relationship of thirteen months did not disappear simply because its worst moment became public.
There were mornings.
Trips.
Shared meals.
Private language.
A ridiculous argument about whether raisins belonged in oatmeal cookies.
Vanessa had held his hand in a hospital parking garage on the first anniversary of Claire’s death because Daniel suddenly could not remember which level he had parked on and began shaking.
She had once driven three hours through snow to sit with Margaret during surgery.
People did not become fictional when they hurt you.
Daniel agreed to meet in a public hotel café in Denver.
Vanessa arrived early.
Her hair was shorter.
No camel coat.
She wore a gray sweater and dark jeans.
For the first few minutes they talked about coffee.
It was awful.
They both agreed.
That was almost worse.
Finally Vanessa said, “I’m not apologizing for the lawsuit.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I may win parts of it.”
“I know.”
She smiled faintly.
“You still say that.”
“Apparently.”
Vanessa looked toward the window.
“I lost two job offers because of the video.”
Daniel said nothing.
“One employer told my recruiter the board didn’t want the association.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“You hate that answer.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
A server refilled water.
Vanessa waited until she left.
“I was cruel to Lily.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around his cup.
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to say I didn’t mean it. I did.”
He looked at her.
Vanessa swallowed.
“I wanted to hurt you.”
“Through her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told you.”
“Because she was happy?”
“Because you were.”
Daniel frowned.
May you like
Vanessa looked down.
“At that competition, you looked like a family again. You, your mother, Ethan, Lily. Claire was everywhere without being there. And I thought, this is what it will always be.”
