I'm trying to, she said. That's why I'm here. There was a pause. From deeper in the house, the children's program shifted to something with a different theme song. Then small footsteps and Mia appeared in the kitchen doorway in socks and pajama pants and a shirt that said, "Science is for everyone in block letters." She looked at Sloan with the undisguised assessment of a child who has not yet learned that staring is impolite.
You're the loud shoes lady, Mia said. That's me, Sloan said. Dad says you fired him. Mia, Caleb said, I did. Sloan said she looked at the girl and didn't soften it.
I made a mistake and I fired him and I'm here because I was wrong and I wanted to say so. Mia seemed to consider this with the seriousness of someone evaluating testimony. Did you say sorry? I did. What did he say?
Mia, Caleb said with a particular parental firmness that was clearly trying to hold back something that might otherwise become laughter. I'm just asking, Mia said. He said he knew I meant it. Sloan said. Mia looked at her father.
Did you go finish your show? Caleb said. Mia went, not entirely satisfied, back down the hallway. A moment later, the television volume adjusted. Sloan looked back at Caleb.
He was watching the empty doorway with that expression she'd seen on the driveway, the immediate, unguarded kind, the kind that doesn't perform itself for anyone. She had seen that expression in conference rooms and on stages and across negotiating tables for years, on people who'd spent decades learning to produce it on command. She had never once seen it look the way it looked on him, which was to say like it actually meant something. She's a good kid, Sloan said. She's a weird kid, Caleb said.
I mean that as the highest possible compliment. Sloan almost smiled. I have one more thing I need to say and then I'll go, she said. I'm not coming back with job offers. That's not what this is.
I came because there are 40 people in that hanger who watched what happened and I can't fix what they saw, but I can start doing things differently and hope that eventually that matters. And I came because I needed you to know that I understand what I actually did, not just that I made an HR error, what I actually did. Caleb was quiet. What did you actually do? He said finally.
It wasn't a test. He seemed genuinely curious how she'd describe it. She thought about how to say it without making it about her. I had a man in front of me who was doing something I couldn't do myself, she said slowly. Working that hard, caring that much, and still being precise about the work.
And I think some part of me when I walked in and saw him on the floor, some part of me needed it to be weakness. Because if it was weakness, I didn't have to look at it too closely. I could just be above it. She stopped. That's not a good thing to admit, but it's what happened.
Caleb looked at her for a long moment. "That's honest," he said. "It's the least I owe you." He unfolded his arms and turned back to the stove and lifted the lid on the pot and stirred. "You should probably go," he said, not unkindly. "We're about to eat dinner, and Mia has questions about the solar system that are going to require my full attention." "Right," Sloan said.
She stood up and picked up her bag from the floor. "Thank you for letting me in. You drove across the city twice, he said. Seemed rude to leave you on the porch. She walked to the door.
She had her hand on the knob when he spoke again. Sloan. She turned. He was still facing the stove. You asked the right question on Monday when you said why I didn't wake up in time.
But you asked it too late. You already had your answer decided. He paused. Start asking before you decide. That's the whole thing.
She stood there for a moment with that. Then she opened the door and went out into the night. The 10 days before the Meridian demonstration flight were among the most demanding of Sloan's professional life, which was saying something because most of her professional life had been demanding. The replacement of the hydraulic actuator had set back the pre-flight certification sequence by 36 hours, which cascaded into every department simultaneously and required a reorganization of schedules that made absolutely nobody happy. On top of that, the board had gotten wind of the termination and the technical fault through some channel Sloan couldn't immediately identify, and two board members had called within 48 hours of each other to express concern.
Not about the fault, not about the safety implications, but about the optics of a wrongful termination story emerging during a high-profile demonstration event. She handled both calls with more restraint than she felt. The fault was identified and repaired, she told them. The aircraft is safe. The demonstration will proceed.
And the mechanic, said the first board member, a man named Aldrich, who had been on the board since before Sloan took over and had opinions about everything. That's an internal HR matter, Sloan said. Is it being managed? I'm managing it personally, she said, which was true, though probably not in the way Aldrich meant. The second call was from a woman named Carver, who was more direct.
The concern, Carver said, is that if this becomes a public issue before the demonstration, our clients representatives are going to have questions we don't want to answer in front of cameras. Then we make sure it doesn't become a public issue, Sloan said. How? By doing the right thing, Sloan said, which generally has a lower chance of becoming a public issue than the alternative. Carver was quiet for a moment.