I would love pasta. Victoria said. They ate at the kitchen table. The three of them and Amara talked about a project she was doing on the water cycle and how she thought the diagrams in the textbook were inaccurate and should be redrawn. And Victoria asked her what she would change.
And Amara explained it in the focused precise way. She explained things she had thought seriously about. And Victoria listened with her full attention and said, "At the end of Amara's explanation, you should write a letter to the publisher." Amara blinked. Can I do that?
Anyone can write a letter to anyone, Victoria said. Whether they respond is their business, but your observation is accurate and it's worth stating. Amara looked at her father. He looked back at her. I'll help you draft it, he said.
Amara turned back to her pasta with the expression of a person who has just been handed something they didn't know they wanted and are processing the full scope of it. After dinner, after Amara had gone to her room with her chapter book and the specific energies of a child who has been given a mission, Darius and Victoria sat at the kitchen table with their coffee and the apartment quiet around them. She's going to write the letter, Victoria said. She's going to write three drafts and make me proofread all of them. Darius said, I know how she works.
Victoria smiled. A real one, unpracticed and unhurried. Darius, she said, "Yeah, I made a decision today about the company." He looked at her. The worker safety committee that comes out of the audit, she said, "I want it to be employee-led, not managed by HR, not chaired by an executive, actually led by people who work the floor, the docks, the facilities with real authority to flag issues and real guarantee that flags reach me directly."
She paused. I want to build what you described, the system where the gap can't be manufactured. That's going to be expensive. Yes, it's going to slow some things down. Probably the board's going to push back.
Let them push, she said. I've got Elaine Park and I've got the audit report and I've got 3 years of your maintenance logs. Let them push. He looked at her for a long time. You're different, he said.
Am I from the person who walked into that facility in February in the charcoal suit surrounded by executives? He said it carefully truthfully. Something's different. She looked at her coffee cup. I think I've been running very fast in a straight line for 6 years.
She said and somewhere in the last few months I looked up and realized the line wasn't going where I thought it was going. She paused. I've been building something real. I've also been building a cage around it. This," she gestured.