"You absolutely do."
He sat across from her.
"Your mother said the same thing."
Emma smiled.
"She was right."
"Frequently."
The model wing leaned slightly.
Ethan pointed.
"That angle—"
Emma raised one finger.
"No."
He stopped.
She adjusted it herself.
Then looked up.
"Remember the flight?"
Ethan's expression changed.
"Which one?"
She gave him a look.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"What about it?"
"I finally understand what you meant."
"About what?"
"Why you didn't tell them."
Ethan waited.
Emma continued working.
"When I was ten, I thought you were being weird."
"Fair."
"I thought if you had power, you should use it right away."
"Also fair."
"But then they would've been nice to us because you were chairman."
"Yes."
"And we never would've known what they did to everyone else."
Ethan felt a lump in his throat.
Emma looked up.
"So it was better that they didn't know."
He thought carefully.
"It was more revealing."
"Same thing."
"Not always."
She smiled.
"You still correct everything."
"Occupational hazard."
Emma returned to the wing.
Then said quietly:
"I was embarrassed."
"I know."
"I thought everybody looking at us meant we were the problem."
Ethan reached across the table.
She let him take her hand.
"I'm sorry."
"You didn't do it."
"I know."
"You fixed it."
"We fixed parts of it."
Emma nodded.
"Mom would've liked that."
Ethan smiled.
"Yeah."
Aurelia eventually installed a small training module built around the case.
Not with Ethan's name.
Not with Vanessa's.
A fictional scenario.
Passenger A holds valid confirmed seat.
Passenger B is commercially important and requests it.
No legitimate operational reason exists.
Employee feels pressure.
What do you do?
The correct answer was boring.
Honor the confirmed assignment.
Offer alternatives to the requesting passenger.
Escalate without falsifying records.
Protect family seating.
Document everything accurately.
No dramatic chairman reveal.
No executive footsteps.
No public humiliation.
Just procedure.
Ethan preferred that version.
The ideal outcome of the lesson was a story nobody would ever tell.
Several years later, at an aviation leadership event, someone asked him what he considered the most important reform of his chairmanship.
People expected him to mention fleet renewal.
International expansion.
Financial recovery.
Emissions investment.
Route growth.
Ethan surprised them.
"Record integrity."
The interviewer blinked.
"Passenger records?"
"All records."
"Why?"
Ethan answered:
"Because when organizations become willing to edit the record to make a bad decision look acceptable, they stop being able to correct themselves."
The interviewer paused.
"Is that connected to the first-class incident?"
"Yes."
"Do you still think about it?"
"Sometimes."
"What part?"
Ethan considered.
Not Vanessa's face.
Not Robert's panic.
Not Clare crying.