"I am now," he said.
In the hallway, Olivia was packing her tablet when Vanessa emerged. Ethan noticed that Olivia's hands trembled as she sorted papers, and he understood that speaking up in the boardroom had not made her fears disappear. He asked Daniel to arrange a confidential meeting with her and to confirm in writing that retaliation for providing truthful information would be prohibited. Daniel agreed, then handed Ethan the board's preliminary approval of a broader company culture review.
"There is another issue," Daniel said after Olivia walked away. "The marketing department has been using an internal ranking that combines customer appearance, vehicle value, and predicted spending. Some of the labels are uncomfortably close to treating ordinary customers as undesirable before anyone speaks to them."
Ethan read the summary, remembering Malcolm's explanation of the parking lot. "Then we need to see how the ranking is actually used," he answered. "A prediction model is one thing. A reason to deny people ordinary courtesy is something else."
At lunchtime Ethan walked past the window of a showroom on the first floor. A family stood outside studying the price card beside a used crossover while a salesperson watched them through the glass without approaching. The father wore a maintenance uniform, and his son carried a backpack decorated with cartoon rockets. Ethan stopped near the display, recognizing the way the father counted figures on his phone before asking whether the family could afford to step inside. He remembered doing the same thing when Lucy was younger and the medical bills seemed endless.
Ethan opened the door and asked the receptionist whether someone could help the family compare financing and warranty terms. The receptionist apologized and found a sales adviser who invited them inside without asking for a reason they had hesitated. Ethan stayed only long enough to see that the family had been seated and offered water. Their purchase, if they made one, would be decided by their needs, not by an assumption about what their clothes meant.
Then his phone rang with Lucy's school number. Ethan answered immediately, his attention moving away from every billion-dollar question in the building. Lucy's teacher explained that a classmate had made a joke about the family's old truck and that Lucy had replied more sharply than usual. Nobody had been hurt, and the teacher was calling because Lucy wanted to speak to her father before he collected her after school.
"I'm not in trouble," Lucy said when she took the phone. "I just said Liam doesn't get to call Grandpa's truck garbage." Ethan smiled despite the difficult morning. "I know you want to protect the things we love," he told her. "But remember, a person can be wrong without needing to become your enemy. Tell him what you know, and then let him make his own choices."