“Apprentices.”
She had not expected that.
“What kind?”
“Two students a year.”
“College?”
“No.”
“Technical-school students?”
“Maybe eventually.”
“Then who?”
“Kids who wouldn’t normally get through the gate.”
Victoria waited.
“High-school age. Paid placements. Real work under supervision. Shop safety, systems thinking, maintenance fundamentals, diagnostic reasoning. Not a tour. Not a charity photo.”
“Why?”
Ethan looked toward the open hangar doors.
Beyond the airport fence sat neighborhoods filled with houses smaller than the cabins of some aircraft Victoria owned.
“My father taught me because somebody taught him.”
He paused.
“Most talent doesn’t announce itself early. Sometimes it’s just a kid taking apart broken things because nobody told them engineering was a career.”
Victoria thought about that.
“Two?”
“Two to start.”
“Every year?”
“Yes.”
“Paid?”
“Yes.”
“Insurance, training, background requirements?”
“We build it correctly.”
“How much do you think this costs?”
“I don’t know.”
Victoria smiled.
“Finally, something you don’t know.”
“I know a lot of things I don’t know.”
“That may be the first executive-quality answer you’ve given me.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Victoria held out her hand.
“Done.”
He looked at it.
“Just like that?”
“You fixed my helicopter in twenty minutes.”
“Closer to thirty.”
“I am rounding in your favor.”
“That’s dangerous in engineering.”
“Two apprentices, Ethan.”
He shook her hand.
“For every year the advisory agreement continues.”
“Agreed.”
The handshake lasted less than three seconds.
For Victoria, it was an unusual contract.
No lawyers.
No draft language.
No strategy meeting.
For Ethan, it was the first professional decision in five years that felt as though it connected the life he had left to the life he had chosen.
Neither knew that the person who would understand the significance fastest was sitting in a fourth-grade classroom across town.
At 3:15, Ethan parked in the usual place outside Mia’s school.
She came through the doors carrying the black notebook.
The moment she climbed into the truck, she looked at him for three seconds.
Ethan called this the inspection.
Mia had been doing it since she was six.
She evaluated his face before asking questions.
Today she nodded.
“Something happened.”
Ethan started the truck.
“Maybe.”
Mia opened the notebook.
“Interesting happened.”
“Possibly.”
She looked again.
“Definitely.”
Ethan laughed.
“Interesting day.”
“The helicopter?”
He glanced at her.
“How did you know?”
“You only make that face when it’s aircraft, engines, or when I get a math answer right using a method you don’t like.”
“That last one is concern.”
“It looks the same.”
Ethan pulled away from the curb.
“Yes. The helicopter.”
“Did you fix it?”
“I helped.”
Mia stared at him.
It was the exact expression Hannah used to give him when he edited information for emotional convenience.
Ethan surrendered.
“Yes.”
“What was wrong?”
“A connector wasn’t completely locked after maintenance.”
“That stopped the whole helicopter?”
“Yes.”
Mia frowned.
“That’s kind of scary.”
“That’s systems engineering.”
She wrote something.
“What?”
“Nothing important yet.”
At dinner, Ethan told her about Victoria’s offer.
Mia listened while separating peas from the rest of her food with unnecessary precision.
“You’re going back to being an engineer?”