"Did you object?" Otis asked.
Patricia looked at her coffee. "Not strongly enough."
"Did you prepare the lists?"
"Yes. I did. I signed the first version. I told myself I was working within policy."
Otis was silent. She remembered Patricia publicly criticizing her cleaning, blaming her for a smell caused by an HVAC leak, and joining in laughter when Ryan mocked older workers. She could see how uncomfortable Patricia was, but discomfort was not the same as accountability.
"You were cruel to me," Otis said at last. "You also had the power to protect people who worked under you, and you used it to make decisions you knew were unfair."
Patricia's eyes filled. "I know."
"Then don't ask me to make you feel better tonight. Tell the truth in writing. Let the independent reviewers examine your part in this. Be prepared for consequences."
Patricia nodded slowly. "I can do that."
Whether she would was another question. Otis understood the distance between an apology spoken in a quiet restaurant and a statement signed under the scrutiny of investigators. She had spent too many years watching executives promise fairness in private and deny responsibility in public. This time, she intended to measure sincerity by action.
Saturday brought an unpleasant surprise. The company's communications office released a statement saying Sterling was facing uncertainty due to an unexpected ownership challenge, and several news outlets repeated the implication that Otis was responsible for the financial strain. Online commenters speculated about her mental health, her competence, and whether Thomas had been manipulated into giving away his company. A photograph of her diploma appeared beneath a story that questioned whether engineering knowledge from decades earlier could prepare anyone to run a modern corporation.
Otis switched off her phone. Then she visited her sister Lorraine, who lived in a little house with a garden full of late-summer flowers. Lorraine had been telling Otis for years that a person could serve a cause without sacrificing every part of herself to it. She made tea, listened without interrupting, and finally asked a question Otis had not expected.
"Why does it hurt you so much that they're surprised?" Lorraine said. "You've spent half your life arranging to be unseen."
Otis looked toward the window. "Because I thought they'd at least see the work."
"Some do. Some don't. But you taught them that they didn't have to see you. You must change that without believing your life starts only when those men recognize it."
Otis rested her hands around the warm cup. She knew her sister was right. Her dignity had not begun in the boardroom and could not depend on whether Ryan agreed she deserved it. Still, it hurt to learn that decades of sacrifice could be dismissed by people who considered themselves decent because they had never used the cruelest words aloud.