Victoria practiced until her mouth grew tired. She made mistakes and laughed at them, then grew serious when she realized how much patience her own staff sometimes expected from visitors struggling through English. Daniel did not flatter her pronunciation. He corrected it gently, asked her to pause where meaning required a pause, and had her repeat the sentences without watching the paper. After the fifth attempt, she put down the notes and spoke while looking directly at Watanabe. His expression softened.
"Better," he said. "This time you sound as though you are speaking to us rather than reading at us."
"That," Daniel said, "is the difference we've spent the morning looking for."
The attorneys divided into groups. Elena and Mizuhara's counsel compared the proposed reserved matters, while Evan Bell arranged a call with the lending syndicate. Tanaka reviewed supplier language with an engineer in Osaka. Victoria asked her office to prepare the video connection for late afternoon and instructed her communications staff not to release celebratory statements about the deal. It had not been completed, and she did not want Tokyo learning that Bennett had declared victory before its partner had agreed to remain.
Near noon, Daniel's phone vibrated. He had silenced it during the meeting, but now he saw a message from Sophie's teacher, Mrs. Palmer, followed by one from Sophie herself. The first concerned the science fair deadline. The second simply read, Dad, did you bring the blue project folder from the counter? Daniel closed his eyes. He could picture the folder exactly, with Sophie's initials written in green marker, sitting beside the toaster where he'd put it while packing breakfast.
He stepped into the corridor and called her. "Chief Engineer, we have a problem."
"You forgot it," she said immediately.
"I'm afraid so."
"I knew it. You put it beside the toaster after we fixed the light."
"Guilty. Can you use the photos on your tablet for the teacher today?"
"Mrs. Palmer said I can bring the folder tomorrow. But the batteries died again."
Daniel leaned against the wall. "I'll stop at the hardware store tonight. Good ones this time."
"Dad, it's okay. You don't have to buy everything."
"I'm buying batteries, not a space station."
She laughed. Then her voice softened. "Are you driving the important people today?"
Daniel looked through the glass wall into the conference room, where Watanabe was speaking with Elena while Victoria stood over a marked-up diagram of the proposed governance structure. He remembered the navigator waiting downstairs, the badge on his jacket, and the coffee that had gone cold before nine thirty. "Something like that," he said.
"Did they eat lunch?"
"Not yet."
"Make sure you do. You get grumpy if you forget."
"I have never been grumpy in my life."
"Dad."
"All right, perhaps once."
After hanging up, he remained in the corridor for a moment. When Rachel was alive, she had been the person who knew which little events mattered most in his day. Now Sophie had started asking the questions Rachel used to ask, checking whether he'd eaten and whether he would come home before the sky turned dark. It touched him and worried him in equal measure. An eleven-year-old should not feel responsible for reminding her father to care for himself because she was afraid no one else would.