“I’m sorry he didn’t.”
“That isn’t yours to apologize for.”
“No.”
She sat.
Mason remained standing.
“Cameron knew you were here.”
“I suspected.”
“He approved your maintenance application.”
“That confirms it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Mason looked toward Luna’s room.
“Because I didn’t come back to fight Cameron.”
“Why did you come back?”
“The seal.”
“That’s really all?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn struggled to accept something so simple.
“You spent three months working in a basement because of one component?”
“I needed to see the car under operating conditions.”
“You could have contacted engineering.”
“I had.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“No response.”
“My letter to Richard was the last attempt.”
“You could have written again after he died.”
“To who?”
“Me.”
Mason looked at her.
“You were twenty-six.”
“Your father had just died.”
“Every article about Vortex said you were fighting three board members for control.”
“I wasn’t adding a ten-year-old authorship dispute to your desk.”
“You came instead.”
“Yes.”
“As maintenance.”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It let me hear the car.”
The answer silenced her.
Mason sat opposite.
“The GT7 doesn’t fail in a report.”
“It fails under heat.”
“Vibration.”
“Load cycles.”
“I needed access to the building.”
“Not authority.”
“Proximity.”
Evelyn studied him.
“You designed it.”
“Parts of it.”
“Dominic says most of the fuel system.”
“Dominic exaggerates when sentimental.”
“He doesn’t appear sentimental.”
“He hides it badly.”
Evelyn almost smiled.
Then became serious.
“Cameron removed your attribution.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Richard called me once, about two months after Emily died.”
“I didn’t answer.”
“He left a voicemail saying paperwork had become messy.”
“I deleted it.”
“Why?”
Mason looked down.
“Because hearing his voice reminded me of everything before the accident.”
“Work.”
“Emily.”
“Who I was.”
“I couldn’t hold Luna at three in the morning and care who owned a pressure system.”
“I understand.”
“No.”
His tone remained gentle.
“You don’t.”
She accepted that.
“No.”
“I don’t.”
Mason continued.
“By the time I could think about it, years had passed.”
“I had jobs.”
“Daycare.”
“Medical bills.”
“A kid who got pneumonia twice.”
“Then Richard became sick.”
“I wrote because the car mattered more than the credit.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because someone drives it.”
No drama.
No grand statement.
Someone drives it.
Xavier.
Twenty-four.
A human life sitting behind engineering decisions made by people who might never meet him.
Evelyn opened the folder.
“I want you back.”