Richard felt something break inside him.
He looked at the little girl.
"She said that?"
Lily nodded.
"She said he helped her when she worked in a big building. She said he was very busy, but he used to be kind."
Richard lowered his head.
For the first time in many years, he wished he could return to a moment in the past and make a different choice.
He wished he had read the letter.
He wished he had answered the phone.
He wished he had listened.
But the past did not offer second chances simply because a man had finally realized he was wrong.
Or so he had always believed.
Now, sitting several thousand feet above the ground, he began to wonder whether there was still something he could do.
"Emily," he said, "I want to understand what happened to your mother."
She looked at him cautiously.
"Why?"
"Because I think I owe her the truth."
Emily studied his face.
Then she reached into her handbag.
She took out a small photograph.
It showed Margaret standing outside a glass office building, smiling beside a much younger Richard Whitmore.
The photograph was old and slightly faded.
On the back, someone had written a sentence in blue ink.
Some people become successful because they forget who helped them. Others become better because they never do.
Richard read it twice.
His eyes began to fill.
He remembered that day.
It had been the opening ceremony of his company's first major headquarters.
Margaret had worked for months to make it happen.
He had promised her that she would always have a place beside him.
And he had broken that promise without ever discovering the truth.
He handed the photograph back carefully.
"Emily, may I ask where you're going?"
"Boston."
"To visit family?"
"No. I have a job interview."
Richard nodded.
"That's good."
Emily looked at him.
"It's at a hospital."
He waited.
"I'm applying for a position in the administrative department. I studied accounting, but I had to stop working full-time when my mother became ill. I'm hoping to start again."
Richard was silent.
"Why are you traveling with your daughter?" he asked.
"Because I couldn't find anyone to look after her."
Lily smiled.
"I like airplanes."
Richard almost smiled back.
"Do you?"
She nodded enthusiastically.
"But I don't like when grown-ups argue."
Emily gently touched her daughter's shoulder.
"We weren't arguing, sweetheart."
Lily considered that.
"Then why does everyone look sad?"
Neither adult answered.
Richard looked at the little girl.
Then he made a promise to himself.
Whatever had happened to Margaret, he would find out.
Not because he was wealthy.
Not because he could hire investigators or lawyers.
But because he had once called Margaret his friend.
And friends did not abandon one another when the truth became inconvenient.
Richard returned to his seat, but the conversation with Emily followed him like a shadow.
For the next twenty minutes, he barely touched his coffee. He kept looking at the photograph she had shown him, although she had already placed it back inside her handbag. He could still picture Margaret's smile, the way she used to stand beside him during difficult negotiations, and the quiet confidence with which she handled problems that would have overwhelmed most people.
He remembered the first time they had met.
It had been thirty years earlier, when Whitmore Industries was little more than a struggling office with twelve employees and a mountain of unpaid invoices. Richard had been thirty-eight, ambitious, impatient, and convinced that working harder than everyone else would eventually make him successful.
Margaret had applied for a secretarial position.
She had been a single mother, recently divorced, with a young daughter and very little money. She arrived at the interview wearing an inexpensive navy suit and carrying a folder of carefully organized documents.
Richard had almost dismissed her application because she lacked experience in corporate administration.
Then she noticed a mistake in his company's financial projections.
She pointed it out politely.
Richard checked the figures, discovered she was right, and hired her that afternoon.
For years afterward, Margaret had been the person who kept his growing business from collapsing under its own ambition.
She knew which clients were trustworthy, which employees needed encouragement, and which business decisions required more patience than Richard naturally possessed.
She had never demanded recognition.