“No formal records.”
“Charles Beaumont left the North American chairmanship in 2001.”
“Gregory retired in 2003.”
“The bag seems to have become part of the family’s private brand collection.”
“How?”
“We don't know.”
“And you displayed it downstairs.”
Camille shifted.
“That was my decision.”
Monica looked toward her.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Before this review finished?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The flagship requested several heritage pieces for an anniversary rotation.”
“The archive team had confirmed the bag was authentic.”
Monica laughed.
“Authentic.”
Camille understood.
“We had not yet completed the employment review.”
“Yet you already knew it was the missing bag.”
“Yes.”
“Then why put it on a shelf?”
Camille’s face tightened.
“Because I treated the artifact question separately from the personnel question.”
Monica stared.
“Do you still think they’re separate?”
“No.”
Good.
Camille continued.
“I should have waited.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Specific.
No defense.
Monica looked toward the archive box.
“What do you want from me?”
Elena answered.
“To decide what correction you believe your mother’s record requires.”
Monica laughed.
“That is your job.”
“Yes.”
Elena nodded.
“Legally and institutionally.”
“But we do not want to define repair without the family most affected.”
Monica looked toward the screen.
“My brother is affected too.”
“We invited him.”
“He declined.”
“I know.”
Andre had said:
“Mom is dead.”
Monica hated him for saying it.
Then understood.
Andre was five years younger.
He remembered less of the immediate aftermath.
Mostly he remembered Denise hating luxury stores and correcting anyone who called her a seamstress.
“I was a leather finisher.”
She always said.
Precision mattered to her.
Andre wanted no corporate meeting.
“No amount of paperwork is giving her those years back.”
True.
Still incomplete.
Monica had come.
“What are the company’s proposed corrections?”
Thomas opened a folder.
First:
The termination classification would be changed internally from discharge for inventory-integrity violation to separation based on unsupported investigative conclusion.
Monica stared.
“That sounds awful.”
Thomas winced.
“Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
“That the company acknowledges the termination was not adequately supported.”
“Then say that.”
He wrote something down.
Second:
A formal letter to Denise’s estate stating the company has found no evidence she stole or improperly removed B-4178 and now possesses documentary evidence that the piece left the atelier through an executive presentation request.
Monica nodded.
“Better.”
Third:
Back pay?
No.
The company was not legally obligated after twenty-seven years.
Statutes expired.
Employment relationship long ended.
Records incomplete.
But the company proposed an ex gratia payment to Denise’s estate equivalent to six months of her 1998 salary adjusted for inflation, plus reimbursement of documented retirement contributions she lost during the remaining months of that year.
Total estimated amount:
$41,800.
Monica looked at the number.
Not millions.
Not life-changing.
Enough to feel real.
Enough to feel strange.
“My mother made twenty-nine thousand a year.”
“Yes.”
“She raised two kids on that.”
“Yes.”
“My dad drove buses.”
“Yes.”
“You have all of that?”
“Payroll records.”
Monica laughed softly.