“Good. Don’t wait for permission again.”
She responded almost instantly.
“I don’t know how not to.”
That sentence stayed with me longer than anything else that day.
Because it wasn’t about her.
It was about all of us.
The final twist didn’t come from the company.
Or the board.
Or the inheritance of power I never asked for.
It came the next morning when I found a file on my desk.
No label.
No sender.
Inside was a single audit report.
Old.
Incomplete.
And stamped with something I had never seen before.
“Child Development Observation – Case File: Jordan Casey.”
My breath slowed.
Not because of the content.
