He accepted the answer with an uncomfortable movement of his jaw.
"I owe you an apology."
Maya looked at him.
It was not the response she had expected.
Adrian seemed to recognize her surprise.
"I should not have spoken to you that way. The challenge was inappropriate."
"Yes, it was."
He had apparently expected her to soften the answer.
She did not.
For several seconds, he appeared uncertain how to proceed.
"I also want to discuss the Japanese document."
"Then you should speak with a professional translator."
"I am speaking with one."
"I'm a restaurant employee who happens to speak Japanese. You don't know the scope of my experience, and I haven't reviewed the complete file."
"Your answer was accurate enough to identify a serious problem."
"That doesn't mean I should be responsible for resolving it."
"No," he said. "But it means I should listen to you."
The admission sounded difficult for him.
Maya folded her hands in her lap.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything you remember about your father's involvement with Kenji Sato."
She looked toward the window.
For a moment, she saw the small kitchen in Queens, the old wooden table, and her father sitting beneath the yellow light with documents spread before him.
"I was young," she began. "I knew that my father worked with Japanese companies, and I knew he was proud of his reputation. He believed translation was more than substituting words. He said that when people negotiated across cultures, a translator had to preserve the meaning, including the obligations that one side might be tempted to ignore."
Adrian listened without interrupting.
"He was particularly careful about written records. If a meeting became contentious, he would write a detailed account afterward. He kept copies of correspondence, notes about terminology, and explanations for difficult phrases. He said that memories could be challenged, but a well-preserved record was harder to dismiss."
"Did he ever tell you what happened with Blackwood Industries?"
"Not in detail."
"Did he accuse anyone of wrongdoing?"
Maya hesitated.
"Yes."
Adrian's expression tightened.
"Who?"
"I don't remember the full name. I remember that he said someone had changed the English version of an agreement after the Japanese representatives had approved the original."
"Changed it how?"
"He said a condition had been removed."
"What condition?"
"I don't know."
Adrian looked away.
The words struck closer to the current problem than he wanted to admit.
Maya continued.
"My father said the altered document made it appear that the Japanese company had agreed to transfer certain rights without the protections they had originally negotiated. When the dispute became public, he was blamed for the discrepancy."
"And Kenji Sato?"
"My father believed Mr. Sato knew the translation had been changed."
"Did he?"
"I don't know."
"Did your father have proof?"
"He believed he did."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know."
Adrian exhaled sharply.
"That's not much to work with."
"It's what I remember."
He paced a short distance, then turned back.
"Do you have any documents at home?"
"Possibly."
"Possibly?"
"My mother and I kept several boxes of his papers. Some are organized, some aren't. I haven't examined every page."
"Could you look through them?"
Maya studied him.
"Why?"
"Because the current agreement may be affected by the same issue."
"Or because you want to find out whether my father can be blamed for something your company did?"
Adrian stopped pacing.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
He stared at her, and for a moment his anger returned. It would have been easy to respond with authority, to remind her that he was the person who controlled the company and that she had no evidence against him.
But he had asked for her help.
And she had given him something more useful than reassurance: a reason to question the story he had inherited.
"I don't know what happened twenty years ago," he said finally. "I want to know."
"Then start by examining your own records."
"We are doing that."
"Good."
"And if the records show that your father was treated unfairly?"
Maya's expression did not change.
"Then the people responsible should correct the record."
"What would that mean to you?"
The question caught her off guard.
She had spent years imagining what she would say if someone finally acknowledged the injustice her father had endured. In her private thoughts, she had delivered eloquent speeches about reputation, accountability, and the cost of destroying a person's livelihood.
But standing in front of Adrian Blackwood, she found that the words did not come easily.
"My father spent the last years of his life believing that people considered him dishonest," she said quietly. "He knew he hadn't done what they accused him of doing. But knowing the truth and being believed are two different things."
Adrian remained still.
"He lost work. He lost friends. He stopped accepting invitations because he didn't want to see the expression people wore when they remembered his name. Even after he became ill, he worried that my mother and I would have to carry the shame he believed others had placed on us."