Some employees appreciated the honesty.
Others asked why nobody had listened when they complained years earlier.
Stephanie had no satisfying answer.
She promised regular review meetings with written minutes, but the staff insisted on selecting their own representatives.
Mason heard about the meeting from Brianna and felt a cautious sense of progress.
He had no desire to return to The Mariner, yet he wanted the people still working there to have better choices.
Stephanie later wrote him a letter asking whether there was any constructive way to acknowledge his dismissal.
He suggested a fund for emergency meals that employees could access without personal expense or fear of retaliation.
He also suggested that the company post wage policies where staff could actually read them.
Stephanie adopted both proposals and sent him the final policies for comment.
Mason read them with Tessa and returned several questions about vague phrases.
The company revised the language before posting it.
No reporter covered the change, and no wealthy investor applauded.
Mason considered that one of the better outcomes of the entire affair.
A workplace could become less cruel without needing a hero at every table.
Chapter 33: The Niece With Questions
Arthur’s niece, Rebecca Bell, had quietly helped him locate the shelter during his temporary housing crisis.
She contacted Mason because the public story made her uncle sound like a lonely saint who had emerged from nowhere to rescue a waiter.
Rebecca knew Arthur as a difficult, loving man who had spent years avoiding conversations that frightened him.
She worried that the case was pushing him to make promises he could not fulfill.
Mason agreed to meet her at a public park near the university.
Rebecca arrived carrying a stroller for her toddler and a folder of family photographs.
She explained that Arthur had once supported Warren’s business decisions because he feared losing the company their father had founded.
When the relationship collapsed, Arthur spent his energy fighting over money and reputation.
He had neglected his own family during those years.
“My mother never knew whether he’d attend her birthday,” Rebecca said.
“He was always waiting for a hearing or a lawyer’s call.”
Mason understood the pattern uncomfortably well.
His father had spent his final years chasing records, and Mason himself had begun to measure every day by the progress of the case.
Rebecca asked him not to let Arthur become the only source of support for his future.
“Uncle Arthur means well,” she said.
“But he can turn every relationship into a way to repair one old mistake.”
