“Fair enough,” she said. A pause followed.

“Genevieve would have handled it exactly the same way, you know. The vote of confidence instead of termination. Giving him a chance he didn’t deserve,” she said.

She laughed softly. “She always said mercy was the ultimate power move,” she added.

I thought about that for a long time after we hung up.

Mercy wasn’t weakness. Mercy was a choice. And for the first time, the choice had been mine.

It was June 8, 2024. Three weeks after the board meeting, my phone rang at 2:00 p.m.