People sometimes waited until everyone else left before asking the question they actually cared about.
She walked over.
“You forgot something?”
“No.”
He looked embarrassed.
Then:
“Can I ask something that's not technical?”
“Sure.”
He hesitated.
“What did it feel like?”
She knew immediately what he meant.
“The collapse?”
He nodded.
She looked toward the depression.
For years, she had given reporters efficient answers.
Terrifying.
Surreal.
Loud.
Fast.
None were wrong.
None were complete.
She leaned against the fence.
“The first thing I felt was vindicated.”
The student looked surprised.
She smiled sadly.
“People don't usually like that answer.”
“I thought you'd say scared.”
“I was.”
“But first?”
“For maybe half a second?”
She looked toward the sign.
“I thought, I told you.”
The student said nothing.
“Then the rig moved.”
Her expression changed.
“And I realized people might die.”
She looked down.
“The feeling disappeared.”
The student nodded.
“Do you regret feeling vindicated?”
“I used to.”
“And now?”
“No.”
She thought.
“I was sixteen. Adults had mocked me, thrown my work into the mud, and physically removed me from the site.”
She shrugged slightly.
“I think sixteen-year-old me earned half a second.”
The student smiled.
Then became serious again.
“What changed afterward?”
“Everything.”
“Did you know you wanted to become an engineer?”
“No.”
“That came later?”
“Much later.”
She looked toward the university van.
“At first, everyone wanted me to be a symbol.”
“What kind?”
“Depends who was talking.”
She counted on her fingers.
“To some people I was proof that professionals were arrogant.”
“Others said I was proof that traditional knowledge beat science.”
“Some said I was a child genius.”
“Some said I got lucky.”
“Some said I caused the shutdown.”
“Some said I saved the project.”
She sighed.
“I was sixteen.”
The student smiled faintly.
“What did you want?”
“To go home.”
They laughed.
Then the young man said:
“My father works construction.”
She waited.
“He doesn't trust engineers.”
“That's common.”
“He says they sit in offices and tell people who actually build things what to do.”
“Sometimes we deserve that criticism.”
The student looked surprised.
“But?”
“But experience can become arrogance in both directions.”
She pointed toward the collapse zone.
“The rig didn't fall because engineers knew nothing.”
“It fell because different people knew different parts, and those parts didn't meet in time.”
The young man nodded.
The woman looked toward the van.
“Your father knows things you don't.”
“You'll know things he doesn't.”
“If both of you spend your lives proving the other person ignorant, you both lose.”
He smiled.
“That's going to be annoying to tell him.”
“Most useful truths are.”
She started walking away.
The student called after her.