Chapter 4: One Vote

At nine on Monday, Brooke stood up at the head of my father's table and put my photo on the big screen.

There I was, getting into my own car, with a man's hand on my back.

Seven board members looked at it.

Russell Mallory sat by the window in a guest chair, legs crossed, with his coffee untouched.

"I love my cousin," Brooke said. "Everyone knows that."

Nobody at that table knew that.

"But Langford Home is losing two million dollars a quarter. Our bank is nervous. Our investor is nervous."

She smiled at Russell.

Russell smiled at his coffee.

"And our CEO is hiring truck drivers off the loading dock and riding around with them in the front seat."

The board chair, a tired man who'd golfed with my father for thirty years, rubbed his eyes.

"Brooke, get to the motion."

"The motion is that Yvette steps aside. For her son's sake, frankly."

Brooke put a hand on her heart.

"He's five, and he already doesn't know who his father is. Does he need a mother in the tabloids too?"

The room went very quiet.

I had known Brooke was cruel.

I had not known she would say my son's name in this room.

"I move that Yvette Langford be removed as chief executive," she said, "and that I serve as interim CEO."

Someone seconded it.

Of course someone did.

The chair looked at me.

"Yvette. Anything to say before we vote?"

I stood up.

I had my laptop under my arm and a folder I'd built over the weekend, at my kitchen table, after Finn was asleep.

On Saturday morning Abe had handed me a gas station receipt with a license plate written on the back.

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