Chapter 5: The Vote

I did not bring Percy to the board meeting.

Brooke had said "bring the boy" like a dare.

I answered it by leaving him at school with a note for his teacher.

Some things you do not put in front of nine strangers in suits.

The boardroom was on the fourteenth floor, with a table long enough to land a plane on.

Nine directors sat along the table, and every chair was filled.

Nelson sat at the head and looked at me once when I came in.

There was a question in his face, and I answered it with a nod.

Eugene sat halfway down on the left, with his cane across his knees and his eyes closed.

I knew by then that he never dozed.

Brooke stood at the foot of the table with a slide deck, in a fresh cream suit.

"Thank you all for coming on short notice," she said.

"I'll be brief, because this is a matter of governance and not gossip."

"Four weeks into his tenure, our new CEO has hired an assistant without disclosing a personal relationship with her."

"In the same week, a child appeared in our lobby and named him as a parent."

"I move that the board place Mr. Holloway on paid leave while we review whether his judgment is fit for the office."

There was a rustle around the table.

One older man coughed into his fist, and a woman with silver earrings wrote something down.

"Miss Kessing is here, as the chair requested," Brooke said.

"Perhaps she can explain why she waited six years to tell the father."

I stood up before anyone told me to.

I had ironed my navy dress the night before, and I had practiced nothing.

"I'll answer that," I said.

"Six years ago I spent one night with a man whose last name I never learned."

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