Chapter 24: The Head of the Table

On Monday morning I rode the elevator to the forty-first floor with my daughter on my hip.

Brogan stood beside me in the dark suit, carrying the diaper bag in his good hand.

The corridor outside the boardroom was empty this time, and the doors stood open.

Vera's portrait had hung beside them for twenty years.

The wall was bare now, and the paint under the frame was a shade lighter than the rest.

"Mrs. Buckley," the chairman said, rising.

He gave me a small, stiff bow, and he did not look at the table.

I walked down the long glass table past the nine board members, who all stood.

At the head stood the big leather chair that Harlan had sat in, and Dalton after him.

I stopped behind it.

My daughter yawned against my shoulder, with her fist in her mouth.

"The chair belongs to the controlling share," the chairman said. "That is the trust, and the trust is hers. Technically."

"Technically," I said, "she's four months old and has opinions about naps."

Someone at the end of the table laughed, and then covered it.

I sat down in the chair with the baby on my lap.

It was too big for me, and I did not care.

Brogan went to the wall by the window, as he had at the last vote, and put his back to it.

He did not need to be asked.

"I have two items," I said. "The first is short."

I looked down the table to the younger board member, the one who had stood up to say that Dalton was drunk.

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