Chapter 10: The Founder's Chair

At nine on Monday morning I walked into the boardroom of Pruitt Home Supply with my wedding ring on and my mother's letter in my bag.

Theo had kissed me at the door of the cottage and said, "I'll be on the dock. Call me when it's done."

"What if it goes badly?"

"Then I'll bring the boat."

I laughed all the way up the hill.

The head office is a brick building behind the original store, with glass walls on the second floor.

By the time I reached the conference room, thirty employees had found reasons to stand in the hall outside it.

The long table had eleven seats along its sides and one at the head.

That one was an old leather armchair, split along one arm and mended with tape.

It had been my grandfather's.

Nobody had sat in it since the day he died.

My mother used to rest her hand on its back when she passed.

The company's lawyer stood beside it with a thin folder.

Dad sat at the right hand of the empty chair, in the seat he had taken every Monday for thirty years.

Cal sat on his other side.

Lorna sat across from them with her hands in her lap, and she did not meet my eyes.

Grandma was there too, in a chair in the corner, with her cane across her knees.

"Delia," the lawyer said. "Thank you for coming. I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

"Shall we begin?"

Dad waved a hand.

"It's a formality," he said. "Ruth left her shares to the family trust, as she always said she would."

He smiled around the table.

"We can finish this in five minutes."

"Walter," the lawyer said, "I'm afraid it isn't."

He opened the folder.

He read it in a flat, careful voice.

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