Chapter 11: The Vote

The shareholders' meeting was held in the tower's ground-floor auditorium, in rows of red velvet seats.

Four hundred people filled them.

Gerald had packed the room overnight with small investors, retired managers and old friends, and every one of them was smiling at him.

Press stood three deep along the back wall.

I sat at a table on the stage between Audrey and the old director from the window.

My father sat at the opposite table, in a fresh navy suit, with a glass of water at his elbow.

The meeting opened with the roll of shares.

Gerald's side held thirty percent.

I held forty-one.

The rest belonged to the people in the red seats, and to a pension fund whose proxy sat in a sealed envelope by the chair's gavel.

"Twenty-nine percent decides it," Audrey whispered. "He's counting on the pension fund."

"Can he get it?"

"He had breakfast with its president."

I looked out at the audience.

In the second row, on the aisle, sat Nicholas.

He wore a clean shirt and a dark jacket, and his right hand was bandaged.

He saw me look.

He nodded once.

I turned my face forward again.

Gerald rose to speak.

He thanked everyone for coming.

He spoke for twenty minutes about the company's founding, about what a family business meant, about the thirty years he had given it.

"A company is a family," he said. "And a family stands together. It does not turn on its own."

Some people applauded.

"My daughter has had a hard year," he said. "I understand it. I only ask that you remember who built what you hold."

He sat.

The chair of the meeting, a thin man in rimless glasses, invited me to respond.

I stood and walked to the podium.

I had notes, and I put them down.

"I won't speak for long," I said. "My father says a company is a family."

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