He Missed Our Daughter's Birthday novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: On the Record

Randall's POV

At ten o'clock I stood at the head of the boardroom table with nothing in my hands.

The directors sat down both sides of it.

My mother had taken the chair at the far end, the one my father used to sit in.

She sat with her coat folded on her lap and her gloves on top of it.

"Before the agenda," I said. "I have to tell you something that isn't about freight."

"Randall," my mother said.

"Mother, you'll get your turn."

Nobody in the room had heard me say that to her.

"I have a son," I said. "His name is Jasper, he is five, and he has leukemia."

The treasurer put down her pen.

"I have known he was mine for five years. My wife found out about him three weeks ago, on our daughter's birthday, and the bank statement proving the rest came days later."

I told them the rest.

I told them about the Tuesdays, and the money, and the house at the lake, and the lie I'd told in this room, a week ago, about September.

I told them my mother had known, and that she had told me how to hide it.

My mother did not say a word.

When I was done, the oldest man at the table cleared his throat.

"Is any of that company money, Randall?"

"No. It came out of our own accounts."

"Then the board has no business in it."

"The board has a business in me," I said. "I lied to my wife, and I lied to you, and I let my mother put a lie in the newspaper this morning about the woman who has been telling the truth the whole time."

"The newspaper wasn't me," my mother said.

"It was your quote."

She shut her mouth.

"I'm stepping down as chief executive today," I said. "Our operations chief has run this company for most of two years while I was driving to Durham. She should have the job."

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