Chapter 13: Cordelia Answers

Bryony looked at the back of Holbrook's wet coat.

"You never asked her," she said.

"Not once."

Dwight laughed, and the sound bounced around the steel kitchen.

"Sure, honey. Whatever helps you sleep."

He folded the note and dropped it on the table beside her rolls.

"Monday. Nine sharp. Bring a checkbook or bring a truck."

He left by the alley door, whistling.

Holbrook's phone buzzed in his pocket.

He read the screen, and his jaw set.

"The board secretary," he said. "Lyle called an emergency session for nine this morning. Item one is my marriage."

"How does he know I left?"

"I don't know yet."

Bryony pulled her apron over her head.

She told the morning girl, who had just let herself in, to finish the rolls and not to open the door for anyone named Moody.

Then she got into Holbrook's car with flour on her jeans and did not speak to him for twenty minutes.

The board met on the fortieth floor of Draper Tower, around a table of black glass.

Eight directors sat at it, in gray and navy, and Lyle sat at the head, in Holbrook's chair.

Cordelia sat alone against the far wall, with both hands on her cane.

"Well," Lyle said, smiling. "The bride returns. Wet hair and all."

Nobody laughed.

"Get out of my chair," Holbrook said.

"We're about to vote on whose chair it is."

"Then vote with the right person in it."

Lyle held the smile, and stood, and moved one seat down.

He did it slowly, so everybody could see he was being generous.

Holbrook did not sit.

He walked to the far wall instead and stopped in front of his grandmother.

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