She Left Me in Traction, Then the Will Made Me Her Boss novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Fifty-One Percent

The lawyer called me the morning after Hannah's suspension.

"Lyle has moved the annual shareholders' meeting," he said. "Notice went out yesterday. It's this Friday at ten, not next month."

"Why?"

"I'd guess he wants you out of the shareholder register before anything is opened."

"Can he do that?"

"The bylaws let the chair set the date inside a year. It's still the annual meeting, so your grandfather's instruction stands." He paused. "Be standing, Tobias."

On Friday morning I put on the funeral suit and left the cane in Hannah's front hall.

She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.

She had been up half the night on the phone with a hospital lawyer, and she hadn't once told me she was scared.

"It's an eight," she said. "Your leg. It's going to be an eight by noon."

"I know."

"Say it if it gets to ten."

"I'll say it."

She straightened my tie, and her fingers were not entirely steady.

"Go," she said.

The boardroom on the top floor of Carrow Group had a long oak table and a wall of windows over the river.

My grandfather had run forty years of meetings from the chair at its head.

Fourteen people sat around the table, the board and the family-trust holders.

Lyle was in that chair, and Celia sat at his right.

Marissa was three seats down, in grey, with her hands folded over her stomach.

When I walked in, the room went still.

I walked the whole length of the table to the empty seat at the foot, and I didn't use a cane or a wall.

My leg was a nine by the time I reached it.

I did not sit down.

"Tobias," Lyle said, not even pretending. "You aren't a director. This is a closed session."

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