Chapter 21: The Centennial

The Centennial began at eleven in the morning, an hour before the writ.

Linwood had moved it up to make sure of the order of events.

The banner over the dais said One Hundred Years in gold thread.

The chandelier threw its light on three hundred people in their winter coats.

Nobody wore black tie.

They wore oilskins, wool caps, rubber boots, and in their pockets, a great many folded pieces of paper.

I sat at table nine with my father on one side and Tiernan on the other.

Joslyn sat across from me, jiggling her knee hard enough to rattle the water glasses.

The sheriff stood by the double doors with his campaign hat in his hand.

On the dais, the lectern waited beside the silver tray.

Two empty chairs stood on the carpet where the sons should have been.

Linwood came in last, in a new blazer with new gold buttons.

He walked up the three steps.

He tapped the microphone.

"Friends," he said. "A hundred years."

"My sons have chosen not to join me this morning, and I will not pretend that grieves me."

"A chairman's chair is lonely, and always was."

He opened a leather folder.

"We begin, as always, with the roll."

I felt my father's hand close on the edge of the table.

"Pascoe," said Linwood.

"Walter Pascoe, will you come up?"

My father did not move.

He sat with his cap on his knee and his bad leg stretched out under the cloth.

He looked at the dais.

"I'll stand where I am," he said.

He didn't raise his voice, but three hundred people heard him.

A murmur went around the room.

Linwood smiled.

"As you like, Walter."

"One million, one hundred and sixty-one thousand, four hundred dollars, in default."

"At noon the sheriff will execute the writ on the Pascoe wharf, and the Trust will take what it is owed."

"Sheriff?"

The sheriff did not look up from his hat.

"Mr. Hallowell," said a voice from the double doors. "Before the sheriff does anything."

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