My Sister Ran Before the Wedding, So I Said I Do novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Vote

The boardroom of Sequeira Seafoods was on the second floor over the ice plant, a long room with a long table and a view of the fish pier.

At seven on Monday morning, six men and one woman sat around it with their coffee.

I sat against the wall on a hard chair, with my father-in-law's old ledger on my knees and a folder in my lap.

Vasco had told me to stay home.

I had told him I wasn't a pitiful wife who stays home.

He had looked at me for a long moment, rubbing his scar.

Then he had said, "Bring the folder."

Henrique stood at the head of the table with his hands in his pockets.

"I'll be brief," he said. "My cousin is a very good fisherman. But this company needs a chairman who isn't, let's say, distracted. Last month his wedding collapsed. This month he's drafting annulments in secret and kissing hands in the street. The press is going to ask, who runs Sequeira? And the answer shouldn't be a man who can't decide if he's married."

He took out his phone.

"I have a photograph of the petition."

"We've seen it," said the woman at the table.

She was sixty, a retired harbor pilot, with a gray braid and a voice like gravel.

"We saw it at the Feast," she said. "We were there. Get to the vote."

"Fine. I move that the board suspend the chairman for ninety days, pending a review."

"Seconded," said a man at the far end, slowly.

"Discussion," said the woman.

Silence.

Vasco was sitting very straight, with his hand flat on the table, and his face gave nothing away.

He did not defend himself.

I realized he wasn't going to.

He was too proud to explain a thing he'd done in a moment of fear.

I stood up.

"Excuse me," I said.

Everyone turned.

"This is a board meeting, Mrs. Sequeira," Henrique said, smiling. "Family is welcome to observe."

"I'm not family. I'm the bookkeeper. I keep the scale ledger."

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