Chapter 9: The Minutes

My mother had made shrimp and grits, the way she did every Easter, and she served it on the good china.

The dining room on Broadway still had my father's chair at the head of the table.

Nobody sat in it.

Damon sat at its right hand, where my mother used to sit, and nobody said anything about that either.

"Elise," he said, pulling out a chair for me. "You look lovely. Is that the only dress you own?"

"I've been living out of an overnight bag in a housekeeper's spare room."

"By choice," Vanessa said, not looking up from her plate.

"By your fiance's note on my credit card."

My mother rang the little silver bell she used to ring for dessert when we were small.

It was the only way she knew to call a meeting to order.

"This is a board meeting," she said. "Let's behave like it."

Damon passed a leather folder down the table.

It stopped in front of me.

"Minutes," he said. "From March third. The board met at the hotel, your father in the chair, and ratified the February financing. Unanimously."

I opened the folder.

Two pages, neatly typed.

Present: the chairman, Mrs. Lucinda Bell, Mr. Damon Halberd attending.

The chairman reviewed the terms of the loan and expressed his full confidence.

At the bottom, my father's initials.

"All we're doing tonight," Damon said, "is confirming what he already approved. Then everybody can stop pretending this was some kind of crime."

He forked a shrimp.

"Your father wanted this loan, Elise. He signed off on it himself. It's in black and white."

Vanessa looked at me for the first time.

She looked relieved, almost, like she'd been waiting for something to make it all simple.

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