Chapter 9 - The Four Chairs
The boardroom of Song Holdings sat on the eighty-second floor of a tower that looked down over the East River and the gray metal span of the Brooklyn Bridge. The room was circular, walled entirely in glass, with a single table made of a dark, fossilized wood that looked like it had been pulled from the bottom of an ocean.
There were four large chairs made of black leather and bronze.
Three of them were occupied.
Julian sat in the center, his charcoal coat replaced by a dark blue suit that looked like an armor plate. Christopher sat to his right, his curly hair brushed back, his beige scarf replaced by a dark silver silk tie that matched his eyes. Adrian sat to Julian’s left, his neon green hoodie gone, replaced by a simple, expensive black sweater that covered his gold chain, though his phone was still sitting face up on the dark wood next to his hand.
The fourth chair—the one on the far side of the table, looking out over the water where the ferryboats were starting their morning runs—was empty.
My red, white, and blue plastic bag was sitting on the floor beside it, looking like a patch of bright sky that had fallen into a tomb.
A group of twelve men and women in gray suits—the board of directors—stood near the double doors, holding digital tablets that showed the morning stock prices. Nobody was talking. The only sound was the low, rhythmic hum of the building’s air filtration system.
"The meeting of the Song Trust is now in session," Julian said, his baritone voice filling the circular room without the need for a microphone. "The first item on the agenda is the verification of the natural survivor of the maternal line under the 1998 exit decree."
He looked across the table at me. I was wearing my old gray hoodie—the one with the frayed cuffs—but I had washed my hands in the executive bathroom, and the orange stain from the tangerine was finally gone.
"Autumn Song Vane," Julian declared, his eyes locking onto mine with a clarity that felt like a sunbeam through the clouds. "Do you accept your seat at this table?"
"I accept it," I said, my voice steady, sounding less like the wind through the tin roof and more like the stone steps of the house we were going to build. "But I don't vote for the futures, Julian. I don't vote for the copper or the shipping lanes."
"What do you vote for, sister?" Christopher asked, a small, genuine smile touching his lips—the kind of smile he usually saved for the directors who gave him the awards.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece of notebook paper my mother had given me—the one with their three names written in her careful, dying script. I didn't throw it in the fire this time. I laid it flat on the dark, fossilized wood of the table, right in the center where the light from the window hit the ink.
"I vote for the garden," I said. "I vote for the eighty-four thousand dollars to go to the clinic in Cincinnati that handles the people who don't have the network insurance. And I vote for Adrian to turn his screen off during the quarterly report."
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Adrian didn't complain. His thumb moved one last time, clicking the small red button on his screen that said End Stream, and then he slid the glass into his pocket and looked out at the bridge.
"The motion is carried," Julian said, his hand coming down onto the dark wood with a single, heavy slap that sounded like a gavel. "Arthur, file the amendment with the surrogate court before noon. The Song family is officially back in compliance."
