“Over the last eighteen months, Margaret authorized extensive contingency planning. Corporate counsel, external advisors, and two board members were briefed. Training materials, financials, leadership analyses, and transition mechanisms are included here. She also left a memorandum stating, quote, ‘Claire has more judgment in one quiet hour than Ethan has shown in ten polished years.’”
If grief had not already hollowed me out, the line might have made me cry.
Margaret’s voice lives in it so perfectly I can almost hear her dry precision, see the slight arch of one brow, feel the way she used words like scalpels and expected them to heal through exact incision.
Ethan looks at me again.
This time there is something new in his face.
Fear.
Real fear.
Because for the first time since I married him, I am sitting on the side of the table where the power lives.
Lauren clears her throat.
“And what about Ethan’s son?”