AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why would I lie to you, Jack? I never have. You’ve always known where I stand.”
“Yes. That’s what I’m afraid of in this case.” I can hear a chair roll forward, the squeak of someone sitting down. “Elyse, let me get right to the point. I’ve valued all you’ve brought into these doors. You truly have gifts when it comes to reading a room and for convincing people to your point of view.”
“Well. Thank you, Jack.”
“I wouldn’t thank me just yet. We’ve had a bumpy history that I thought was behind us. I’m going to ask this one time. Just once. Are you trying to blackmail my children?”
There’s another long and powerful silence. I wish I could stand up without giving myself away in order to see the look on her face. “Who said that?”
“I’m asking you a direct question. A simple yes or no will do.”
“Jack, I don’t like your tone.”
“If you don’t like my tone, you’re not going to like my text either. Elyse, I’ve had time to speak with security and my IT teams. I’ve also had time to speak with legal. There will be an emergency meeting of the board tomorrow. I’m worried about how your recent decisions could reflect as a voting and representative member of our directors. I’m going to move tomorrow that you be removed from your seat for cause, unless you’d like to resign quietly now as to, how did you say it, make it so there isn’t an appearance of impropriety. Dylan, would you please join us?”
I can hear an audible gasp from Elyse just before mine. I carefully rise from my chair and clumsily use my crutches to make myself known from behind the wall. I stare into the once defiant eyes from across the room. “It didn’t have to be this way. I don’t owe you anything. I’m going to say what I’m going to say right now for me. I don’t live my life by what people think or don’t think of me. Do I care? Of course I do, but decisions I make are about me and my feelings. I’ve worked for everything I have. I could have taken the easy route and springboarded off the Cooper name. I didn’t.
“I definitely wasn’t going to do it with the Sawyer name. This family has been nothing but kind and welcoming since the first day I came to work here, and even more so after they learned who I was to their son. I took a big risk by going against my husband’s wishes to bring my father-in-law in on what you tried to do. I would have rather risked the consequences instead of doing something that would give a bully their wishes. I wouldn’t have been able to look myself in the face as a mentor, leader, or anything for the kids I want to help if I let you.”
“I couldn’t have said it better, Dylan,” Jack agrees. “You have the ultimate choice now, Elyse. You can test me and lose, or agree to walk away gracefully and I’ll let you. I’m truly sorry it came to this. There are just some things I can’t abide.”
Jack slides a printed document across the table then he rises to help me find a chair. He positions me directly across the table from Elyse, then returns to my side. Elyse does what Jack says she does best, she reads the room. I can see the look in her eyes fade from the defiance I heard when she came in to contrite, which she is now. If I was less angry and amped, I might feel sorry for her. I can see that at one time, maybe even still, she was in love with Jack. There’s a grief that happens when you realize, true or not, something is over. I’ve felt that before.
Elyse retrieves a gold pen from her purse to quietly sign the letter of resignation written for her. “I’m sorry too.” She slides everything back to the middle of the table.
“I would hope so. May I have our security card as well?” he asks.
She rises carefully from her chair, rolling her shoulders back first before her chin lifts to meet Jack’s gaze. Elyse slides it across the table to lay on the corner of the document. “Goodbye, Jack.”
“Goodbye, Elyse.”
I expect some kind of daggers tossed my way as a grand exit. She doesn’t even acknowledge that I’m still sitting here. Maybe that’s how she needed it. I think when she said goodbye, she was saying it to more than just Jack.
Elijah
When my father and Dylan came into my office yesterday afternoon, I think I immediately knew why, even though it was hard to fathom. I wish my wife would have talked to me first, but I also love that she didn’t. It was a real step of bravery that I didn’t possess.
At first, I couldn’t look my father in the eye. I was waiting to feel like I was called into his home office and being told to shut the door. This time it was my office and he shut the door. He wasn’t angry at us. He was definitely mad at the situation. When my father handed me the letter of resignation, I stared at it like it was in a language I couldn’t understand. It was over. She was out.
Today I sit at the head of the boardroom table, closing down my laptop, as everyone begins to file from the room. I announced to everyone that Elyse had left and that we will begin a search for her replacement soon. After the last person’s voice begins to fade in the background down the hall, I close my laptop to just revel in the silence. I fold my hands against my forehead, close my eyes, and begin to twist my ring.
“Is this about the meeting or something else?”
I look up and my beautiful wife is standing in the open door like a picture in a frame. She hobbles in quietly, one crutched step at a time. “I have a raging headache that was only made worse by the dozens of questions I couldn’t answer. I felt like I was a head coach post-game after a loss. Tell me again why we decided to wait on a honeymoon?”
“We waited because you were still healing, and I had an audition. Now I’m the one who’s healing and not dancing. We nearly had a scandal on our hands and we’re in the room where it happened. This sucks.”
She gives me a consoling smile before she plops down in a seat next to me as her crutches fall to the ground. I chuckle a little bit at her simplistic assessment of the situation that’s so accurate it’s scary. “You’re right. It does suck. Should we plan a trip, perhaps? I know it’ll be a while, but the planning… thinking about all the places I can make love to you, other than right here. Now that would be fun.”
“What about Seattle?” she asks while playfully smacking my arm.
“Seattle? Wouldn’t you like to go to Europe or someplace warm, with a beach…a nude beach, perhaps. It could save us time.” I smile.
Dylan picks up one of her crutches to push the boardroom door closed with the rubber tip. After ceremoniously tossing it back down to the floor, she wheels her chair over to mine, hopping on one foot into my lap. The soothing scent of her perfume immediately calms me. The pound in my head cuts the beat in half. The ache in my neck fades as my wife’s fingers massage into my skin. Her lips on my temple give me something to focus on.
“I’m not talking about Seattle for our honeymoon. For that we’re going to Florence or Fiji. I know you haven’t seen it yet, but a rather sweet email was sent to your inbox and mine from Lucy thirty minutes ago. The Roark Foundation is having a charity hockey game followed by a donation dinner and dancing. They’re going all out to celebrate this movement we’ve created. Sam and Lucy have invited us to represent AnSa and ALITE.”
“Wow. When is it?”
