Vanessa Cole sat two seats down from him, close enough that it didn't need explaining anymore. She scrolled through her tablet with the ease of someone reviewing her own calendar, murmuring something about "our platform" to no one in particular, then laughing softly at whatever she'd found funny.
She had taken my seat at that table months ago. Today she was just making it official.
In the corner, almost forgotten, sat an elderly man in a tweed jacket that had seen better decades. His reading glasses slid halfway down his nose. His shoulders curved forward like the weight of the afternoon was already too much for him. He looked like exactly what he was supposed to look like: a tired old notary killing time until his next appointment, paid to stamp things and stay quiet.
Nobody in that room knew he owned the building we were sitting in.
Nobody knew he was my grandfather.
