I looked at the card. I did not touch it.
"Keep the old Honda," he added. "Go start over somewhere nobody knows your name."
Then, without even glancing at the man in the corner, he snapped his fingers.
"Come on, old timer. Stamp the papers already. My company pays your firm a thousand dollars an hour to sit there."
I never picked up the card.
I never raised my voice.
I never let a single tear fall.
For the first time since we'd all sat down, the old man in the corner slowly removed his reading glasses.
He set them down on top of the papers — not dropped, not tossed, *set down*, deliberate as a period at the end of a sentence.
Then he looked up.
Not at me.
At Derek.
The room went still in a way I can only describe as physical, like the air itself had changed pressure. Even the hum of the building seemed to hold its breath.
