Smoke and Mirrors
The chandelier above the Bennett dining table held two hundred crystals, and Sophia had counted every single one of them at least a dozen times over the years, usually during moments exactly like this one—when her father's voice filled the room like weather, pressure dropping, the air gone thick before the storm actually broke.
"The Hartwell merger," Richard Bennett said, setting down his fork with the precise, deliberate motion of a man who choreographed even his silverware, "will be the largest acquisition this family has made in a decade. Two hundred million in combined assets. Grayson Falls hasn't seen anything like it since your grandfather bought out the Chandler mills."
"That's wonderful, Richard," said Sophia's mother, Diane, in the soft, agreeable tone she reserved for these dinners, the one that made her sound like she was reading lines from a script she'd memorized so long ago she no longer noticed the words.
Sophia said nothing. She pushed a sliver of asparagus across her plate and watched the butter pool beneath it, and she thought—not for the first time—that she would rather eat cardboard than sit through one more dinner where her father discussed money like it…