"It's my shot to give," Nathaniel said, and something in his voice made even Whitfield fall silent.
He crouched down, lowering himself to Sofia's height for the first time, meeting her wide, curious eyes at eye level. Up close, she didn't look anything like Emma. Different eyes, different smile, and yet the ache in his chest didn't care about the difference; it simply recognized the shape of what it had lost.
"Do you know how to hold it?" he asked her gently, holding out the cue.
Sofia nodded with the absolute, unshakable confidence only a three-year-old can possess. "My papa showed me," she said simply, "before he went to heaven."
The room, which had been buzzing with amused whispers, went suddenly, uncomfortably quiet. Elena's face changed, grief flashing across it too fast to hide—there and gone, replaced instantly by the practiced calm of someone used to holding herself together in front of people who paid her wages.
But Nathaniel saw it. He saw all of it. And for reasons he couldn't yet explain, even to himself, his hands, steady through boardrooms, mergers, and funerals, had begun, very slightly, to shake.
Sofia stepped up to the table the way she probably approached everything in life: without fear, without hesitation, without any understanding of the $50 million balanced on the felt in front of her. Nathaniel helped her hold the cue properly, his large hands gently guiding her small ones, showing her the angle, though privately he doubted it would matter. The shot required precision no adult amateur could manage, let alone a child who could barely see over the rail.
Whitfield, sensing an opportunity to end the humiliation quickly, leaned back with his arms crossed, already composing the story he'd tell at his club tomorrow. "This should be quick," he said to no one in particular.
"My papa said," Sofia announced to the silent room with the total seriousness only small children can summon, "that you don't hit the ball. You listen to it."
A few soft, surprised laughs rippled through the crowd—not mocking this time, but something closer to charmed.