The Butler(13)

    “Why would he leave anything to me?” She was touched by his generosity as a friend, and much later, once she knew, Olivia wondered why she hadn’t suspected before then. Her mother had been a convincing liar.

“He was our friend,” Margaret said primly. Her own parents had died before that and had only seen Olivia a few times in her life, outraged by the fact that she was illegitimate, for which they blamed their only daughter. They remained at a distance from her, as though her immorality was contagious.

It took Olivia almost a year, till after she graduated from Columbia, to again ask her mother why George had left her a trust fund. It continued to puzzle her. Margaret finally told her the truth, that there had been no father who died in a car accident. George, the bestselling author and bestower of all gifts, was her father. Margaret had effectively robbed her daughter of the opportunity to speak to him, with the full knowledge that he was her father. It took Olivia a long time to forgive her mother. Margaret’s life had begun when she met George Lawrence and ended when he died. He left her a modest bequest, which she could live on, though not lavishly. She stopped all editing and retired once she could no longer work on his books. She rarely left the house, and continued to hang around her apartment, as though she thought he still might show up. She slept much of the time, self-medicated with tranquilizers, and began drinking heavily after he died.

    Olivia hated visiting her. Liver disease and dementia had taken over in Margaret’s late fifties. She died at seventy, having given up on life twenty-two years before, when George died. She’d never really had a life. She had given up her soul, her dreams, and her youth to George Lawrence. Olivia had provided a nurse for her for the last few years, to make sure she didn’t injure herself when she drank too much, added to her dementia. She often forgot that George was dead and thought that she was waiting for him to come.

Looking around her mother’s apartment, Olivia felt anger rise in her like bile, thinking back to the years when her mother waited for George to show up, and all the holidays she and her mother had spent alone while he went on fabulous vacations with his wife and children. In the end, his wife outlived both George and Margaret, and was in good health. Margaret had wasted her life waiting for him, thinking that one day things would be different. She had let it happen, had signed on willingly for a life where all of his needs were met, and none of hers.

Two editors from the publisher came to Margaret’s funeral at Frank Campbell, her nurses, Olivia, and no one else. She had lived in hiding with no friends, always waiting for George, his willing slave.

    Olivia started packing her mother’s things the day after her funeral, which had been a bleak affair. Olivia went alone and held her mother’s ashes in a wooden box at the brief service. She packed cartons full of clothes, to give away, and others with her books. Olivia wanted none of it, except for a few pieces of furniture she sent to storage. The lesson she had learned from watching her mother was not to fade away and die, but to live life fully, not give up, and be true to yourself. Margaret had rambled on sometimes when Olivia visited her, asking when George was coming, and if he’d arrived yet. She was a shadow person, a ghost, who had willingly surrendered herself to live with a man who never risked his marriage for her. His wife always had the priority, and Margaret spent half a lifetime waiting for him. He no longer seemed like a hero to Olivia, once she knew who he had been to her. He was a selfish man, willing to sacrifice the woman who had handed over her life to him. Olivia didn’t know who she resented more, her mother for her lies and weakness, or her father for what he had done to Margaret in the name of love, because she allowed it. Nothing about it seemed loving to Olivia, and she wanted to erase all trace of them from the apartment. She had emptied it in two days and put it on the market to sell it.

And she found herself doing the same thing in her own office shortly after.

Olivia had worked hard for the last ten years on a decorating magazine she’d started. She had used some of her trust fund money to set it up and put her heart and soul into it. The magazine had failed at the same time as her mother’s death. Olivia had to fold her business, let the employees go, and clear out her office, on the heels of her mother’s funeral. All she seemed to do now was pack up painful memories. She put all the photographs of her mother and herself as a child in one box, to put them in a storage facility with the furniture. The rest of her mother’s belongings she gave away, clothes, personal items. It all reeked of sadness. Her mother had a collection of all George’s books. Olivia had read them before she knew he was her father. She thought his massive ego was evident on every page. She put them in a box to store them, since he was her father.

    A month after she’d emptied her mother’s apartment, put it on the market, and closed her business, she sat in her own small apartment, wondering what to do next. Her mother had left her some money. She’d been frugal, and hardly spent any after George died, since she didn’t know how long it would last. As a result, there was plenty left, enough for Olivia to buy herself a new apartment eventually or go away for a long time. She could leave without having to worry about her mother dying while she was gone, or her business failing. It already had. The worst had happened now. She was free at last, with all the lessons her mother had taught her about how not to live a life. It was ironic that while trying not to get attached to the wrong person, and not following in her mother’s footsteps, not surrendering herself to a married man, she had dedicated herself to her business as an alternative to marriage or a serious relationship. Like her mother, Olivia had few friends, and she was alone in the world now, and had lost her magazine after a decade of hard work. She didn’t have to worry about the business anymore either. She didn’t need to think about her mother. She could go where she wanted, do whatever she pleased. There was nothing holding her back, nobody to take care of, no business to grow, or think about. She had no parents, no husband, no children, no business, no job, and no boyfriend. And a small circle of friends she hardly saw anymore and hadn’t seen socially in years. She was always too busy working. At forty-three, Olivia had nothing and she was alone. She could go anywhere in the world she wanted and had no idea where that would be. She had been to Paris a number of times and loved it. She knew no one there, and didn’t speak French, but maybe it didn’t matter. She had never felt so alone in her life, or so liberated and free.