The Butler(59)

“They didn’t need to. They knew where he was. He kept his activities limited to South America. For some reason, he seems to have branched out recently. So, they’ll be looking for him here if they don’t believe he’s dead. And I’m sure he faked his death many times before, to get his enemies and the authorities off his scent. The authorities know he’s dead. The bad guys don’t and might not believe it, even if they were told. Eventually, when time passes, they’ll figure it out. But probably not for a while. We need to give it some time.” But at eighty-one, even in good health, who knew how much time she had? Every moment she could spend with her only surviving son was precious. She had no one else, no other children, no grandchildren, no spouse, and few friends. Many of her friends had already died. She had her work, but nothing else, except Joachim, and she had loved having him near her once he took the job with Olivia. Knowing he would come home every night, and she would see him in the morning before they both left for work, or for a meal on the weekend, added immeasurable joy to her life. And now he was taking that away from her.

    “I’m willing to take the risk of your being here,” she said, with tears in her eyes, but she would not allow herself to cry. She wanted to be stronger than that. “But I don’t want you at risk. What happened to Javier and who he became is bad enough, for both of us, but I don’t want it to kill you too. The price is too high. I want you to be safe. I’ve lived my life. You haven’t yet. The rest of your story is not yet written. Mine is almost complete. If they kill me, they will only steal these last years from me.”

“And from me,” he said sadly. He didn’t want to lose her, at any time, it would be the greatest heartbreak of his life, even if she died at a hundred.

“But you have many, many years ahead of you. I will not bury a second son.” And when she said it, the tears spilled onto her cheeks, and he put his arms around her and hugged her tight. Leaving her was unbearably hard, even more than he thought it would be, now that he was living with her again, which he hadn’t done since his early twenties. He enjoyed her company, and how smart and sensible and sharp-witted she was. She was clever and interested in life, and wise. He was going to miss her terribly, much more even than his job with Olivia, which he had hated to leave too.

    “I just want you to be safe, Mama. I don’t want to put you in danger. It would be different if I didn’t look exactly like him. But no one will be able to tell the difference. They will think I’m him, if they’re looking for him.”

“I know they will,” she agreed. It made perfect sense. It was a cruel turn of fate. She had always loved the fact that they were twins, and identical, but it had slowly turned to a heartbreak over the years. And she had been shocked to see that even with time and distance, and very different lives, they still remained completely identical when she saw them together the night before Javier died. Joachim had noticed it too. They were the same weight and build. There were little wisps of gray in their hair now in the same places. Their faces were identically lined in spite of Javier’s beard and their different lifestyles. Javier hadn’t led a good life, and Joachim had, but time had marked them identically, and no one could have told them apart, even at the end, except their mother. Their enemies certainly couldn’t.

“Did you tell Olivia?” she asked him, and he nodded.

“This morning.”

“What did she say?”

“She wasn’t pleased. I’ve never done that in my life, left a job with no notice. It leaves her badly stuck with the construction at the chateau, but I can’t do anything about it. I don’t want to put her at risk either, or increase the danger to you, by staying longer in the job until she finds someone. And the police have promised me that they will protect you, they’ll have a man downstairs night and day, no one will get in the building without their notice, so I feel safe leaving you here. Safer than if I was here with you, luring the bad men toward you.” But she wouldn’t even have the protection or comfort of her son. “I have to leave, I have no other choice. For a while anyway. And Olivia is a casualty of our situation. I can’t let the job color my decision.”

    “Is it just about the job or is it more than that?” she asked him gently, and he didn’t answer her for a minute.

“I told her it’s only a job,” he said in a raw voice.

“That must have been hard to hear. And is it true?”

“Not entirely,” he admitted. “Of course, it’s not just a job. No job is. I care about the Cheshire offspring too, although some of them annoyed me severely, for their lack of care for their parents in their final years, but I had no voice in it.

“Olivia is a woman alone. She’s strong but vulnerable. She’s had her share of disappointments and losses, like all of us. She just lost her mother, and the magazine she put her heart and soul into for ten years. She’s lost her anchor, and I told her that we’re very much alike.

“Because of what’s happened in our lives, neither of us seems able to attach to anyone. I’ve chosen a career that makes it impossible. There’s a reason why old-fashioned butlers never married in the old days, and people in service rarely did. It leaves you neither the time nor the energy to give to anyone if you do it right. You belong to the job and the family you work for, you are the job. I wonder now if I chose it because of that. It gave me an excuse never to get attached to anyone or tied down, except to my work. It would be a constant tug-of-war to be a married butler, or one with children. I know some people do it now, and live out, but they probably don’t do as good a job as the old butlers used to. Head housekeepers, head cooks, butlers, great nannies were always spinsters and bachelors. The ones who weren’t were giddy young girls sleeping with the footmen.”