Chapter 22 - Margaret Moves Nowhere
I offered Margaret retirement.
She almost hit me.
“I’m fifty-seven.”
“You have worked thirty-two years.”
“So?”
“You deserve rest.”
“I have Thursdays.”
Apparently sufficient.
Then:
“Do you want to leave the mansion?”
“No.”
“Lake house?”
“For summer weekends.”
“Not permanently?”
“Raffaele.”
“Fine.”
We clarified her role.
This mattered.
Margaret had become indispensable partly because grief made me hand her too much.
She was Noah’s caregiver.
Not substitute parent.
She would not decide preschool alone.
Not override me.
Not manage future partners.
Not preserve Alessia’s preferences as household law.
We hired another nanny, Chloe Martinez, twenty-nine, experienced early-childhood educator.
At first Noah rejected her.
“Margaret.”
Margaret said:
“I am going to grocery store. Chloe stays.”
Noah cried.
Margaret went anyway.
Healthy.
Noah learned multiple safe caregivers.
That directly corrected the assumption behind Victoria’s plan:
Noah cannot be separated from Margaret, therefore move them together.
He could build more relationships.
No need to remove the original one.
Margaret also changed.
She let the breakfast-room flowers become white orchids once.
I noticed.
“You hate those.”
“They’re plants.”
Progress.
Alessia’s memory stayed.
Not as operating manual.
A photograph.
Stories.
Her hand cream finally ran out.
Margaret held the empty container.
Then threw it away.
No ceremony.
I almost stopped her.
Did not.
May you like
Objects get to finish too.
────────────────────
