Page 46 of One Last Lie

“I suppose that’s true,” I admit reluctantly. After a moment of silence, I add, “Where will you go?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Perhaps nowhere. I am old. Maybe I don’t look old, but I feel old. I don’t know that I still have the energy to manage a kitchen, especially after eighteen years working for a single family. Perhaps I’ll work as a food director for a cruise ship or a restaurant group. My Michelin Stars still count for something even if strictly speaking I don’t still have them. I don’t know. I just…” he pauses a moment, then says, “I worked for Johnathan, not Cecilia.”

Javier’s words from my first day come to mind. I don’t know how this family will survive without Johnathan. He was the one who held everything together.

“Do you not like Cecilia?”

There’s a much longer pause this time. Paolo frowns and gazes out of the kitchen window. The snow has softened the bleakness of the grounds, but the gentle specter of death is still death.

“I don’t know her,” he finally says. “I’ve seen her nearly every day for eighteen years. I’ve watched her grow from barely a woman to a woman within speaking distance of middle age.”

Considering she is eleven years younger than me, I don’t know if I appreciate the comparison, but I keep silent.

“And I still couldn’t tell you anything about her. Nothing more than the surface, anyway.”

“She seems warm and kind to me,” I offer.

“Does she really? I wonder.”

I recall the sneer in her voice when she speaks of her old husband. I think of how quickly she sheds the exhaustion that follows Johnathan’s death for the flirtatious, exuberant attitude she wears to the dates she takes very little pain to hide.

Still, I feel compelled to defend her. I suppose in some odd way, she reminds me of Annie as she was in the months before her disappearance: so sad and moody, even angry at times, but trying so hard to hide it behind a carefree exterior. "It's difficult to be married to the same person for so long. I'm not condoning her recent behavior, but it's natural that a woman nearing middle age, as you say, would feel compelled to enjoy her freedom while she still can."

He nods. “Have you ever been married?”

Heat climbs my cheeks. “No.”

He smiles at me. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’ve never been married either.”

“Would you like to marry me?” I ask wryly.

He laughs and shakes his head. “At this moment, Mary, I would like nothing better than to spend every morning watching the sun rise with you. If only we were young enough to believe that was all we needed.”

I smile. “Indeed.” I look back out the window and say, “That’s my point, though. They married young. Cecilia was twenty-one and Johnathan can’t have been much older.”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Ah. Well, that’s still young.”

“To you and me? Unfortunately, yes.”

I chuckle and say, “In any case, it’s Cecilia we’re talking about. At that age, the things you love about a man are superficial. His smile, his body, his kindness.”

“Do you stop loving kindness as you age?”

“No, of course not. But a lifelong partnership requires more. Bodies age. Smiles become familiar. Kindness shares space with cruelty, even in the best of people. At twenty-one, you’re barely starting to discover who you are. When you discover who you are ten years and three children into a marriage, it’s not so simple as changing your life to match.”

“I understand all of the reasons why Cecilia may be happy that her husband is dead. Maybe she is a good person after all. I rather doubt it, but maybe she is.”

“Why do you doubt it? What has she done to convince you she’s a bad person?”

“Nothing. Perhaps she’s not a bad person. My point is that I don’t know who she is. I knew who Johnathan was. He was a neurotic, irritable, and arrogant person who was constantly overwhelmed by his father’s shadow. I didn’t know his father, so I can’t tell you if it was right of him to feel that way.

“But I knew him. What you saw was what you got, and once you learned how to work with him, all of the better qualities he possessed—his intellect, his passion, and yes, his kindness—came out into the open. I loved him, at least as much as a servant can love his master.

“But with Cecilia?” He shakes his head. “I can never tell if I should welcome her smile or fear it.”

I hear footsteps approach. Paolo hears them too and says, “That would be Miss Cecilia. I’d better make the watered-down abomination she considers coffee for her.” I giggle, and he adds, “I won’t make any rash decisions. You’ll see me here for a while yet. At least long enough to spoil the children’s taste for powdered cheese.”

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