Chapter 33
THE NIGHT BEFORE
Seventeen minutes before his untimely demise, Leontes Button was in his office, speaking to his loyal secretary of sixteen years about the formal termination of his long-standing contract.
“Mr. Button,” Henry began, unsure of how to continue.
Henry wanted—no, desperately needed—this job.
He’d sent much of his somewhat sizable salary back home to his mother over the years, saving the rest for his own planned move to China.
He’d been planning to retire in three to four years, once the kids were older and more independent.
He’d saved enough to ensure that both he and his mother would be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
He could not fathom searching for another job now, not at his age and especially not when the job market was as terrible as it was.
“Mr. Button,” Henry started again, taking off his glasses to clean them with his handkerchief. “I … I really need this job. I have people who rely on me, my … my mother, she needs me.”
Mr. Button looked at the secretary, confused. “I know all of this already. I’m not firing you, Henry.”
Now it was Henry’s turn to be confused. “But you said—”
“Yes, I meant that I’m promoting you. I’m terminating your contract as my secretary and promoting you to the head of the Button Estate.”
Henry’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at the older man in disbelief.
The head of the Button Estate … That would mean Henry would be in charge of everything … the finances … the board … everything.
“That is truly an honor, Mr. Button. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why?”
It was a fair question. In the history of billionaires and their secretaries, it would be hard to recount an occasion where a secretary had essentially been given power over his employer’s entire fortune. He had to be dreaming.
But when he blinked hard and opened his eyes, he was still standing in Olympus, on the bottom deck of the Titania yacht, under the watchful gaze of Leontes Button.
“Why what?” Mr. Button asked.
“Why are you promoting me? Not that I am not grateful, but I would have thought that you would be retaining your post as the head of the Button Estate?”
Unless, Henry thought, Mr. Button is retiring.
That must have been it, there was no other explana—
“I’m dying, Henry.”
Henry felt the world tilt on its axis, or perhaps it was the friction of the yacht against the vast and unpredictable sea. “What?” he said, though he had heard perfectly.
“Stage four osteosarcoma—cancer of the bone. They’ve found the wretched thing everywhere, Henry.
My charts lit up like an effigy. They said I have another year at best,” Mr. Button said with a sigh, like this was only a mild inconvenience.
“I had an appointment earlier with Dr. Benson; he was just calling back to schedule another checkup first thing Monday, to talk me through my options. But I’ve already decided.
I have no plan to see the course of this illness through.
I saw it destroy my father and it was agonizing to watch.
I’m making some arrangements to have this all dealt with sooner rather than later. ”
Dealt with? Henry questioned. But he didn’t have time to sit with that thought, because another one eclipsed everything else.
Mr. Button. Cancer.
Mr. Button. Cancer. Stage 4.
Mr. Button. Cancer. Stage 4. Dying.
No matter which way Henry spun it and respun it, none of it seemed to click or make any sense.
Luckily, he didn’t have to verbally express himself right away; Mr. Button was speaking again.
“Once all is said and done, I want you to become the head of my estate. You’re the only one I trust with everything. The children, my care, my secrets.”
Mr. Button spoke of death as though it were merely another business negotiation. But this time his negotiation was with God or indeed the universe.
Henry blinked at him in complete and utter shock. “Leontes—” Henry began, so taken aback he dropped all formalities. “Apologies, I mean, Mr. Button. I can’t accept this position.”
Mr. Button waved him off. “It can be done in a matter of hours, Henry. I can call my lawyers, who will then call you sometime this week so everything can be arranged.”
Henry shook his head slowly, as though trying to clear the fog in his mind that he still believed to be the lingering dream he was entombed in.
But as he did so, he realized that heading the estate would mean being trapped in this country for an unknown period of time.
It would mean his dreams of returning to his mother in Shanghai would be impossible.
It would mean that all he had dreamed of since he started working here sixteen years ago would be impossible to grasp.
“You should give the estate to the kids. Bilal, perhaps? As he’s the eldest? I could not take that from them. They are your rightful heirs …”
What he meant was, I don’t want the responsibility.
Now Leontes was the one shaking his head thoughtfully.
“In truth, I had considered passing it along to my heir. I had a conversation with her this evening. It did not go well.” Leontes sighed.
“She does not want it. And now neither do you … Heavy is the head, I suppose.” Mr. Button said the last part in a quieter tone.
By his heir, singular, Henry knew Mr. Button meant his daughter Perdita.
Henry had known this secret for almost all of the children’s lives, but he did not like to dwell on it, so as not to show bias.
While Henry personally thought all the children to be equally legitimate, Leontes, in his twisted way, viewed his youngest daughter as his only legitimate heir, the only one with his blood running through her veins.
“Well, nothing has been drawn up yet. I haven’t even alerted my lawyers, so do not worry if it’s not a burden you wish to carry …
I’ll think of something. You go on up, Henry.
The display should have already started—go ahead and enjoy it.
I have some things to get sorted down here before the end of the night,” Mr. Button said, and there was softness in his expression.
Like he hadn’t just delivered the most brutal news.
That he was dying. That this wouldn’t just be the tenth Button Ball that he’d be in attendance for. It would be the final one.
That everything in their worlds would permanently shift from this moment on.
Leontes watched Henry leave, the secretary’s head bowed as he solemnly departed the office, not knowing that this would be their final conversation.
A few moments passed, where Leontes sat silently watching the chessboard, feeling the weight of the stars resting heavily on his shoulders.
To the untrained eye, it might have appeared that Mr. Button was alone in his office now; but Mr. Button was rarely ever alone.
On the walls were his trophies—the mounted heads of the animals he’d hunted through the years on trips too numerous to count.
They were his companions for the times he had to work through the night.
But they were not the only company he had tonight.
“You’re dying?” a voice floated in from the shadows.
Behind the tall filing cabinet in the corner, a figure slunk out from his hiding place, trembling as he held his instrument in his hands.
Mr. Button raised an eyebrow. “How long have you been in here?” he asked, reaching, out of habit, for one of the chess pieces to fiddle with.
“Long enough,” the boy said with a sniff, and Mr. Button noticed then that the young boy’s eyes were red rimmed, his shoulders shivering, from cold or the gusts of emotion or both, he couldn’t quite tell. “I need to talk to you.”
Leontes nodded. “Then let’s speak, my child.”
The boy swayed from side to side, screwing his eyes shut for a moment as though trying to steady himself, and then he opened them again, the familiar dark brown filled with years of spite. He put his violin and bow down on the ground, resting them against the wall.
“I wanted to give you this,” the boy said, reaching into his pocket and holding up a silver button in his shaking fingers.
It was the memento their father had given each of them after they’d achieved their first major feat in their young prodigal lives.
It was his way of saying, You are finally worthy of being a Button.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m no longer attending the balls,” the boy continued.
“I wanted to tell you that this would be my last one, that I wouldn’t be going to the ball next year …
or the year after that. That tonight would be the last night I tap-dance for you.
I was going to tell you that I didn’t care if this meant that you’d cut my part of the inheritance entirely.
I’d rather have nothing, and be happy, than live for you and be miserable.
” The boy was shaking violently now, a tempest of pent-up emotions swirling through him as he spoke.
Tears streamed down his face in passionate rivulets, his voice thick with mucus and an aching desire to be heard.
“But I suppose none of that matters now that you’re dying, huh? ” the boy said.
“I suppose it doesn’t,” Leontes replied, nodding solemnly in agreement.
This response clearly shocked the still-crying boy, who kept furiously wiping away his tears, turning his back now, not wanting his father to see him like this. See him so destroyed.
The boy wasn’t crying because he’d waited so long to make this speech. He was crying because the speech didn’t matter, not anymore.
“Octavius …,” Leontes began slowly, hoping this would make his son face him.
It did not.
“None of it matters,” the boy whispered to himself over and over.
Octavius Button was a lot of things. He was bright, stubborn, mercilessly talented. But more than anything, he was a boy who did not want his father to die.
“None of it matters,” Leontes Button said, repeating his son’s incantations back to him.
“You’re right. I think you get that sort of clarity when you’re finally forced to look death in the eye.
You don’t have to attend any more balls when I’m gone.
I can see that you loathe these events as much as you loathe me, and so I will not force you to commiserate any longer. ”
Octavius looked at his father then; really looked at him in a way he hadn’t since he was a young boy.
His father, who was now old and gray and withering.
Octavius did not loathe his father. That was his problem.
He couldn’t hate the man even if he tried.
And that was the thing about their father; he never got that about any of them. Never truly saw them.
Mr. Button moved another chess piece absentmindedly. It had always been his favorite piece—the pawn.
“About your share of the inheritance … I plan to restore the parts that were once lost and will even grant you a sizable bonus.”
Octavius knew his father was dying, but the old man was never this generous. He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you do that? You said that part of my inheritance was lost to me forever when I went to boarding school.”
Mr. Button’s fingertips dangled over a row of black pawns as he deliberated on his next move.
“I know what I said. But terms and conditions can change when you negotiate. You should know this, my child,” Mr. Button said, making his next move boldly. “I would like a favor though, in exchange for the restoration of your inheritance, of course.”
“What is it?” Octavius’s red, wet face glared down at the old man at the desk, who wasn’t looking at him any longer—instead, his eyes were focused squarely on the board, where he was moving pieces around in quick succession.
When he seemed pleased with where the game was heading, he finally looked up into the fractured, shimmering gaze of his son.
“I would like you to kill me.”