Chapter 48
THE BUTTON MANOR
Several weeks had gone by since the death of Leontes Button and the arrest of Henry Xu.
The halls of the Button Manor had never been so quiet.
The Button Manor, which was technically Perdita’s house per their father’s will, now belonged to all of them.
As coexecutor, Perdita had decided to reject her father’s will, and put all of their names on their house as a final piss off to him.
She also decided to give a significant portion of her inheritance to people like her mother—setting up her own charities to end the exploitation of vulnerable women and refugees.
Doing all of this was the only thing that made things feel right in the twisted reality in which they all resided.
The Manor and its grounds had been shut off to the world ever since the funeral, including all press.
The occupants of the Manor, the Button siblings, hardly came out of their rooms. Their meals were delivered to their doors by the small handful of staff who hadn’t yet quit, as though they were prisoners in their own home.
This of course was not the case, but the staff knew they would not be in the mood to sit around a dining table and play happy family.
Each and every one of them was too destroyed to show their faces, anyway.
They’d all seen the papers though, and the headlines the media were running about the tragedy that had befallen the Buttons.
Octavius read the newspapers obsessively, more than anyone, keeping himself up to date with all the details of Henry’s trial.
BILLIONAIRE BLUDGEONED BY BUTLER was the headline that ran in the Daily Trail paper, which had bothered Octavius greatly, seeing as Henry was not a butler.
Their father had referred to Henry as his secretary, but they all knew that Henry was so much more. Henry, who had been more of a father to them than Mr. Button ever had. Henry, who, for whatever reason, had lied and taken the fall for their terrible crime. Now he too was gone from their lives.
Octavius really hated Henry for being the one to take the fall.
Hated him even more because the secretary refused to let any of them visit him in prison or speak to him.
Henry refused to use the Buttons’ legal team too.
It was like he was trying to do everything in his power to ensure that he’d be the only one sentenced.
They’d all tried to speak to Chief Waxler to ask for some kind of plea or appeal. Unbeknownst to his siblings, Octavius had even gone to Waxler to try and turn himself in, in exchange for Henry.
But Waxler had replied, If you know what’s good for you, son, you’d all stop this. Henry has confessed, Henry will stand trial and serve time. It is what Leontes would have preferred … It has been agreed.
That’s when Octavius knew that even if there was explicit evidence or footage of what happened that night, the chief was not going to help besmirch the Button name, especially not when the Button Estate, per the fine print of the will, was still a massive funder of the police department.
None of this was fair.
Octavius couldn’t even ask Henry why he was doing all this; all he could do was sit in the discomfort of his quiet room, where the versions of himself trapped behind his wallpaper screamed on a constant loop all day and all night. Like they were doing now.
He couldn’t bear being in his room anymore. He threw the newspaper down and for the first time in weeks opened his bedroom door and walked out.
Octavius didn’t have any particular location in mind, so when he found himself in the attic, it was as much a surprise to him as it was to the people already sitting in there.
“Hi,” Perdita said, waving him up.
“Hi, Dee; hi, Rome; hi, Pulitzer,” Octavius said to his two siblings and their family pig, as he crawled forward and took a seat next to his brother and sister. “What are you guys doing up here?”
“Couldn’t stand being in my room anymore,” Romeo said with a shrug, Litzy asleep in his lap.
“Same,” Octavius said.
“Same,” Perdita replied.
In almost-cosmic timing, the attic trapdoor opened again as Fola appeared wearing silk pajamas, pushing herself up into the attic space.
“Hi,” Fola said as she shuffled into the seat next to Octavius.
“What brings you here?” Perdita asked as Fola settled down. “Also couldn’t stand being in your room?”
Fola shook her head. “No, I just thought I heard someone moving about in the attic, so I figured you guys were here.”
“What if it was an intruder though? Or a murderer?” Octavius asked, ignoring the way his throat tightened around the word.
“Well, unlucky for them I have a black belt in tae kwon do.”
“You do not look all that scary in your pink silk pajamas, I must say,” Perdita said.
“All the more reason they would be caught off-guard. I think things through, you see,” Fola replied.
Octavius decided not to point out the fact that Fola was wearing a Birkenstock on one foot and a high heel on the other. It didn’t seem like the time or place. Instead, he focused in on Romeo’s fingers, which were tangled in what seemed to be a ball of yarn that was almost as big as Pulitzer.
“Are you knitting something, Rome?” Octavius asked, eyes widened in fascination.
Romeo nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to make Litzy a scarf for weeks. But to no avail, it seems.”
“That’s cool … Litzy would like that, I think,” Octavius said.
“How do you know what Litzy would like?” Fola asked with a raised brow.
“Well, seeing as she’s tried to eat my sweater on several occasions, it’s safe to say that she probably wants a knitted garment of her own.”
“Or she wants to eat you,” Perdita pointed out.
“That too. I can’t blame her for it though—I’m probably very delicious.”
Fola rolled her eyes at his statement. “Or she can’t tell the difference between grass and your damaged scalp,” she said.
“Either way, all I’m hearing is that I am delish!”
Perdita laughed out loud and the sound of her laughter sent a jolt through Octavius. He’d missed that sound.
Just then the attic door opened again and a grumpy (though, when was he ever not grumpy?) Bilal appeared, also dressed in pajamas.
Octavius wasn’t sure what time or day it was, for that matter, but wondered if it was nighttime because of Fola’s and Bilal’s attire. But seeing as Perdita was wearing a dress, and Romeo jeans, a hoodie, and flip-flops, he really had no idea—and, he suspected, neither did they.
Bilal ungracefully tumbled forward into the attic, still wearing a cast—albeit a smaller one—and almost landed right on top of Fola.
“I could hear you guys through the cracks in my door. You’re all so loud, did you know that?” Bilal said grumpily.
“And we can also hear you and Anwar through the cracks too whenever he’s over, so stop complaining,” Perdita replied.
This shut Bilal up but, to Octavius’s delight, made everyone else laugh. It was the first positive sound he’d heard in weeks.
Things had been so awfully quiet in the aftermath of the funeral, and even at the funeral, which was a whole weird day in itself. It had taken place at a church in the French countryside, in the town their father had been born.
None of them could bring themselves to cry on the day, which probably made them all look guilty. But at that point they didn’t really care.
They were guilty, and they felt that guilt every day. And it wasn’t guilt for their father, but for Henry Xu, the man who deserved so much more than his fate.
The siblings had all held hands during the service, and even after the service. It was a physical reminder that, whatever happened next, they would always be there for one another.
And that’s what they were doing now; being there. They stayed in the attic for hours that night, talking, and it felt so much like when they were children, before life became so complicated and dark.
Octavius was so glad things were starting to feel light again.