CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next morning, I find Paolo in the kitchen but not Cecilia. He smiles sadly at me when I arrive and pours a cup of coffee from the French Press. I lift it to my lips and find with relief that it's the dark roast I prefer and not the blonde roast Cecilia favors. It's odd how those little pleasures still matter, even in the midst of chaos and death.

"I think I will leave," Paolo says.

I turn to him in shock. "Leave? The family?"

"Yes. I feel my time here is coming to an end."

I offer the rather lame retort of, "So soon? When the children are finally starting to enjoy real food?"

He chuckles. "I very much appreciate your help with that. I enjoy making real meals much more than pouring powdered cheese out of a box, but as for the first part, it is soon for you, not for me."

"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."

"I'll hold you to that."

I walk into the dining room and smile at Cecilia. My smile vanishes when I see her. Her face is red and puffy, and her eyes are bloodshot. She attempts a smile at me, but it's clear that she's been crying.

I rush to her side. "Cecilia! What's wrong?"

She laughs at that. "What's not wrong? My husband's dead, his former business partner is trying to steal his company, and oh yes, my kids hate me."

"They do not hate you."

"Yes, they do. They blame me for Johnathan's death."

I flinch when she says that, but thankfully, she mistakes the reason for my reaction. "I don't mean they literally think I killed him," she clarifies, "but it's the classic projection. They loved him more than me, and they hate that I survived and he didn't."

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is. You don't have to protect my feelings. I've known these kids their entire lives. I can tell what they're thinking. Isabella hates me because she only ever talked to him, and she thinks she can't talk to me. Elijah hates me because I'm not wearing black and taking a vow of celibacy, and Samuel… well, Samuel still loves me, but he's withdrawn into a shell, and he won't come out. If it weren't for you, they'd all be in therapy right now."

I open my mouth to suggest that therapy might not be a bad idea, but then I realize who their therapist will likely be and close my mouth without saying anything. Paolo arrives with the light roast, and Cecilia takes it without acknowledging him. She has an excuse for rudeness this morning, but if this is her typical behavior around the staff, then I understand Paolo's desire to leave.

Still, it is better that he leaves. It allows Cecilia to talk freely.

"It just sucks. I never thought that Johnathan's death would cause everyone to turn against me."

I frown slightly. That's an odd way to say that. She doesn't express shock at Johnathan's death, just shock at the fact that she still suffers from it. It's also interesting that she doesn't complain at losing him, just at the way she's treated when he passes.

I probe gently. "It must be hard not having him here to support you."

She chuckles. "Support me. Ha. That's funny."

"Was Johnathan not an attentive husband?"

"Oh, he was attentive, all right. He was very attentive. When I wanted a new dress, I got it. When I wanted a pearl necklace, it would be on my neck before I finished asking. I got the car I wanted, the vacations I wanted, hell, we watched the tv shows I wanted to watch."

I probe a little further. "But you weren't happy?"

She doesn't answer right away. She looks down at her hands and her lips twist a number of odd ways before she finally says, "Happiness is a strange thing. You can convince yourself you're happy if you try hard enough. You can smile in the mirror or rest in a hot tub or wrap your legs around your husband and tell yourself that you have it made, that you're lucky, that anyone would want to be you. You can look at your kids and love them, really love them, love them so much that it hurts. You can do all of these things, and you can feel happy, but…" she lifts her hands and gestures in frustration, "but it's not real. I mean, it is. I love my kids, and I did love Johnathan. That's the thing that sucks about it is that I did love him. I thought I'd spend my life with him. But…"

She taps her fingers pensively on the table, and I dare to ask a dangerous question. "But you don't miss him."

She heaves a big sigh, and her shoulders slump in relief. No doubt hearing someone else put into words feelings she's hidden from all others is a godsend, at least in her mind. "I don't."

Her lower lip trembles with the flood of pent-up emotions she's released. She turns to me and smiles with naked self-contempt. "And now you know my big, dirty secret. The father of my child, the man I bore three children for, the man I gave every part of my body to almost every night for almost twenty years is dead, and I don't miss him. Not a damned bit."

The enthusiasm with which she speaks is unsettling. Strictly speaking, much of her behavior could be explained by shock or misplaced grief or simple jealousy at the fact that she isn't enough to make up for the loss of Johnathan in the children's minds.

But there's a hint of triumph there, an almost flaunting attitude that unnerves me. Her eyes flash with the exultation of victory, and once more, I wonder if I'm looking into the eyes of a killer.

I don't know what to say, but she waits for me to speak, so I have to say something. I offer, somewhat lamely, the same explanation I give Paolo. "You were young when you married him. You didn't know what you wanted in life. You were caught in the blush of new romance, and you married a man you were infatuated with. Those aren't feelings to be ashamed of."

She laughs bitterly. "They wouldn't be. Except that, I knew on my wedding day that things would end the way they did. I looked into his eyes, smiled and said 'I do,' all the while knowing I would come to hate him."

I should be cautious now. I should sympathize with her. Or else, I should say something neutral. Hell, I should stay silent, rather than say what I do.

But the triumph in her voice, and the sneer she wears when she admits her hatred to Johnathan overcome me. I like Cecilia, but I care far more deeply for her children.

At the very least, I don't accuse her directly. I simply say, "What if I told you I had reason to believe that he was murdered?"