Page 18 of The Stipulation
“What?”
“Oh no. Not of you harming him. He was afraid you would see through him and not want a thing to do with him.”
The wind lifts a strand of her red hair across her cheek, and she tucks it behind her ear.
“He once told me that you had inherited his eyes to look at, but they were your mother’s eyes in every sense of the word. That you looked at people as if you were assessing the truth in them.”
My chest aches unexpectedly.
“That’s ridiculous,” I say, but is it really? Even my career is based around studying, analyzing, assessing what I see.
“It frightened him,” she insists gently. “He liked controlling the narrative. He couldn’t control what you thought of him.”
A strained silence settles between us. Someone calls Betty’s name faintly from inside. She tries to stand, but I grab her wrist and tell her to ignore it. I make a mental note to take the blame if she gets in trouble for it later.
“What was he like when he was angry?” I ask.
She exhales slowly. “Cold. Quieter than ever.”
“No shouting?”
“No.” A shake of her head. “Shouting would have meant a loss of control. He never lost control.”
I think of the boardroom stories. The dismantling of arguments. Of course, he did.
“At his most frustrated,” she continues. “He would go very still. That’s how we knew when to leave him alone.”
“We?”
“The house staff.”
“And at his most tender?” I prompt carefully.
That soft reverence returns to her face. “There was no one like him. We had a groundskeeper, Mr. Alvarez. He had a stroke three years ago. It meant he couldn’t work anymore. Your father paid for his rehabilitation. All of it. And he continued hiswages and left a provision in his trust that that payment would continue until the day Mr. Alvarez died. He told everyone it was a retention incentive restructure.”
Despite everything, I smile.
“He never told Mr. Alvarez it was him,” she says. “But he visited him in the hospital. Late at night. He sat by his bed and talked about the garden plans as if he’d be back any day.”
My chest tightens painfully. “Why hide such a wonderful trait?”
“He believed kindness created weakness in negotiations.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yes.” A tiny, conspiratorial smile crosses Betty’s face. “I told him so once.”
I turn fully toward her. “You did?”
Her cheeks flush slightly. “I did. I may have said that being feared in business didn’t require being feared at home.”
“And?”
“He told me I was paid to polish silver, not offer philosophy.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “And did that stop you?”
“No.”
