Julian Whitaker looked at me like I was just another piece of old furniture. After 18 years of caring for his father, he fired me with one week’s pay and told me to be gone by sundown. Three days later, Mr. Whitaker’s attorney called—and the first words out of his mouth made my knees buckle.
The morning sun filtered through the tall, arched windows of the Whitaker estate.
I set a fresh vase of lilies on the hallway table.
Mr. Whitaker always insisted on having fresh flowers in the house.
The place felt hollow without him.
He had been a widower when I first started working as his housekeeper.
That was nearly two decades ago.
Somewhere along the way, we had become a strange little family of two.
The day my daughter died, he had sat beside me on the kitchen bench.
He didn’t say a word, he didn’t need to.
That was the kind of man he was.
Every Monday, without fail, he asked me the same question.
“How’s that grandson of yours, Marta? Still drawing those spaceships?”
“He’s still drawing, sir,” I would laugh. “Now they have aliens too.”
I had brought him a drawing the week before he passed.
He taped it to the refrigerator himself.
***
The front door opened and closed with a sharp, careless bang.
Footsteps crossed the foyer.
Julian had come home.
I had only met Mr. Whitaker’s son a handful of times in eighteen years.
Mr. Whitaker used to sit by the phone on Sunday nights, waiting for a call that rarely came.
Julian looked at me now.
“Marta, sir,” I said.
“Right.” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve been going through my father’s affairs. I’ll need you in the study in ten minutes.”
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