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 hisheir, 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 wasdying. 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.
