After reviewing the paperwork, I accepted.
The job was easier than I had expected. A private company handled the monthly deep cleaning. My duties mainly involved light cleaning, errands, supervising the gardener, and keeping track of the contractors renovating the southern wing.
“You see, I enjoyed doing these things myself,” he signed. “However, my health isn’t what it used to be.”
For the first time during the interview, I smiled.
When we finished, we stood and shook hands.
“You can start the day after tomorrow. I’ll need to hire a nanny for the little miss,” he smiled at Emily and booped her nose.
“Oh, you shouldn’t—”
“No, no, Nora. What good is it for the baby to go to daycare, when she can stay with her mom?”
I expected there to be a catch.
People had rarely been kind to me without eventually asking for something in return.
But Richard never did.
Each morning, before I started work, he would find me.
“How are you today, Nora? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine,” I always replied.
He never seemed convinced, but he respected the answer.
Richard hired a nanny named Ruth, although she often had little to do because he loved spending time with Emily himself.
I sometimes found him crawling across the carpet while she rode on his back, both of them pretending to be lions.
Other times, he sat beside her tiny table, drinking imaginary tea from a plastic cup while she decorated his gray hair with pink ribbons.
For such a serious man, he looked ridiculous.
But seeing them together slowly changed the way I saw him.
One afternoon, after finishing my errands, I sat in the kitchen for a few minutes to rest my aching feet.
Richard appeared with a cup of tea and placed it in front of me.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” I said.
“Then consider this my rebellion.”
Over time, I stopped thinking of him as a wealthy man taking pity on me.
He became simply Richard—gentle, lonely, and unexpectedly kind.
Then one day, my phone rang.
I stepped into the pantry to answer.
It was my landlord.
“I’ve given you enough time.”
“Please,” I whispered when he told me what I already feared. “Most of my first wages went toward hospital bills and overdue payments. I can give you part of the rent now and the rest next month.”
“You said that before.”
“I have a steady job now. I just need a little time.”
My throat tightened.
“I have a daughter. Her father just died. Please, have mercy.”
The landlord sighed.
“You have one month to move out. After that, I’m changing the locks.”
The call ended.
I pressed the phone against my chest and tried to steady my breathing.
After everything I had survived, Emily and I were about to lose our home.
Then a floorboard creaked behind me.
I turned.
No one was there.
I assumed I had imagined it and went back to work.
A few weeks later, I arrived at Richard’s estate and stopped in the entrance hall.
Fresh flowers filled tall vases. Candles flickered across the room, and soft music drifted through the house.
Richard normally warned me before inviting guests because those days required more preparation.
This time, he hadn’t mentioned anything.
I found him in his study wearing a dark suit.
For once, he looked nervous.
“Are you expecting guests?”
“There you are,” he said. “Please, Nora. Sit down.”
“Not exactly.”
I sat, confused.
Richard took a deep breath.
Then he slowly lowered himself onto one knee.
“Honey, I know I’m much older than you, and maybe you’ll laugh in my face, but I’ll be honest. I’ve fallen in love with you. I don’t want to waste time pretending otherwise, so I want to ask you to marry me.”
I stared at him.
Of all the possibilities that had crossed my mind, this wasn’t one of them.
“I—I need to think about it.”
“Of course.” His smile faltered. “Take all the time you need.”
Richard was seventy-two.
I was thirty-five.
But as I thought about Emily and our situation, the decision became difficult to ignore.
Tom was gone.
I had no family to fall back on.
And Richard could offer Emily the one thing I had spent my entire life trying to find.
Stability.
A secure home. Good schools. Food on the table. A childhood without eviction notices or uncertainty.
Was it wrong to accept that?
“Yes.”
Richard’s face brightened.