Olivia wondered about his brother, but didn’t bring it up, despite the confessions of the evening. It had seemed so painful to him the last time it came up, when he said he hadn’t seen him in twenty-five years. She assumed that they must have had a terrible falling out for that to happen. And she was impressed by his dedication, and obviously deep affection for his mother. He always spoke of her with a warm smile or a look of concern. She hadn’t been as warm with her own mother. She had so hated her mother’s willingness to give herself up to George until there was nothing left of her. He had always come first, above all else, even her daughter. He had destroyed her mother’s life, and she had let him. She was his willing slave. Olivia still shuddered at the thought of any relationship like that. She would never let it happen to her. She would rather be alone than a slave.
Olivia and Joachim enjoyed dinner together, and the relaxed atmosphere between them. Most of the time they were too busy to talk much, and concentrated on the task at hand, whatever it was. Their dinner had led to confessions.
He had hired a new maid for her, a Portuguese girl who was hardworking and seemed honest, so far. But Olivia kept her few valuables in the safe now, at the back of one of her closets. She had learned her lesson. She even locked up her purse.
* * *
—
As she got to know him, Olivia had become aware that Joachim was a very private person, with clear boundaries. He always kept in mind that he worked for Olivia and acted accordingly, which made their conversation over dinner unusual. He never said how he spent his days off. He never talked about a girlfriend, which didn’t mean he didn’t have one. Because of the nature of the job, he knew more about Olivia than she did about him, which occasionally made her uncomfortable. She had never had anyone in a comparable position in her home life, or even her assistant at the magazine, although there wasn’t that much to know about her, except her history, which she had never shared with anyone, but had talked about with Joachim.
It had bothered her all her life that she was illegitimate, and her mother had been the mistress of a married man. It bothered her morally, but it also made her feel less than others, and she never told the men she dated. She would have told someone she intended to marry, but she had never even come close to that. She knew that all her romantic relationships were temporary, and most of them were a dead end, for one reason or another, geographically or socially, or she just didn’t think the men were good enough. Her mother had had the prejudices and snobbisms of her Boston family, who had shunned her on moral grounds for having a child out of wedlock with a married man, and punished Olivia for it by disapproving of her whenever they saw her. Even as a child she could feel their icy disapproval of her.
Her mother had never liked a single boy Olivia dated when she was younger. Later, she never bothered to introduce them to her mother. There was no point. She wasn’t planning to stay with them anyway. But at least none of them were married. That was one trap she had never fallen into after watching her mother’s agonizing loneliness all her life, and her pain whenever George was with his family. Holidays were days of mourning for Margaret, and became that way for Olivia too, with her mother always too depressed to celebrate anything, except when George showed up. In recent years, Olivia had spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with friends, and she no longer needed an excuse once her mother had dementia. She didn’t know what day it was anyway, and holidays went unnoticed and unacknowledged. Margaret’s longstanding affair had touched every area of their lives. It was almost a relief to Olivia when George died. They no longer had to wait for him to show up, and she didn’t have to see her mother disappointed. But his death hadn’t freed her either since Margaret never put her life back together. It was too late by then. She didn’t have the energy or emotional strength to do it.
It made serious relationships seem dangerous to Olivia. They could ruin your life if you let them.
Joachim had always had the same feeling, although his mother wasn’t bitter. She was vibrant and alive, and refused to be defeated by poverty or solitude, or her losses, and things had turned out well for her in the end. It made Joachim feel that he had his whole lifetime to meet the right woman. He had never had a strong desire to have children, and he didn’t have biology to contend with, as women did.