Chapter 7 - The Eviction of the Sycophants
The grand villa on the hill was silent by three o'clock that afternoon, save for the sound of heavy leather suitcases being dragged down the marble staircase. The local police had already escorted Veronica and her father away in separate vehicles, their exit witnessed by the entire field crew who had gathered at the edge of the vineyards to watch in absolute silence.
I stood in the main entrance hall, my arms crossed over my chest, watching Juana, the house manager, frantically packing her personal belongings into a cardboard box near the front desk.
"Don Álvaro," Juana stammered, her voice shaking as she looked at my boots. "I... I was only following the Senora’s orders. She told us she was the mistress of the house. She said if we didn't follow her instructions regarding the Doña Sofia, we would be dismissed without our pensions."
"You watched an eighty-year-old woman sit in the mud and you laughed, Juana," I said, my voice low and completely level. "You didn't follow orders because you were afraid; you followed them because you thought the old world was weak and you wanted to be on the winning side."
"Please, Don Álvaro," she begged, tears ruining her heavy makeup. "My family is in the city. I need the reference."
"Your reference will be the testimony I provide to the labor tribunal regarding your complicity in domestic abuse," I said, pointing toward the heavy oak front doors. "You have five minutes to leave the property. If your box is still in this hallway when the clock strikes three, the guards at the gate will treat it as abandoned property."
She snatched up the box, her high heels clicking wildly against the marble floor as she ran out the door, her two city assistants following her like ghosts fleeing a collapsing church.
Manuel stepped into the hallway from the terrace, a large brass key ring hanging from his belt. "The new staff have all cleared out, Don Álvaro. The villa is empty."
"It’s not empty, Manuel," I said, turning to look up the grand staircase where my mother was slowly walking down, her hand resting gently on the carved wooden banister. She was no longer wearing the simple black dress; she had put on her favorite blue cardigan, the one she used to wear when she and my father walked through the fermentation rooms in the autumn.
May you like
"Álvaro," she said, her voice soft but steady, the shame that had clouded her eyes for three years completely gone, replaced by the clean, quiet peace of a woman who had survived the winter.
I walked up the stairs, met her halfway, and offered her my arm. "The house is clean, Mom. Let’s go look at the grapes."
