Audrey is flipping to D in the index of her Family History, provided, with gilt pages, by Master Jack, as a Value Add from the Private Bank of Wealth Bondage. “Where is Dad?” Awkward silences. She throws the book at Master Jack, Momma’s Most Trusted Advisor, and takes to her bed, eyes open and unseeing. Body rigid. Will not eat. Will not talk. Rex licks her face, but gets no reaction. Who can blame her? What use is a Family History if it leaves out the parts we really need to know? Doctors come and go, recommending strong drugs, or forced feeding, intravenous life support. Ultimately it is Tutor who called in to help. His is a mixed reputation. Preferred Clients are uneasy with his delight in taking Penitential Scenes too far, but he is good with children. They consider him a defective child to be patronized. Which is how he sees himself.
So, lanky Tutor in Hawaiian shirt and faded black priest pants, kneels by Audrey’s bedside, letting his breathing synch to hers. “Are you westing in you Westinghouse, you little wascal?” No smile from her, but as a cartoon scholar she is processing the allusion. “Sad wabbit! Your big ears are all flopped down!” Tutor points in heartfelt consternation. “They are all folded over!”
Her hands clap to her ears. “No they are not!”
Tutor hops heavily off, hands making big upstanding bunny ears. Audrey leaps from the bed. “That is not how bunnies hop!” And it is true, she bounces and bounds much more like a real bunny. He has to admit defeat, as she crows in victory.
The little moments that matter most don’t get into the history books, but history turns on them. The world will be saved by a wascally wabbit, or not at all. The next time you work for a billionaire family, even in the most humble capacity, mowing a lawn, driving or repairing a car, teaching high school or prep school English, providing investment advice or a full body massage, watering plants, providing wisdom, facilitating the sorting of values-cards, creating a family mission statement, writing a family constitution, conducting an offsite family meeting, or just following orders conveyed down the line through your immediate superior, remember that you may be the difference between saving that Dynasty, and having it fall into tawdriness, opportunism, and chaos like the rest of the world.
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