Heir Above All

The main hall of the Hall Villa was full of people, and Oscar Hudson had never felt more alone in it.

Twelve members of the Hall family had gathered there that afternoon. They sat close to Olivia, not to him. That was how it had always been since the Old Master died.

Olivia Hall sat at the head of the table. Her back was straight. Her hands rested on a manila folder like it was nothing important.

"I think you already know why you're here," she said.

Oscar didn't answer. Her assistant had called him that morning and told him to come to the Villa by noon. After three years of marriage, he didn't need to be told what that meant.

Olivia slid the folder across the table. "The terms are fair. You keep your clothes, the car we gave you, and a settlement. No one can say the Hall family treated you badly."

Fair. Three years of being introduced as "Olivia's husband" and nothing else. Three years of a wedding ring that didn't represent anything meaningful. Three years in a house where he never had his own key.

"It's fair," Oscar said.

Down the table, an older cousin didn't bother lowering her voice. "Fair? She's being generous, if you ask me. Three years wasted on a man who couldn't even hold a real job. And after everything Grandfather did for him."

A few people laughed. Not loud. Just enough to make the point.

Daniel Hall, Olivia's uncle, didn't laugh, but he didn't stop it either. He watched Oscar the way someone watches a stray dog trying to decide whether to leave on its own.

Oscar picked up the pen.

He didn't remember much of his life before the Hall family. There had been a fire, or maybe it wasn't a fire – the memory never held its shape no matter how many times he reached for it. There had been an orphanage after that, and his name was the only aspect of him he could remember clearly. He'd learned early not to ask questions about where he came from. No one at the orphanage had answers, and eventually neither did he.

Harold Hall had been the one to change that. The old man used to visit the orphanage twice a year, writing cheques and shaking hands the way rich men did when they wanted their names in a charity report.

But he'd noticed Oscar. A boy who cleaned up after the younger kids without being told. A boy who didn't cry when the other children took his food. Harold Hall didn't need an heir. He had plenty of those already. He adopted Oscar anyway, because he said a character like that was rare in a kid.

Olivia hadn't liked him at first. She was eight, he was nine, and she made it clear for the first year that she thought he didn't belong in her house. But children forget to hate each other if you give them enough time under the same roof, and eventually she stopped treating him like a stranger and started treating him like a brother.

That was the part no one in this hall remembered anymore. When Harold Hall arranged the marriage years later, Olivia hadn't fought it. She hadn't loved Oscar, not the way people meant when they used that word, but she respected her grandfather enough to do what he asked. It wasn't romance. It was filial piety. Oscar had understood that from the beginning and never expected more than she was willing to give.

Then Harold Hall died, and everything Oscar hadn't realized was protection disappeared with him.

Without the old man's word to answer to, the family stopped pretending. Oscar became the person who fetched drinks at family dinners and stood behind chairs at business functions. He was compared, constantly, to men Olivia's family found more impressive, men with degrees from better schools, men with fathers who mattered. Olivia stopped defending him somewhere in that first year without her grandfather. She started to agree, quietly, that Oscar simply wasn't going anywhere.

None of that mattered here, in this room, today. No one wanted to hear it, and Olivia clearly didn't either.

He signed the papers. His signature was steady, the same as always.

Olivia closed the folder once it was done. She looked almost satisfied, like she'd just finished checking something off a list.

"I wish you well, Oscar," she said. For a second, something in her voice sounded almost sincere.

He nodded. "You too."

No one stood up to see him off. No one said goodbye. The cousin who'd been laughing was already whispering to the person next to her. Daniel had gone back to his phone. Olivia was looking past him, already thinking about something else.

Oscar picked up his bag. It hadn't taken him long to pack that morning. Three years in that house, and there hadn't been much of his life in it to begin with.

Before he left, he walked to the memorial room at the back of the Villa. It was small, and most of the family never used it anymore. Harold Hall's photo sat above a low altar, with a thin stick of incense burning in front of it. Everyone called him the Old Master, even now.

Oscar had come here every week for three years. And this would be the last time.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For the roof. For the food. For treating an orphan like he was worth something, even when no one else in this house agreed with you."

He didn't ask for forgiveness for leaving. The Old Master would have understood.

No one followed him to the door.

Outside, the sky over Kingsford was gray, and the street was full of the usual afternoon traffic. None of it cared that a man had just walked out of one life carrying nothing but a bag over his shoulder.

Oscar didn't look back at the house. Three years had taught him there wasn't much behind him worth looking at.

He was halfway down the front steps when his phone rang.

He almost ignored it. Then he looked at the screen. No name. No saved contact. Just a string of numbers from an international line he didn't recognize.

Oscar stopped walking.

Behind him, the gates of the Hall Villa were already swinging shut.

He answered the call.

"Hello?”