The Billionaire’s Maid Disguise As An Old Lady

Fiona The phone rang while I was in the middle of writing an essay for my night class. I almost didn't answer it. I wish now that I hadn't seen the number, because then I could have had five more minutes of not knowing. "Is this Fiona Reyes? Daughter of Thea Reyes?" My stomach dropped before the woman even finished the sentence. "Yes. That's me. Is she okay?" "Your mother collapsed at work. She's being taken to St. Mary's right now. You should come as soon as you can." I don't remember grabbing my coat. I don't remember locking the door. I just remember running, my shoes slapping against the wet pavement, my breath coming out in short clouds because it was cold and I hadn't stopped to think about a jacket that actually kept the cold out. By the time I got to the hospital, my mother was already in a bed with a tube in her arm and an oxygen mask over her face. Her eyes were closed. Her skin looked gray under the fluorescent lights. "Mom." I grabbed her hand. It was cold. Her eyes fluttered open. She tried to smile at me, but it came out weak, like she didn't have the strength to lift the corners of her mouth all the way. "I'm fine, baby," she whispered. "Don't worry." A doctor came in a few minutes later, his tablet in his hand and his face doing that careful thing doctors do when they're about to tell you something you don't want to hear. "Ms. Reyes has severe pneumonia," he said. "Combined with exhaustion. Her body has been running on empty for a long time. She needs complete bed rest for at least three weeks. No work. No stress. If she pushes herself again, it could turn into something much worse." Three weeks. I looked at my mother's face and I could see her doing the math before I did. She worked as a live-in housekeeper for the Chester family, one of the wealthiest families in the city. That job paid our rent. It paid for the groceries. It paid for my classes at the community college, the ones I was taking at night after working my own shifts during the day. "I can't stop working," she said, pulling the mask down slightly so she could speak clearer. "They'll replace me. Fiona, if I lose that job—" "Mom, don't. The doctor just told you—" "You don't understand." Her voice cracked. "That job is everything. Our apartment. Your school. If I'm gone for three weeks, they'll find someone else. People like us don't get second chances in houses like that." I held her hand tighter and felt my throat closing up. "Nothing is going to happen to us," I said, even though I had no idea if that was true. "I promise you. We are not losing this apartment. We are not losing anything. I'll figure it out." She looked at me like she wanted to believe me but couldn't quite manage it. I understood. I didn't fully believe myself either. The doctor stepped out to let her rest, and I sat there for a long time just watching her chest rise and fall under the blanket, making sure it kept happening. That's when Margaret found me. Margaret had been the head housekeeper at the Chester Mansion for almost twenty years. She was the one who trained my mother when she first started. She was also, in her own quiet way, kind to us in a place that didn't have much room for kindness. She came into the hospital room with a paper cup of coffee in each hand and gave me one without asking if I wanted it. "How is she?" "Pneumonia. Exhaustion. Three weeks of bed rest, at least." Margaret's face didn't change, but I saw something behind her eyes, some kind of calculation happening. "Fiona, can I speak with you outside for a moment?" I followed her into the hallway, my legs feeling like they belonged to someone else. "I need to tell you something, and I need you to actually think about it before you say no," Margaret said, keeping her voice low. "Mr. Chester does not know your mother is in the hospital yet. If he finds out she'll be gone for three weeks, he will replace her. He does not wait around for people to get better. That's simply how it works in that house." "So what am I supposed to do? I can't stop that from happening." Margaret looked at me for a long moment. "You could take her place." I actually laughed, a short, disbelieving sound. "What?" "You know the house. You've visited her there a hundred times. You know how she moves, how she talks to him, what her routine looks like. If you wore her uniform, kept your head down, and did the work, no one would think twice. Mr. Chester barely looks at the staff. You would just be doing your mother a service until she's well enough to return." "That's insane. That's actually insane, Margaret." "Maybe," she said. "But so is losing your apartment. So is losing the money for your classes. Think about it before you decide anything." I wanted to tell her no. I wanted to tell her that the idea was absurd, that I had my own responsibilities, my own life, that pretending to be my mother in some billionaire's mansion sounded like something out of a bad movie. But then the hospital administrator knocked on the open door of my mother's room and handed me a folder. Estimated costs. A number so large it didn't feel real, followed by more numbers under it that were somehow worse. Insurance covering only part of it. The rest due within thirty days. I looked at that folder for a long time. Then I looked back through the doorway at my mother, sleeping now, her face still pale, her hands still resting on top of the blanket like she was too tired to even move them. Three weeks. That's all we needed. Three weeks to keep the money coming in, to keep the roof over our heads, to keep her from waking up to find out everything she had built for us had disappeared while she was too sick to fight for it. I found Margaret again before I let myself think too hard about it. "Okay," I said. "I'll do it." Two days later, I stood in my mother's small bedroom, holding her folded black and white uniform in my hands. It still smelled like her, like the lavender detergent she always used. My hands were shaking as I unbuttoned my own shirt and pulled the uniform over my head instead. I looked at myself in the cracked mirror on her closet door. For the first time in my life, I wasn't looking at Fiona. I was looking at Thea.