That will be enough

Jarvis has taken literally every job Miss Sinclair offered him. That included cleaning free toilets at the metro station, the sidewalks, the trash cans in the streets, cleaning floors in offices where people with suits barely noticed a tall old servant if it wasn’t for telling him to get out of their way. He has also distributed flyers and discounts outside markets, sometimes dressed like a banana or something else more humiliating (when he had to dress up like a condom he thanked the “Good Lord above” his face was barely visible); he has loaded vans at the docks at first lights or at sunset. It was indeed a bit old, but still strong, and after the first times nobody questioned his age longer.

He has befriended a guy at the docks, an Ukrainian lad with a long scar on his face: he was quite intimidating at first, especially when he called him aside to have a private talk. Jarvis feared for a moment, but in reality the guy has heard him talking, and thought him educated enough to help him writing down a letter. It was a module the guy had to submit to a city office to ask for some benefits for poor people. Jarvis has helped him with the writings and he has been repaid with a discount ticket he used to buy Tony meat at the market. But he has also discovered that he could apply (as Mr. Zante) for the same food tickets to be used at the market to buy certain essential items like flour, rice and toilet paper (he had no idea toilet paper costed that much!). And the Ukrainian guy was so grateful for his help and discretion that he kept offering him a work anytime he needed an extra hand.

It cheered Jarvis up also realizing that Tony was getting better, that he feared no more to be left alone for the whole day, although he didn’t dare to move outside their room/house, especially alone. But in the last month his anxiety crisis have almost reduced at nights’ episodes… which was good, but also bad for Jarvis because he couldn’t take the vast majority of night work offers.

He hasn’t told anything of their financial problems to the boy: he was already in a deep state of shock for what has happened to him in the past 4 years, for the death of his godfather and prosecutor in a blood stain, for his parents’ arrest, and, most of all, for having been dragged away so violently from his house and his wealthy status to… this!

In his life, Jarvis has already been extremely poor, especially during the war, and it was only by having entered Mr. Stark’s service that he has come to appreciate luxurious objects like suits, ties, cufflinks, Italian shoes, and watches. But it was like a lifetime ago and it took himself quite a time to manage the psychological aspects of their new status.

And for Tony it was even worse: the boy has always lived in a rich big house, and even if he was not an arrogant rich brat, he has never experienced deprivations or having to decide whether to buy food or a pair of wood gloves for the winter. And now he has been dragged into an awful one-room shelter in the middle of a cold night, with the smell of mold, the noises of the traffic at every hours, and the dust falling on their head at every movements of the neighbors, the noise and screams coming from the different flats, everything so noisy and aloud for a boy used to silence at home that it was a miracle if he hasn’t exploded yet. And there were also other things, like a completely different dietary plan, based on which food was at a discount price when Jarvis arrived at the market, or on how much money he managed to spare for it from the daily or weekly pay he received for such jobs.

And the last money they had left went away when Tony caught a bad pneumonia that made Jarvis fear for his life and pray like he wasn’t used to do in a while.

The boy has started to cough one week after their arrival, and the situation has been worsened when the heating in their building broke up in conjunction with a drop in the temperature and a snowstorm that has hit New York and all the coast.

Jarvis couldn’t afford to recover Tony, but his cough was worsening day after day, and his fever raising. One night Jarvis heard him ranting, like he wasn’t managing to breath alone anymore: in growing despair, he lifted him up and massage his chest and back with hot water and mint, as he has learnt from a kind Hispanic old woman living in their building, Mrs. Helena Cardenas. He cradled his sick boy in his arms for the remaining of the night, crying on his head for the fear he was losing him. He prayed all the Gods he knew to spare his boy, and to take him instead, by knowing that there was nothing else he could do.

The following morning Tony’s fever hasn’t lowered but at least he was not gasping for air. Jarvis left him with the old and nice Mrs. Cardenas who was like a grandmother for every kids in the building. She has already knocked at his door before, immediately after she has learnt of that lonely father with his sick little boy. Jarvis trusted that woman and Tony knew her already, despite the fact he was now hallucinating and not recognizing anyone.

Jarvis run to the first public hospital and, in a bad state of desperation, he asked for help by describing his boy’s symptoms to a very tired nurse. He discovered to be part of quite a group of desperate parents, whose kids were all showing the same high fever and coughing. Lucky for him, after a couple of hours of waiting, a young doctor came in and gave them all some medicines for free, and then he provided instructions to lower the fever. He also said that probably many of them had good chances to be better in a couple of weeks, if they managed to remain warm and take their medicines. Jarvis later realized that he was lying to them to keep them quite, but in that moment he wanted to believe the doctor was right and his boy could really get better soon.

When he came back, Jarvis was told by Mrs. Cardenas that Tony’s fever hasn’t lowered, and that he was still not realizing where he was. She also told him that he kept calling his mother and a certain Jarvis for the whole time, so he had to invent the story they were his passed-away relatives. Tony continued his delirium for the whole night, causing one of the neighbor to angrily knock at their door and menace him to call the police if he didn’t shut the boy up. He calmed down a bit when he knew the boy had pneumonia: he apologized for his tone, but he asked him to at least try to keep him quiet, because he had to wake up at 5 to go to work. But the next morning, Jarvis found onions at their door coming from the upper floor with a note: “Onion slices on the feet reduce fever”. He had no better option so he tried.

Jarvis in the meanwhile has lost his irregular jobs to assist his boy, and money was starting to be a serious issue, even because he has ended the free medicine and the young doctor couldn’t give him more. Without wasting time, Jarvis took the last things he has left from his previous life he had put in the kitchen drawer and sold them away at the pawn shop. He felt wasted inside, especially when the old scrooge man took his wedding ring away under his desk. But with the money he paid for Tony’s medicine, and slowly the boy started to get better. From a copy of the Bulletin Jarvis has found in the trash, he discovered that many other kids haven’t been so lucky, many of them in their same neighborhood.

When Tony’s fever went down to the point he recognized where he was and with whom, Jarvis seriously considered to leave him alone for a few hours to look again for a job. Mrs. Cardenas agreed to assist the kid for the time needed. She was also so nice to sometimes provide them a cabbage soup, and this was good especially for Tony.

“We’re all poor here, Mr. Zante” he once told Jarvis. “That’s why we should help each other as much as we could… The Jacksons boys were both sick, but now they’re getting better. I’m sure Tony will manage as well…”

On his part, Jarvis helped her with her grocery bags (in particular the water) or for whatever small tasks she may require assistance with. She was a sort of granny for every kid and she loved to spend time with Tony and tell him stories also in her Caribbean Spanish.

Despite Jarvis’s efforts, however, their financial situations was far from okay. Jarvis has long cut everything he could from his diet, including the breakfast he loved to take with a hot cup of “tea” and a slice of buttered bread with jam. Now both the butter and the jam were completely out of their budget, and if he managed to spare enough to buy a small can (of a good quality) once in a while, it was Tony’s favorite blueberry jam and it was only for him. Jarvis’s breakfast will thus consist only in tea and sometimes bread if there was something spared: it was hard to chew but it was fine for him. However, at the end of the month, when they had to pay the rent, the bills and the boy’s medicines, Jarvis discovered they didn’t have a single dollar left. Also the pantry was again almost empty with a single bean can dramatically staring at him. The drawer with his belongings was also empty, and Jarvis had nothing else to sell, not even his fancy pajama.

He has already sold it, and, unwillingly, also the boy’s suit and bowtie since he judged he wouldn’t have had any occasion to put it on soon. When he went to “Second hand – clothes for every occasions” with the kid’s complete blue suit and shirt, the shop owner paled: only after a moment Jarvis realized that the man has believed his boy was death.

“My boy is fine, thanks the Lord” he murmured, still a bit overwhelmed by the experience. “It was bad and he’s still extremely weak, but hopefully he’s out of danger!”

“Thank Allah indeed, or whatever God you pray!” the other man replied, visibly relieved. While he was evaluating the boy’s jacket, Italian design as well, he commented: “We live near a funeral agency… I- I’ve seen so many kids’ coffins coming out the past days that for a moment I’ve doubted my faith, and I’m not ashamed of that… I’m glad your kid managed through it, Mr. Zante. You’re lucky, very lucky indeed!”

If someone has told him that few weeks ago Jarvis would have punched him, because “lucky” was not the term he would have used to describe his present miserable condition. But after having cradled his boy by fearing that every breath was going to be his last one, Jarvis has completely revised his perspective on life and luck.

“I was indeed… we both are!”

The owner made him a more than good price for the clothes, and he also gave him for free a pair of warm boy’s gloves with a coordinate scarf. The color was really impossible to match but Jarvis didn’t mind such details anymore.

__________________________________________________

Miss Sinclair of the job agency kept faith to her word, even after Jarvis had disappeared for a while.

When he went back to her, he wasn’t expecting her to be so comprehensive. He feared she would have taken him like other junkies who earned some money and then wasted it, and that she wasn’t going to believe that he had to stay home to assist his sick child. But she not only believed him, but she also told him that with the church they had to assist many kids in the hospital, and some of them have died for pneumonia, sometimes alone since their parents couldn’t leave their jobs or their other kids at home. Once again, Jarvis considered that he could truly called himself lucky.

Miss Sinclair kept proposing him random jobs until she found a weekly-paid job as member of a cleaning crew at the strip club “Pink ladies”. The club had private rooms to rent for the night, without much doubts on the activities to be performed there. Nobody wanted to clean sheets and floors at such places, due also to the not top-quality hygiene conditions, so many worked there only for a couple of days or something, and then they were overwhelmed and renounced. But Jarvis needed that job and, since he was good and never lamented, after only two weeks the boss confirmed him and gave him a raise of 2 dollars every week. He also talked with a “friend” who enrolled the “British grandpa” (as they called him) for cleaning the metro stations.

So Jarvis found himself with two more or less stable jobs, awful ones, but at least he had his own routine (which proved good for Tony as well) and he could count on a stable income for calculating their expenses… but at the end of the month, the money was always scarce with the heating and hot water, and Tony who needed to eat well to feel better after the pneumonia. So, to cut the cost, Jarvis has started not to eat much or not to eat at all, by telling Tony he has eaten something at work. Luckily for him, the kid never suspected a thing, too focus in fixing a bit their kitchen and heating even if without tools (the landlord has rent them to the kid for a day… and he has made Jarvis paid for that loan!).

Jarvis’s new work as a cleaning servant at the metro stations paid him very low, even if he got some extras for cleaning the public toilets. But there was a sort of internal policy so he couldn’t do all the extras, and he had to share them with his co-workers, as desperate as him. One of them, a nice Hispanic girl with quite a temper named America Chavez, was the first to notice that one evening the “British abuelo” wasn’t feeling good. They were almost at the end of their turn, and Jarvis and America had the extras when he had to grab to the wall to avoid fainting. She was immediately next to him and gave him some water and then a candy she always carried inside her pocket. Jarvis’s breath was still hard but his brain started to connect again.

“Since when aren’t you eating?” she asked like it was the most natural thing.

“Three days today…” Jarvis mumbled. Then he blushed: “It’s not bad how it seems… I’ve got a problem… my boy got sick… he had a pneumonia…”

“Okay, no need you to tell me your life!” she interrupted. But she looked sincerely worried. “You’re always kind with everyone, including those damn brats that put the trash out of the cans when we’ve just finished!” she said. Then she made up her mind and ordered him to follow her lead.

Their turn has just finished and it was almost 10 PM: Jarvis wanted to go home to check on his boy, even if he knew that Mrs. Cardenas was probably giving him part of her soup. But Miss Waller promised him it was worth the time, so he followed her in a blind alley he has never been before, where she knocked at a green door. A tall man with many scars emerged with a very threatening attitude.

“What the hell do you want, Chavez?” he asked the girl, by deserving him only a side look.

“He’s hungry! He hasn’t eaten in three days!”

“You can’t keep taking old men at my door with the same excuses!” the other replied, annoyed. Then he looked at his misery and stated: “And I suspect you wasted your money in either alcohol or drugs and now you wish the good old uncle Sean provided you some food…!”

“Actually, my dear sir,” Jarvis started, a fury he didn’t to have starting to burn in his chest and taking off his British posh accent, “I don’t need your charity to feed me or my boy! And, for the bloody hell, I won’t stay here to be insulted by someone like you when my boy is waiting for me at home! So, madam, my apologies for wasting your time!”

That took his interlocutor aback, while Jarvis turned on his heels and marched away. Or, at least, that was what he intended to go. In reality, he was stopped by a vertigo that forced him once again to grab at the filthy wall. He breathed hard, with tears of frustration running down his cheeks: he couldn’t allow himself to get sick, to lose control or to do something stupid like dyeing. He needed to be strong for Tony, who was waiting him home, who was so sick and fragile, both mentally and physically now… he couldn’t…

He felt two big arms sustaining him, and gently dragging him inside that same green door he has seen before. Jarvis was too wasted to really oppose a resistance, so he found himself sat in front of a table probably in the back of a store. His nose could feel there was of food, or was it just his imagination?

“Damn you, Britain!” the man told him with a strong Irish accent Jarvis hasn’t noticed before. He put a plate with something looking like smashed potatoes and broccoli with a slice of toasted (burnt) bread on a side. “Here! It’s all I have left!”

He gave him a fork and a glass of water, and nodded when he looked interrogatively at him.

“Eat, sir” he told him. “We’ll talk later…”

And Jarvis ate it all, slowly like he was used to do to spare food the most and grow the sensation of fullness. That plate wasn’t obviously enough, but it was surprisingly good even if cold. He chewed one part of the bread before remembering of Tony, who has probably had Mrs. Cardenas’s soup, but no bread in days. He tried to put the bread in his pocket but it was stopped by the voice of the same Irish man.

“Here you can’t take food away, that’s the rule!” he said.

“It’s for my boy…”

“Ah! You don’t know how many times I’ve heard this story before… “it’s for my baby…” and then I found them selling their food outside this kitchen for some pence to buy drugs!”

Jarvis was on the verge of fury was again. “Are you calling me a junkie, sir?” he hissed. Then he put his hands on the table and raised. “Well, I thank you for your hospitality. But now if you tell how much do I owe you, I’d gladly free myself from your presence!”

The other blinked at him for a moment, astonished. That was Jarvis realized that America Chavez was there as well because she heard her laughing: “I’ve told you it’s a weird white abuelo!”

“I’d prefer not to be referred to as an “abuelo”, Miss Chavez! I’m not that old to be your or anyone’s grandfather!”

“You see? Have you ever heard anyone calling me “Miss Chavez”?”

But the big man was studying him.

“Please, Britain, accept my apologies!” he said, by sitting in front of him and waving him to do the same. He poured some more water for both of them. He studied his glass with pensive eyes then he said: “Life sometimes is complicated. Take Amie: she wanted to be a cop back in Chicago, but her father got into troubles with justice and now she cleans the stations, while she tried to be a security guard… and I was a boxer, even a good one… but one wrong match, the betting vice, and you’re over! Forgotten!”

He looked at Jarvis in the eyes and continued: “From your clothes, you looked like the average drunk man who ended up here because of his vices. And yet you speak like an highly educated man, and you have proud eyes… I can see the sufferance you’re carrying. So, my apologies for having called you a junkie. But the rules remain: so either you’ll eat that piece of bread or you’ll throw it away, your choice!”

Jarvis nodded, then he swallowed his proud together with the bread.

“How… how may I repay you?”

The other smiled a bit. “This is a soup kitchen, and we serve food for free twice or three times a week, on Tuesday and Friday. Sometimes we opened on Saturday evening if the church or the rich guys of the other streets donate us something. Today’s Wednesday and Amie knows I clean the kitchen on Wednesday… so if you and your boy ever wanted to join us this Friday, we started to serve at 6 PM. I suggest you arrive a bit earlier because the queue could be quite long and it’s not a good idea to have the boy waiting in the cold for long!”

He had to admit he considered the option. But then he shook his head with energy: no, he couldn’t ask his boy to queue for free food twice a week! It was not only a matter of proud… well, yes, it was a matter of proud, his proud! Jarvis has been entrusted by Mr. and Mrs. Stark on their boy’s wellbeing and for the seven hells he would have provided him food every bloody evening! But there was also a more real problem…

Still, his mind considered he could find an opportunity out of this, or at least trying. And now that his stomach was a bit fuller, he has also recognized the guy.

“Tell me” he asked the big guy, “the rules of no-food delivery applies only to guests or also to co-workers?”

He heard America laughing, while the man frowned.

“What do you mean? I don’t have any co-workers!”

“Now I understand… I mean that this potatoes lacked salt, and the vegetables were partially burnt, not to mention the bread… I know we’re not at the Grand Hotel, but, bloody hell, at least not burning food should be the basics! So, that’s my proposal for you: I need to work, and I need to bring food home to my boy because he’s sick and because I don’t want him to queue outside like I can’t take care of him… tell me, how many 10 years old kids do you see queueing there with their parents? And how many remained with their parents after the first or second week?”

“Are you afraid of social services?” he sighed.

“We both know that if they have the idea I can’t provide for his necessity, they’d take my boy away, and this is a thing I can’t allow… neither for me, nor for the boy! He has already been through too much things altogether! And I know I can attend to his needs!”

The other man studied him for a while, then he asked: “So what’s your proposal? We already have a cook!”

“No, you have a former boxer who worked as a bouncer three streets from here, at the Pink Ladies. And the same boxer-bouncer put on an apron twice a week and provides the less lucky ones some hot food he has managed to put together… much appreciable, but your culinary skills are not as good as you might desire!”

He has narrowed his eyes. “You seemed to like my food… and how do you know about the Pink Ladies?”

“I had no intention to offend a free meal so generously offered. And as for your question, it’s simply because I work there too, and that’s how I’ve recognized you now: you finish your turn at 6 AM when I start the cleaning service. We crossed path a couple of times and yours is a figure that doesn’t pass unnoticed. As for me, from 6 to 12 AM I clean the rooms and change sheets, then I go home to my boy, give him lunch, take a small rest and then went to my second job from 5 to 10 PM, where I’ve met Miss Chavez here. I’ve had had many other jobs during the afternoon and sometimes at nights, but I can assure you I can do more than cleaning and I had a specialization in cooking… Italian is my favorite, but I can prepare everything you desire. Does it answer your question? Or do you wish to have a reference?”

The others exchanged a look, a bit astonished.

“Do you clean the sheets at the Pink Ladies? Ewww!” America said, disgusted. “Man, you really need money!”

“And how come you didn’t manage to spare something… I mean, life is hard but…”

“I don’t think I have to justify my life to you, sir” Jarvis interrupted him. He felt good doing this verbal skirmish: this was something he knew, something that reminded him the good old times, maybe together with miss Carter. He looked at his interlocutors: they were not miss Carter, or Mr. Stark and they wouldn’t have laughed at his jokes or appreciate an old stubborn white man. He sighed and said: “As I told you, miss Chavez, my boy went sick. A kind of pneumonia last month… medicines were quite expensive, and I had no one to stay by his side at the beginning so I had to quit various jobs… no job, no money… no food for me. Because rest assured my boy has continued to eat well and he will continue to do so!”

He saw the other man was a bit moved.

“You remind me of my father…” the big guy mumbled. “We were seven and he always managed to put food on the table even after my mother passed away. That was his priority! That was why I’ve opened this kitchen for charity with the remaining of my days as a boxer… and the pneumonia: it was like a pandemia that hit this part of the town! Many kids have died… you’ve been lucky yours is still breathing! My neighbor… she lost three of her five kids and they were all under age 7…”

Then he made up his mind, and stood by stretching his hand to Jarvis.

“You’ll start next week on Tuesday: you’ll work here two afternoons from 2 to 5 PM to prepare and cook everything, and I’ll assist you and prepare for the service after you’ll go to your second cleaning job. I’ll spare a bowl of what you’ve cooked for when you’ve finished, and you could bring it home and eat with your boy! Obviously I’ll put two portions on that bowl, one for yourself and one for you boy, plus a loaf of bread. That will be your payment. How is the boy called by the way?”

“Tony” Jarvis replied, by shaking the man’s hand. “He’s turning 11 this spring… Apologies for my rude manners, but I haven’t introduced myself. And I’m Ja… Zante. Elmonzo Zante. Sir…?”

“Sean Dolan, and as you can tell I’m Irish… so I’ll keep calling you Britain, either you’re offended or not! It’s not an average thing that an Irish helps a British!” he replied with a laugh. “Wait here, now, I may have some cookies for your kid!”

When Jarvis arrived home, Tony was already asleep. Mrs. Cardenas has left him a note in which she told that he was starting to talk a bit and stay awake for longer. She has shared her light dinner with the boy, and left a piece of bread with cream cheese for the father. Jarvis smiled at the kindness of this stranger who was as poor as them if not worst, since she was alone, with her daughter and son in another town. Jarvis put the bread in the fridge, and considered that tomorrow he would have had breakfast. He put Mr. Dolan’s biscuits on the table with a note “For Tony, a present from a friend”.

He changed in silence and took a cold shower (hot water was heavily taxed by the landlord, so Jarvis reserved it entirely to his boy!). He went inside the bed while he was still shivering in his underwear and sweater (he has sold his pajamas some times before!), but as soon as he was in there, he felt Tony spooning by his side.

“Welcome back, Jarvis!” he mumbled.

Jarvis kissed his head, noticing that the fever was gone almost completely.

“Sleep my boy!” he whispered softly. “Tomorrow it’ll be another day!”

___________________________________________________________________________

When Tony started to feel better, Jarvis inscribed him to the public school. He didn’t really like to do it, and Tony also was not fully persuaded, but some people has already asked why the boy wasn’t going to any school, so Jarvis feared a visit of social assistants… and he wasn’t sure those documents of foster care provided by the Starks in a hurry were really legal. Not to mention they were now under the fake surname of “Zante”. Besides, the boy would benefit of passing some time among his peers and not in that house with mold on the walls.

That it wasn’t exactly a peaceful idea, it became clear after the first couple of days when the school headmaster called him at work because Tony has been put in detention. Apparently he has called the math teacher “idiot” and refused to use her method to solve the proposed calculations. Jarvis went to school to collect a very pissed boy on the verge of hysteria. He apologized for him in front of the headmaster and the math teacher, by reminding them their recent loss and the boy’s emotional status. They wanted to know nothing of that and pretended him to teach his boy better or they have had to put him in detention and then suspension.

“They are all… dumb!” the boy insisted when he and Jarvis were alone at home. “And that teacher was acting like an idiot! It was not the best method to solve those calculations, which, by the way, were super easy! I don’t get what was all the fuss about!”

Jarvis was quite tired: he was working three jobs (or two jobs and a half) and still the money wasn’t enough; and today he had to quit early to go to the school and the boss was going to keep the full day off his paycheck, despite the fact he has worked for three of the five expected hours. He wasn’t having breakfast, he needed a long hot shower, and the mold has invaded again their toilet together with a couple of stubborn cockroaches. He wanted to shout his frustration, but when he looked at his boy’s big brown eyes he stopped on time: none of this was the boy’s fault, and he would have been only the escape valve for Jarvis’s own desperation.

He breathed a couple of times, then he knelt in front of him, put his hands over his shoulder and try to speak as slowly and calmly as possible.

“Tony, I don’t know how you feel when you talk to everyone else” he started. “I’m not a genius, and I’ve never been smarter or more brilliant than the others my age neither as a kid nor as an adult. So I only suppose it must be frustrating…”

“More than frustrating!”

“I know…” Jarvis smiled tenderly. “I know… but do you remember why do you have to go to school like everyone else?”

“Because otherwise the social assistants may take me away from you and put me in an institution…” the boy said with a knot on his throat.

Jarvis has got persuaded to address this issue with the boy, by instructing him on the things to say when eventually questioned (Mr. Dolan and Miss Chavez have helped a lot by giving instructions, and so did Mrs. Cardenas who has agreed at playing the boy’s aunt in need of help if someone has asked). Being taken away and put in an institution was a thing that scared Tony a lot, and Jarvis only suspected it may be a thing that sick monster of Stane has used in the past against him. Tony has been not only physically but also psychologically abused for years, and he would have need help also on that side… but they couldn’t ask for it, because of the money and also because of the risks they would have run into.

“I won’t ever allow anyone to take you away from me, my boy!” Jarvis promised Tony by caressing his head. “I’ve promised you that, remember?”

The boy moved closed to hug him, with his face on Jarvis’s shoulder as always.

“I’m sorry…” he murmured. “I- I shouldn’t have called the teacher an idiot… I shouldn’t have been put in detention and have the headmaster calling you… did you… did you have troubles at work?”

“No, Tony, don’t worry!” Jarvis lied. He has had issues, especially when he has pointed out how a douchebag the chief was; he has lost other two paid days for this and it wasn’t worth it. But now the most important thing was to make sure the boy was fine. “Should we go out for a walk, my boy? It’s quite early and there’s a big sun outside. Besides, it has been a long time since we spent some free time together…”

“Should we take cheeseburgers with fries for dinner?”

Jarvis considered the thing: it was Thursday so he was not on duty at the soup kitchen, so no dinner available; and there was the discount on cheeseburger on the 9^th street every second Thursday of the month, that meant tonight. He only have to check how much he has in his wallet without the boy noticing.

“It could be an idea… let’s see if we’re hungry when we got there!” he replied.

He didn’t want to anguish the kid: it was clear he had no full idea of the mess they were in, and he probably still believed their situation was going to be but temporary. In fact, Jarvis kept telling him it was a matter of time and they could go home… he was lying to his boy… to protect him, obviously! But a lie was a lie! He only hoped he would never find out.

Tony was happy to walk down the dirty streets hand-in-hand with him. He jumped one stone from the other on the pavement, and made a point to step only on the white stripes when they crossed the road. Jarvis smiled tenderly at him, while they were but watching shops, or the boy was talking about a possible way to improve the traffic lights or to create a flying car.

They were near the burger shop, and Jarvis was considering that with the discount day and the food tickets he had spared, they might manage to have a normal size cheeseburger and a baby one (he would have taken the baby), and maybe also the fries, since there was a special offer; or maybe it was better to take two normal sized burgers, with the free beverage and no fries…

He was checking the money in his pocket and making his calculations, when he realized Tony was not by his side anymore. He looked frantically around, until he saw him a couple of shops along the road, eyes fixed on the window. Jarvis sighed relieved, then he worried whether the boy was looking at a bakery, because for sure they didn’t have money for a cake, especially not a fancy one like they used to.

When he came closer, he realized that the reality was far worse: the shop window of “Second life – clothes for every occasions” displayed a tan suit he knew very well, together with his coordinated gilet, and the tartan tie. It missed only the hand-made embroidered handkerchief on the side pocket, and only because Jarvis has sold it elsewhere. He felt something solid forming inside his stomach: he remembered when his wife Ana has bought him that fabric, when Mrs. Stark complimented him in that same suit, when he looked himself in the mirror in the morning, fixed his tie and put the handkerchief in his pocket. Now when he looked at himself in the shop window he saw an old desperate man: he couldn’t recognize himself.

He didn’t realize how much he has remained there fixing his old life watching him back, until he felt Tony’s little hand in his own and his big eyes looking at him.

“That’s your suit, isn’t it?” he asked.

Jarvis nodded slowly.

“And that… that’s mine, right? The one I had on when we went away from home…” he continued, by pointing at another small one. They have been placed side by side like they were now.

Jarvis only nodded, before managing to say: “It didn’t fit you anymore, my boy…”

But his voice betrayed his lie. “They are but things, Tony” he tried again. “And I’d prefer to know you’re well-fed, than having a nice suit neither I or you would use again closed in our wardrobe!”

Tony looked at him strangely and then he added: “And you haven’t your old watch, or your shoes… and the drawer in the kitchen is empty…”

Jarvis saw realization in the kid’s eyes: it was like Tony has grown up in front of him in the span of seconds. He looked down at the road, then he slowly nodded.

“Let’s go home, Jarvis…” he said. “I mean… our shelter…”

“But… what about the cheeseburgers?”

“I’m… I’m not hungry anymore…”

Without a word, Jarvis knelt and raised him in his arms like a little kid (Tony was indeed short and small for his age), perfectly aware that he wouldn’t have managed to walk properly.

“You’re really a brave knight!” he whispered into his ears.

“U-uh…” he only mumbled, head hidden on Jarvis’s shoulder.

They had dinner with what they have left in their pantry: it was a mix that Jarvis has nicknamed “left-overs special”. Despite being an odd mix of random things, he managed to make him good tasting and to present it like it was a restaurant plate. But that time the boy’s eyes were sad, and no stories of knights were cheering him.

Jarvis knew that the magic bubble inside which he has kept him has exploded in front of that shop window.

“This…” Tony asked indeed, while he played with his food with the fork without touching anything. “This isn’t going to be temporary, is it?”

Jarvis felt like has been hit by a trunk. “I- I don’t know… honestly…”

“You’ve lied to me” the boy stated. It was not an accuse and he didn’t seem angry: he was stating a fact, like that the sky was blue. “I got why you did” he followed. “I- I wasn’t okay… I still have bad dreams and I’m afraid of many things and noises… But now I know, so… tell me, how bad is it? The truth, Jarvis!”

He looked no more like a kid and so much like his father that Jarvis felt like his “butler-modality” was switching on, when he reported the actual state of their finances, the last time he has heard from the Starks, and what he has learnt from the journals.

“To be completely honest” he concluded. “I don’t know what is going to happen… and I’m not completely sure myself on how we have ended in such misery! I’m sure your father and mother didn’t want you to end up like this! Something went dramatically wrong, and I don’t know how to contact them not to make things worse! What I do know, however, is that as long as I can breathe I will protect and take care of you, Tony! And none of this is your fault, you must understand it!”

The boy looked at him and Jarvis got he wasn’t fully persuaded even if he nodded.

“Maybe” Tony started, “maybe I could find myself a job or something… instead of wasting time at school…”

“School is important, my boy!” Jarvis replied. “And we’ve already had that discussion about social assistants, do you remember? Good!”

But he knew it was not going to be enough for Tony, so he added: “If you really want to help, maybe you should start by eating your dinner, and keeping the house in order and clean! And go to school and pretend to be an average kid… you’re only a child, after all! Take of it as an acting exercise or…”

“Pretending” Tony mumbled. “That was a thing he made me doing after he spanked me… pretending to be fine. He made me go to you at the company and told you I was all right… otherwise he said he would have hurt you...or mum…”

That was a thing Jarvis didn’t know and he remained astonished.

“Stane was a monster!” he stated, plainly. “And you must not blame yourself for what he did to you… or for what you did! We are the ones to be blamed because we didn’t realize before! Do we agree on this point?”

Tony nodded.

“Good!” Jarvis continued. “Now, I know we’re going through a difficult period, and there are many things which are far from being okay… starting from this shelter! But take it as an adventure, like the ones we read in your books of knights and dragons, do you remember?”

That took a little smile on the kid’s face. “I like when you invent those stories of the knight and the squire in the land of devastation… and the mold monster!”

“Well, I will continue to do it then!” Jarvis replied with a tender smile. “I’ll always be your loyal squire, Tony!”

He smiled back at him, pushing back a tear that felt on his cheek nevertheless. They ate their dinner in silence, and when they finished, Tony told him to remain sit while he would do the dishes. Later that night, when they went to bed, Tony spooned against his side as always.

“Thank you, Jarvis” he mumbled. “For being with me!”

And that was enough for him to go on, no matter having to swallow his pride in many occasions: everything was worth the effort if it was for his boy.

___________________________________________________________

That Tony was up to something it became clear to Jarvis more or less a month after he has found out the truth about their condition.

At first he was glad that the school was not calling him anymore, that he found the house clean and in order, and, most of all, that Tony managed to take care of himself. They agreed on trying a night work for once, but they dropped it because Tony didn’t manage to sleep alone, and he stayed awake hugged at his pillow in fear. In the morning it was a mess to have him going to school.

That the kid was doing something Jarvis realized when he found a quarter of chicken in their fridge together with a small bottle of milk and three eggs… and he was quite sure he hasn’t bought any of it!

“Where do these things come from?” he asked to Tony, wondering for a single moment that the kid hasn’t started to steal.

“The chicken from Mr. Andrews, seventh floor, room 78C; the eggs and milk from Mrs. Jackson, fourth floor, room 48B… she had two kids of 3 and 4 years old, two little pests named Carl and Jacob!” Tony said. Then he sighed and added: “Now don’t get mad at me, but I’ve started a little business… after school!”

He picked up something from under their bed: it looked like a carpenter belt with a couple of tools in it, like a screwdriver, pliers and a small hammer.

“Where… where did you get this?”

“This? I made it myself… well Mrs. Cardenas helped me with sewing it, although she can’t see well. I’ve helped everyone with their grocery bags and the laundry up and down the stairs since after you told me the truth. They gave me some small change, like a dollar or a quarter. With them I’ve bought the belt, and the strings, needle and strand. And for the tools, well… I sold my old shoes: they were a bit tight, and we have bought the red ones. The main point was that I’ve had the money to go to a shop and buy these tools on a discounted price… they’re enough for doing small jobs around! Oh, and I put the rest of the money in the drawer, so with Mr. Brogin’s extras we’re safe for this month!”

Tony kept moving around their room, and he wanted to show him their kitchen.

“I’ve tested my tools here first” he said. “The oven is still out of work because I don’t have the changes, but the fire worked fine now… then I’ve started to knock at every door here and in the nearby buildings and asked if they have something they wanted to fix, like the heater, the sink or something. I’ve asked them to pay me as much as they could, also with food and stuff if they don’t have money! So… yeah, the chicken is from Mr. Andrews since I’ve fixed his old radio and how he could listen to the baseball match on Saturday. And the eggs and milk from Mrs. Jackson since I’ve fixed her TV and also their doors who were squeaking… and I’ve taken an eye on her kids while she went out shopping. And there’s also a piece of lettuce from Miss Wreckowtzky of the 7^th floor, who asked me to empty his trash for the whole week.”

Jarvis was astonished.

“You… you didn’t have to…” he tried. “You’re just a child…”

“But I want to!” Tony replied. He took his hands with a very serious attitude, quite contrasting with his actual size: “Listen, Jarvis, we are both on the same boat…and I want to contribute! So I’ll go to school and clean the house as you told me, but if I had time in the afternoon I’ll take these small jobs… besides, I’ve always been good at fixing things!”

Jarvis recognized that attitude: this was Tony being his father’s son, a Stark who works his way out of trouble. He felt so proud for his boy he had difficulties expressing it with words. And this could actually be a good thing for the boy: if he was busy working, he would have been less prone to end up in troubles or being a passive victim of his fears!

“Only after school… and homework!” Jarvis imposed. “And don’t do anything illegal or barely legal! I don’t want you to end up in troubles and…”

“Been taken away by social assistants! Yes, Jarvis, I don’t want that either! Don’t worry! I’m a responsible little knight!”

Jarvis smiled with tenderness. “A brave knight!”

They had an agreement and then, for once, Jarvis could cook properly and served a salted chicken with garlic and beans on a bed of lettuce, by sparing the eggs for the following breakfasts. They also had a full form of bread that Jarvis has picked up at the bakery (evening discount).

“We can do it!” he thought, strangely positive.

______________________________________________________________

While the months passed by, they’ve started to go to the local church. Jarvis was officially Anglican and that was a Catholic church but he didn’t mind. They’ve started to go basically because of Mrs. Cardenas and her biblical stories of Jesus and the other saints that have highly impressed Tony. The boy was also curious of what happened at that church every Sunday, and why they all dressed like they were going to a party or something. And, albeit his skepticism, Jarvis appreciated a moment of calm after all the troubles of his different works: he relaxed by hearing the chorus singing and repeating the same words in a fixed order.

They usually sat in the back rows, mostly because Tony had difficulties in remaining sit or focusing for long and they didn’t want to disturb the others. The kid was fascinated by the architecture and also by the songs, although some things were beyond his comprehension, and he wanted to open a debate during each homely.

“It’s called faith, my boy” Jarvis tried to explain to him. He was indeed quite tired because he has done a double turn at the Pink Ladies, and he has also started to work at the soup kitchen on Saturday evening: they’ve had more free food without touching their savings, but he was in urgent need of sleep. And for sure he was not ready for a theological dispute with Tony’s acute mind. Especially while the homely was still going on!

“I don’t get what this ‘faith’ is about… I mean, this thing of the Annunciation and the angels… there aren’t facts, empirical testing or…”

“Let’s put it this way” Jarvis interrupted him, by lowering his voice to avoid another bad look from the other rows. “I’ve faith you’ll manage to be quiet until the end of the Mass!”

Tony looked strangely at him. “Mean!” he replied but he was amused.

Jarvis kept smiling until the end of the service.

When they went outside, Father Latom was greeting people. Tony was chitchatting with Mrs. Cardenas, who was introducing him to an old woman who had troubles with her oven at home and needed someone to fix it as soon as possible. They were contracting a possible date and hour, when Jarvis saw a man on the other side of the road boasting around in his new suit in front of a small and loud crowd. It wasn’t the fact in itself, or that they knew that man was a sort of small mob-gangster in their neighborhood, but the fact that that was his suit, Jarvis’s tan suit, with his gilet and tartan tie… he missed only the handkerchief with the initials “EJ” and it was completed!

Jarvis didn’t know why, but while he was staring at the guy with his suit on, he felt something breaking inside his heart. It was like being swallowed by the earth. He barely noticed that Tony was calling him, worried, quickly followed by Mrs. Cardenas and the other woman. He felt also a manly hand over his shoulder, guiding him back inside the church and having him sit. Soon he had a glass of water in his hand: after he drank, he felt a bit better.

“Jarvis? Are you ok?” Tony was asking, worried.

He tried to smile at him. “I’m fine… just a bit… I’m tired that’s all…”

“You should rest here a bit, my friend!” the priest, father Paul Latom, was telling him. “Allow me to change and then we’ll take a cappuccino together, okay? I do an excellent cream, even if my role imposes me not to boast!”

The other greeted their way out, reassured by father Latom’s words. Tony sat next to Jarvis and picked up his hand.

“It was your suit!” he told him. “I- I’ve seen him as well… I was hoping you won’t… but they are only things, as you said! A- aren’t they?”

“Yes, my boy…” Jarvis replied with another knot in his throat. “They are… only… things…”

And it was just too much and he broke up: he had enough of cleaning dirty sheets for a misery, to clean public toilets for a dumbass idiot who never paid him full, to have to accept to clean the offices at first dawn, Hammer’s offices to add insult to injury! And he had enough of not seeing the end of this, to have to count every cents, to have his boy wearing an old and patched suit at the Sunday Mass, and not to be able to provide him a better home than that stinky place with mold they were living in.

But he didn’t say anything of it in front of the boy. He limited to cry miserably, until he was alone with father Lantom, while a nun was taking care of the kid. When he was alone with the old priest, Jarvis literally let it out everything, by adding that, God had mercy!, he missed his fancy suits, his hand-made shoes, and his house with the garden, and a full functioning kitchen where he could bake the cake for his boy. Instead, he had to accept charity from a random stranger right the previous week, because he didn’t have enough money to buy a cake for his boy’s 11^th birthday!

He was at the market, and everyone was staring at him, and Jarvis could hear them mumble to move, while he tried to beg the cashier to accept his tickets for the cake as well. But it wasn’t an item that could be paid with tickets, and Jarvis had no money left that week, after he has had to pay the rent and the electricity and an extra bill for hot water their landlord has decided to double that month. He has tried not to cry in front of the strangers, while he collected his bags, leaving the cake behind. Then he heard a woman’s voice asking the price of the cake and buying it for him. Jarvis has tried to protest, by saying he couldn’t accept, but she only replied that he could help her with her bags till her car parked nearby. She has asked his boy’s name and how old he was going to be. She also added that she had a son and they were sparing every cent to send him to college in a couple of years, and they’ve been through though moments as well; in those moments they’ve got help too, so now she was like repaying destiny by helping a lonely father to buy a cake for his kid’s birthday.

He told all this to father Latom, like a stream of consciousness or a psychologist session, and the priest listened carefully to everything. Then, from the description of the woman, he revealed to Jarvis that she probably was Mrs. Rhodes, who sang in the choir. The Rhodes have lived there for a while, and now have moved nearby in a better neighborhood, but she came back every Sunday just to sing in the choir.

“Maybe she recognized you… you and your kid made quite an unusual couple around here, and it seems everybody knew the boy as “Fix it, Tony!”. He’s a bit of a pest during the homely, but maybe I’ll ask him to take a look at the electric system in the sacristy because it’s the second time in a week the bulbs broke!”

Then he gave Jarvis a paternal smile and added: “It’s normal to let it go sometimes! And don’t be ashamed to miss your comforts! But now you’re doing a great job from what I’ve heard from Mrs. Cardenas and the other ladies… They told me your boy is always fed and clean, and he’s also very polite! So, I don’t know what happened to you both, but let me tell you one thing: it’s not easy to be poor, but there’s honor and dignity in poverty!”

Jarvis feared for a moment the father was going to start an homely on Christ’s poverty, but instead the man smiled and made him promised to come to talk with him if he ever felt again on the verge of collapsing. Then he promised to look around for a better job for him, maybe one paid enough to let him go of one of the others.

“I’m quite older than you, but you don’t look like a young lad yourself!” he joked, while making the way till his small house attached to the church. Tony was there playing chess with the nun and a blind boy named Matthew. Both kids were eating biscuits: Tony looked worried at him, but Jarvis nodded that he was fine.

Father Latom and sister Maggie insisted they stayed for lunch, because they’ve made Italian lasagna. Jarvis was too polite to say a thing about their offer, but it couldn’t refrain to rise a skeptical eyebrow at the lasagna consistency.

“Yours are waaaay better!” Tony told him while he was jumping home by his side.

“Are you reading my mind now?”

“Well, it was the first thing I’ve thought when I’ve tried them… also the smell was different! For sure the tomato sauce they’ve used was not of the best quality!”

“And yet you ate two portions…”

“Well, yeah, I was hungry!” the boy blushed. “And they weren’t that bad, all things considered… that’s why I’ve paid my compliments to the cook!”

Jarvis smiled at his boy. “You’re a polite little fellow… and that’s good!” he said. “Should we go to the park? It’s such a sunny warm day… and we really need a day outside!”

“Yuppie!”

The park was a bit far from there, in another neighborhood, a fancier one, with young wealthy families with their kids. Jarvis remembered to have gone there with Tony in his pram, with Mrs. Stark or also alone:  everyone stopped to look at the sleeping baby and paying compliments to him like he was his father. Now Jarvis noticed how 11 years old Tony kept looking at parents’ playing with their kids, while they were sitting on the bench not to stain their ‘good Sunday clothes’ on the grass. Then he suddenly looked up at the sky.

“There should be a math formula for describing their forms!” Tony said, out of the blue.

They stayed there for long, with their noses up at the blue May sky, just guessing the forms of the clouds and creating histories from what they saw. It was a pleasant and relaxing Sunday.

__________________________________________________________

May left place to a really hot June.

Jarvis continued his three jobs (or two jobs and a half as he called them) and the random ones, but also thanks to what Tony brought home in the form of food or cash, managing two meals a day for both of them (three for the boy) was no more a mission impossible. Jarvis has also befriended another dude at the docks: he worked there once a week at first lights to unload the trucks, and he received some fresh fish in exchange. Tony’s diet was then more than balanced; also, the school has never called him again and now the year was almost over. Jarvis has already received the boy’s report, which was plainly average.

“He’s smart but he lacks commitment and has difficulties at focusing. A bit weak in geography. Good math and tech skills” the teachers have written. Jarvis thought that “good math and tech skills” was a bit reductive for a kid who has built up a circuit at 6 years old. But he didn’t mind too much and neither did the boy.

They only had a bad episode because Tony got involved into a fight with one older schoolmate from a private institute nearby. The boy refused to explain what he was doing in that neighborhood, how he got there, or why he has attacked first a guy twice his size (to be generous). Jarvis suspected that he was aiming at the public library, where sometimes he has been spotted by America Chavez (who now worked there as a private guard and kept unofficially an eye on him), and that he has reached the place on foot, since they didn’t have the money for the bus. And about the fight, he had the huge suspect it was somehow related to the recent evolution of the Stark Industries affair.

It was on every journal that Maria Stark has been sentenced twenty years of prison for second degree murder and terrorism, while Mr. Stark was still detained in isolation as he was under trial for terroristic activities and mob affiliation. All their wealth have been confiscated. What hurt the most was that previous friends, like Hank Pym, were talking bad of Howard and his work, his way of managing the company which has caused the disaster, not to mention the fact that his son was troubled but everybody refused to admit it. From the journalist picture, Obadiah Stane was painted like a martyr of a Lord and Lady Macbeth, while Tony was sometimes forgotten or pictured only as another victim of his parents. The only voice out of the choir was the New York Bulletin, where a Ben Urich has looked behind the surface, traced a more realistic portrait of Stane and insinuated the doubt of his illegal activities, since he was the one coming and going from the US to the Middle East. Jarvis wanted to send Mr. Urich a word to thank him and also give him details, but then he reminded they didn’t have to attract attention.

He tried to remind it to Tony that evening when he was medicating his broken lip and giving him two points on his right eyebrow (Mrs. Cardenas has borrowed them everything by also scolding the boy). But Tony was stubborn like his father and refused to admit to have been wrong (he has also replied to Mrs. Cardenas something in a perfect Caribbean Spanish that has astonished Jarvis).

Then, Tony asked him if it would have been possible to see his mother again. And once more Jarvis felt terribly sorry to disappoint him, but he knew it was impossible: from what he has read, Mrs. Stark has been moved into a special federal prison in Texas, and they didn’t have the money to manage such a journey. And calling the prison was out of question since they could have exposed their shelter.

“Maybe they have stopped looking for us, by thinking we have escaped abroad” he reasoned aloud.

Tony has only nodded before asking him to medicate (or better “to fix”) his hands as well.

“Apparently you’ve managed to punch them as well!” Jarvis said, surprised.

“Yeah… I’m short and cute, but I can defend myself!” the other has smirked. “You have to, if you want to survive public school…”

Actually Tony still looked like a child: even if he was now 11^th years old, he didn’t seem to have grown up much, and Jarvis was starting to worry a bit. An hormonal distress could have been easily cured but medicines costed and then they were going to need the visit of a specialists. He decided to wait two more years, to see if he was just another late bloomer, like father Latom has suggested.

Apart from that bad news and rough encounter, Tony was apparently fine: he has stopped his medicines for anxiety and took some drops only to sleep once or twice a week, basically when Jarvis worked at night at the docks, or when bad memories started to knock at his mind. Jarvis has learnt that when he started the litany of “naughty boy” or “broken toy” he needed to be stopped immediately, to be hugged to anchor him to the present time and also to be reminded that the monster was gone. There were other triggers Jarvis was not fully aware yet, but he could bet on the smell of cigar, which was quite rare around there since Mr. Stane’s tastes were quite expensive, but also whisky and other things.

On the 20^th June Jarvis has arrived home quite tired, but at least he had got a full bowl of chicken and veggies from the soup kitchen after his turn. He wasn’t expecting Tony to be waiting for him, jumping with excitement. And, for sure, he wasn’t expecting the cake on their kitchen table: from what he could tell it was a simple, small sponge cake covered with powdered sugar, and with a proud flower on the side. But it looked like the most beautiful cake he has ever seen.

“The flower is not to be eaten, but it’s an homage from Mrs. Cardenas” Tony quickly explained, by helping him with his bags and almost pushing him towards the chair. “We baked the cake together, by asking Mrs. Jackson for the mold and the oven… it’s not like your decorated cakes, but I hope it tastes good! I’ve promised Mrs. Cardenas to help with her relocation this weekend: she’ll go staying by her daughter since she’s becoming blind. I’m going to miss her… and I still have to look after Mrs. Jackson’s kids to thank her for the mold and the use of the oven… but this is worth the effort!”

Jarvis was simply astonished. “Why… why did you…?” he tried to ask, speechless for once.

“Don’t you know?” Tony asked with a smile. “It’s father’s day! They reminded us at school before it was over, and I’ve signed it on Mrs. Cardenas’s calendar… so yeah, happy father’s day, Jarvis!”

He felt his eyes filling with tears but for once they were for joy. Tony was hugging him and whispering in his ear: “You’ve always been a father to me!”

And Jarvis’s heart melt.

They jointly decided to spare the food for the next day, and have dinner with the cake and a cup of tea. They were cleaning the table, when Jarvis noticed that Tony was still too excited. Something was clearly going on… To confirm his suspects, the boy ordered him to sit on the bed and to wait. Then, he disappeared under the bed, and emerged a moment later with a wrapped up thing Jarvis couldn’t guess what it was.

“It’s a present… for you!” Tony revealed, looking nervously while he unwrapped the small package.

Inside it, Jarvis found an handkerchief with two embroidered letters “EJ”, and also another small packages containing a wedding ring… no, his wedding ring! The one with the names Edwin & Ana and the date of their marriage, back in time, when the war was quite far from ending. He fixed those objects for a long moment, incapable to make up his mind: the last time he has seen them, Tony was lying on that same bed, coughing hard for an almost pneumonia, with high fever and delirium, and Jarvis has sold everything he had left to buy him medicine. He remembered to have kissed his wedding ring for the last time, caressed the letters of the handkerchief his wife has embroidered, before wishing them goodbye. And now he had them back in his hands, while Tony was standing in front of him, looking anxiously at him to guess his reaction.

“How… how have you managed?” he asked, with a grasp voice.

“I’ve worked for the owner of the pawn store for two weeks, Mr. Cohen or something, every afternoon after school and before you went home” Tony confessed. “I’ve told him I wanted your handkerchief back, and he showed me also the ring… I- I didn’t know you’ve sold it as well, but he told me that he remembered when you did. After some times, he would have removed the writing and put it on sale because it was a good piece. I still have to work another month or more to repay it, but he allowed me to gift it to you now because it’s father’s day… he’s a good person, behind the surface!”

Jarvis didn’t know what to say, while tears started to drop slowly from his eyes.

It was like going through his memories, from the first time he has met Ana, when he has helped her escape from Europe to the US (he has been discharged with dishonor for this), and when they got married, the happy and bad times, like when they found out they couldn’t have children, or when Ana got sick and then died between his arms. And then the other memories, the memories of his second life when Tony was born, when Howard has put the screaming little fellow in his arms and the boy has calmed down and opened his big brown eyes on him, and Jarvis has called him “my boy” for the first time. And then when he baked the cake with Maria playing the piano and Tony sat near the sink just to watch Jarvis at work or he played on the carpet with Howard, when he taught his boy to fish and then he fished him from the same lake… every moments, but especially the good ones, up till that last sparkling moment when he looked up at his son, proud to see the amazing boy he has become.

“I know they are only things…” Tony murmured to him. “But sometimes there are things that help us remember who we are!”

And Jarvis hugged him, he kissed his head and whispered from his heart: “Thank you, my boy!”

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