"...You're going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' to your friends in rehab and wondering what might have been!"

She couldn't drive to her regular gin joint and drink the night away now. Not with his last words haunting her. That would just prove him right.

She sat behind the wheel of her BMW. The engine had been running for a few minutes now but she hadn't yet pulled out of the parking spot outside the Sheffield mansion.

She stared at the road as she realized she was closing a huge chapter in her life. She had worked for and with Maxwell for 20 years, give or take a few. She had never considered leaving before. She had quit once but that was just a shock tactic to get Maxwell to make her a partner. There wasn't anyone else she could or would work with. He was easy to manipulate and that was one of the reasons she liked working with Maxwell Sheffield. One of the reasons, she thought.

What would she do now? Where would she go? She wasn't ready to make her move.

She turned the key to kill the engine. She leaned her head back on the headrest and thought about her options.

People knew her in the theatre industry. She could cut a few deals, worm her way into a partnership with someone acclaimed…

I don't have the spirit to start all over again. She sighed. What has happened to me? I've lost my will to fight...

Niles, she thought. He took it all away. I was fine before he pointed it all out. I was happy! I was blissfully hap-... I was ignorant. Blissfully ignorant.

At least she wouldn't have to see him again now that she was resigning. And he's quitting, she reminded herself. She really would never see him again.

She played with the keys in her hand as she thought about it. She was leaving because she had always stayed too long at the fair and now that Maxwell was married and starting a family, she had no reason besides business to stay there. Why was Niles leaving? He's being over-dramatic.

"At least I know when it's time to move on!"

"From scrubbing toilets?" She scoffed to herself as she recalled his words. "That ship should have sailed loooong ago!" She chuckled bitterly, wishing she had said that to his face at the time.

What is he planning on moving on to? Another butler job? Another rich master with a secretary who would become a business partner he'd propose to? She smiled at the absurdity of the thought.

Why did he feel the need to propose anyway? She wondered if he was so scared of being alone that he would grab desperately at the only available woman he interacted with everyday.

She laughed suddenly as she remembered his self-affirmation tapes she'd teased him about a few years before. "You can get women!" She chuckled the line aloud in the car. Her laugh died quickly though when she realized she was talking to herself. She'd miss their games. It wouldn't be any fun remembering all his embarrassing moments now that she couldn't bring them up to taunt him anymore.

In her new life, new people wouldn't understand her jokes about him if she were to try to explain them. New people wouldn't understand the delicate relationship they had had. New people wouldn't understand why she found it all so funny. New people wouldn't understand her.

Nobody would understand her and be able to handle her. Not in the way that he could.

She looked out of her window to the back door of the mansion. She bit her lip, wondering if she should tell him. She wondered if she should thank him for putting up with her shit through the years. He should thank me for putting up with his! She thought as her frustration returned.

He'd taken so much of her life. Even when he wasn't around, when she was out trying to make a good impression with some or other important person of her class, he'd still take up her focus.

His degrading remarks would sound through her subconscious and repetitively bruise her ego and confidence. If she hadn't been careful or known he liked to joke, she would have started behaving as if she deserved the things he told her she did.

"Look around you! They're married! They're starting a family! Where are you going to be ten, twenty years from now?"

She grunted at the memory of that comment.

I have no idea. It won't be rehab, that's for sure. I won't let it be rehab.

But Niles was usually right. It scared her.

Why did he have to bring up Max and Nanny Fine's marriage and family? Was he trying to highlight how pathetic her life was in comparison to theirs? Was he trying to show her what she had missed out on? Or was he offering it to her? Was he telling her she still had the chance to make memories she could be happy about ten or twenty years from now?

Great, so he's not only thinking about marriage but a family too? She huffed in frustration. Why had he been the one to think about it first? Why didn't I see it coming?

She rubbed her forehead. "Stop thinking up all of these insane notions! You're making this so much bigger than it has to be!"

She looked over to the passenger seat where she had tossed her purse earlier. The tape recorder had slipped out onto the seat.

She reached for it and pressed the rewind button. Wish I could do that in life! She pursed her lips and pressed play.

She recognized her voice first. "I'll have the chicken picatta."

"Will you marry me?"

She hit stop.

It didn't sound as funny as it did a few hours before. It had been funnier before he pointed out the direction in which her life was headed.

She rewinded and pressed play again.

"Will you marry me?"

She stopped the tape and put the recorder back into her purse. She sucked her teeth and looked back at mansion, wondering if he was still awake. He might be packing if he was serious about leaving first thing in the morning.

Now would be the only time she could ask him all of the questions that were plaguing her. Now would be the last chance for her to yell at him and fight with him and tell him how stupid he was being and how he was throwing a wrench into a machine that had been running smoothly for a decade or two.

She got out of her car, shut the door and locked it. She turned to face the house and took a deep breath before walking through the back door and into the kitchen.