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This One Might be Different: Different-Chapter 12
John and Jayden, on their ascending arc toward their life and work destinations, were each now close to achieving long sought ambitions. Being together, being able to pay their bills, having some power and influence, having security, possessing health and laughter at times... and now family.
Jayden's brother, Malik, the one who struggled, had every chance of losing some of the substance abuse problem he had struggled with.
Malik knew that he would be unable to use again, not even once, or his brain would resume the active portion of addiction. Malik knew it cold.
He'd spent a good deal of time in prison working out his path in AA, his mentor a lifesaver. Malik's one wish now was to mentor another one day and had found a new group in Manhattan where he continued the struggle.
André was slated to become a co-beneficiary as Joseph had applied to the state of Pennsylvania for the Trust change.
When security called Joseph one morning, he had listened to their report and told his secretary to hold all appointments including the Mayor for he had a personal emergency with which to deal. Joseph's secretary correctly assumed that meant to hold all calls as well.
Joseph was very accustomed to getting his own way on multiple levels. For the first time in a long while he considered how it might feel to be at the very bottom of a stack, to feel powerless. He wondered if his present frame of mind was some kind of universal part of the 'powerlessness' that the very poor come to recognize as their 'normal'.
He had been clothed, housed, jetted, fed, cossetted all his life. He had never had to act 'spoiled' however since no one threatened to take anything from him. He didn't know 'want' as anything different from 'desire'. He now knew a little of the word as it related to 'loss' and 'need'. He knew a part of that now.
What he wanted very much was that the security report to be untrue. He wanted to go back to yesterday. He had just learned that André's recent days of unrelenting severe fatigue, which he had complained about for a couple of weeks to John and Jayden, had resulted in a visit to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
The attending internist had examined André and ordered lab tests. The results were abnormal: the internist had diagnosed acute myelogenous leukemia.
The prognosis for AML at the time was pretty dismal; the newer drugs that cure the disease in many cases were not yet available. During the next few days, André's typical fortitude, grace, and good humor did not desert him.
He had spoken to John and Jayden, informed them of the problem, thanked them for being themselves, refused the co-beneficiary position, left a note for Joseph and had flown first-class back to Paris. He would be buried, he said, in his beloved France, his familiar and dear country.
He had been duly informed of all available treatments and their side effects, he said, and chose as a free son of France to have none of them.
He told John and Jayden that he wanted to die as he had lived... in the moment, in a Benedictine hospice near Lyon.
The grief and shock nearly derailed events for John and Jayden. Joseph delayed the onset of their new duties for six months.
They began their co-beneficiary status, prepared in most ways for the work, knowing that they could consult Joseph any time. He became their institutional memory from his decades of successful work at the Schuyler Trust.
John and Jayden kept their digs in the Place des Vosges. There were cafes close where they could sit for a while and have a digestif, places to sit nearby in sunshine, a wonderful antique musical instrument store just off the Place toward the Seine and art galleries around under the covered outer walks. They grieved for André in that iconic spot. They hoped André would have approved.
They worked primarily there for a year, then moved to New York to fully take up the reigns as the richest men on the planet. They used the time to become even more familiar with and at, the Louvre. They became familiar figures around the curator's offices and at administration as well.
They did not find, or try to find, a replacement for André. They were, however, young and their life wasn't over. As André had once told them, "life has its ups and downs...all else equal, I like the ups better."
It might have made a suitable epitaph for such a remarkable man.