why are you here?
that's enough! all of you!
i came as quickly as i could.  i'm sorry i took so long, the streets are filled with people.
you are going to be alright, my dearest darling.  i will not let anything happen to you.
it's awful wet out. can i offer you a ride somewhere?
my name is thomas, thomas button.
benjamin.  yes, benjamin.  it's a pleasure to know you.
would you like to stop and have a drink, benjamin?
a sazerac for both of us. with whiskey instead of brandy.
you don't drink do you?
how is that?
it's an.  experience.
that isn't a bad thing.
true enough. i don't mean to be rude.  but your hands seem awful bent.  it must be quite painful?
what kind of a disease?
i'm sorry.
i'm sorry about your disease.
your mother?
 my wife passed away many years ago.
she died in childbirth.
to children.
buttons. "button's buttons." there isn't a button we don't make. our biggest competition is b.f. goodrich and his infernal zippers.
one more benjamin?
what kind of work do you do?
i enjoyed talking to you.
benjamin.
would you mind, if time to time, i stopped by to say hello?
goodnight, benjamin.
hello, benjamin.  do you remember me?
my foot was infected.  i'm afraid they had to remove it.  welcome home, my friend.
i'm a man of habit.
not for a long time.
the war has been kind to the button industry.  we had gone from making forty thousand buttons a day to making two hundred and fifty thousand.  we employed ten times the number of workers.  we were operating around the clock.
i don't know how much longer i have to live.
i don't have any people. i keep to myself. i -- i'm frightened. i hope you won't mind.  but whenever it's possible.  i would enjoy your company.
tell me benjamin, do you know anything about buttons?
 comes from the french, "bouton," meaning a bud, or any round object.
they were originally decorative, jewelry sewn on clothing.
the practice of buttoning originated in the 13th century.  when baggy clothing was replaced with more form-fitting clothes.
button's buttons has been in our family for one hundred and twenty- four years. my grandfather was a tailor. he had a small shop in richmond. after the civil war he came to new orleans.
my father saw the wisdom of making our own buttons. the tailor shop grew to this.  and today.  i can't sew a stitch.
i said, our family has been in the business for a hundred and twenty- four years.
you are my family. benjamin, you are my son.
i am so sorry not to have told you before.
you were born the night the great war ended.  your mother died giving birth to you.  i thought.  i thought you were a monster.  i left you on the back steps of a house.  i promised your mother i'd make sure you were safe.  i should never have abandoned you.
a great uncle, from germany. all of the men in the family at the lake house.  1915, three years before you were born.
your grandfather at the summer house on lake pontchartrain. when i was a boy i would love to wake up before anybody else and run down to the lake to watch the day begin. it was as if i was the only one alive.
i fell in love with her the first time i saw her. your mother's name was caroline murphy. she was 20. she worked in your grandfather's kitchen. she was from dublin.  her father, your maternal grandfather, was a chimney sweep.  he died in the flu epidemic of 1900.  caroline came with her mother, two sisters, and four brothers in 1903 to live in new orleans.
i would find reasons to go to the kitchen.  just to look at her.
the happiest day of my life was april 25th, 1918 the day i married your mother.
i made a mistake.
come and take your rightful place.  with your family.  with me.
we can catch up for all the lost time.
i'm planning on leaving everything i have to you.
where are you going?
thank you, benjamin.