THE TWENTY-FIFTH – TWENTY-EIGHTH
The next few days go by in fits and starts as I try and recover from my ordeal. I ache to hold Bean, uh Millie, but my shoulder is still too weak to support any weight so Taylor has taken to letting me hold her for short periods of time in my right arm, laying her so she lies with her head on my shoulder, her tiny little hand nestled in mine.
My room becomes a revolving door for visitors. The first people were my parents who arrived soon after Taylor called them to let them know I was awake. The panic on my mother’s face when they pulled her out of the ballroom is still burned into my memory. But as she walks in she is all smiles which lifts the weight I didn’t even know I was carrying.
After that comes Genevieve and Stix. And then Bea and Andreas and Michelle and Marc and so on and so on until Taylor tells them to all come back again tomorrow so that I can rest. Which they do.
Taylor, however, is my constant. There is a small bedroom attached to my room for Taylor to sleep in but he refuses to leave my side, insisting that he can sleep just fine in the armchair. Millie is thriving and in the times I’m not sleeping Taylor makes sure that I have as much time with her as possible. I might not be able to physically hold her but he does things like bringing the portable bath right next to me so that I can trail my fingers in the water and clasp her little hand, and hold her up so that I can feed her a bottle.
By Wednesday, though, the thing that I want more than anything at all is a shower. Sponge baths and dry shampoo are only getting me so far and in the end, I beg the nurse to let me use the shower. With Taylor’s help and my stitched-up wounds covered and sealed, I step under the warm spray.
My body is still weak despite the rest and medication I’ve been receiving so Taylor joins me in the shower insisting that I sit on the plastic flip-down seat while he shampoos and conditions my hair and gently washes every inch of my body until I’m squeaky clean. Once I’m done I beg Taylor for a few more minutes under the heavenly spray so he climbs out and towels himself off before waiting patiently for me to be ready.
I eek out the water until it begins to cool and then allow Taylor to help dry my body. I have never felt so completely helpless in all my life and it pains me that I have to rely on Taylor to even help me to the toilet but the doctors promise me that day by day my strength will return. Though if someone tells me to rest one more time, I might have to somehow find the strength to hit them.
When I am finally clad in fresh pyjamas and back in bed having had Taylor blow dry my hair—thank heavens there is no mirror in my room for me to see what he has done—I finally summon up the courage to ask the question I’ve been avoiding ever since I woke up.
“Um, Tay,” I say quietly causing him to look at me like a deer in headlights. I guess he senses this can’t be good. “What happened to Richard?” Taylor baulks at my question but I continue on regardless. “Just before I passed out I remember him lying on the ground with blood coming out of his mouth and his eyes open.” I close my eyes as the memory overwhelms me. “Is he dead?” I whisper, closing my eyes to try and shut out the memory.
Taylor doesn’t answer me for a moment and when I open my eyes, I see that his face is pale and his hands are gripping the rests of the armchair tightly. I watch as he swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat before he begins to talk.
“It all seemed to happen so fast,” Taylor says so quietly I have to strain my ears to hear him. I glance over at Millie, who is still fast asleep, before returning my full attention to Taylor. “One moment you were clutching my arm and the next you were shoving me over. I never even noticed him pull the trigger. It was just this loud bang and then you kind of rocked on your feet. I always thought that if you got shot you would go flying backwards, like in the movies.”
Taylor hesitates for a moment so I interrupt, “That’s so strange because I remember it feeling like I had flown backwards.
“My eyes were on you so I barely registered the second shot. They told me afterwards that it was one of the marksmen that Detective Stanton called in. Henry was ready to do it but because the police were there, they held off.” Taylor takes a deep breath before continuing with his story.
“One moment you were standing and then in a blink of an eye, you were on the floor. I remember screaming your name and there was this thud as Richard fell beside you. I was so ready to jump on him and kick his head in but something inside of me was telling me, oh I don’t know if it’s some kind of crazy twin thing or not, but I just knew he was gone.”
“How did he know what you would be wearing?” I ask the question that has continually frustrated me.
“Detective Stanton and her team somehow managed to trace his steps via CCTV cameras and discovered that he had a flat no one knew about here in London this whole time. He had another identity that no one knew about, including a passport, which is how he was moving around. Turns out the whole migrant thing was just another ruse; he actually arrived in London on the Eurostar under his false name. At the flat, they found copies of my entire wardrobe which I guess he’d been using when he tried to pretend to be me at the office. The suit I chose that night was one I had had for a good few years so that’s why he had the same one.
“Richard showed up on some of the hotel’s footage dressed as a waiter so we can only assume that he waited until he saw what I was wearing and then changed.”
“But why on earth would he bother changing if he was planning on shooting you?” I ask, my thoughts in a whirl as I try to make sense of it all.
“I have no idea, Abs,” Taylor says with a sigh. “I’ve been speaking to David about it and his thoughts on Richard were that he was a narcissist. That it was all about putting on a display to show how important he was, that he was the one with the power and control. The more I’ve read about it, the more his behaviour, since I was little, seems to make sense. Apparently, people with the kind of narcissistic personality disorder Richard seemed to have had are generally characterised by exaggerated feelings of self-importance. The reading I’ve done seems to suggest that people like Richard appear to have a sense of entitlement and have a strong need for admiration, but lack feelings of empathy for others.” Listening to Taylor, it sounds like he’s parroting a textbook which he probably is if he’s been doing all this research.
Wow, that pretty much seems to sum up Richard in a nutshell. “I guess we now know what was wrong with him but I’m so pissed off he ruined your party!” I exclaim as my anger suddenly rises to the surface.
“Yeah, me too, Abs,” Taylor sighs. “It was a pretty awesome party.”
“It was,” I say. “You never got to try your cakes. I never even got to dance and the band we got in was so good as well.”
“Another time, Abs,” Taylor promises. “But first we need to get you back on your feet before you get to put on your dancing shoes.”
“My dress,” I suddenly moan, covering my face.
“Ruined, I’m afraid. They cut it off you,” Taylor responds. I know it’s stupid and only a dress but it truly made me feel beautiful and knowing that that fucker was the cause of its ruination makes my blood boil.
“But he really is dead?” I ask, just for clarification.
“As a doornail,” Taylor says seriously. “His funeral is tomorrow.”
“Jeez, that’s fast,” I comment not sure what else to say.
“Yeah, we thought it best to get it over and done with quickly so we can all start putting this behind us. When they told Mother, she completely lost it again. They’ve had her sedated for the last couple of days so it will just be Grandmother, Stix and myself there. It’s just going to be a simple service at the crematorium where we had my dad’s funeral. Seems kind of fitting.” Taylor lets out a hollow laugh and I can tell he is affected by all of this, no matter how much he tries to play it down.
“And me,” I say firmly.
“No way, Abs,” Taylor disagrees.
“Yes way,” I say firmly. “No offence Taylor, but your brother has done his best to destroy us these last nine months. And has been like chasing fucking shadows. I want…no, I need to know for my own peace of mind that he is actually gone. And I’ll only really believe it if I watch him burn with my own two eyes.”
“Abs, you are in no shape to go. Please, you need to rest!” Taylor insists.
“If one more person tells me I need to rest…” I growl not finishing my sentence. “Please, Taylor, I need this, I really do.”
Taylor lapses into silence and I can tell he is thinking about it, mulling over my mental health versus my physical one. “Fine, but it’s up to the doctors. If they say you are not up to going, then I’m not arguing with them.”
“Alright,” I agree.