by Diana Nixon
I rose from my bed, put on a robe over my shirt, and went out into the hall.
“Is it time to go to the press-conference?” I asked, instead of greeting them.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” Kate said, smiling slightly. “You slept like a baby.”
“After crying myself to sleep, it is not surprising at all. What time is it?”
“We still have about two hours before the conference is scheduled to begin,” Christopher replied. “I’ll take you and Kate to Will’s office. He said the reporters are already there, waiting impatiently for our announcement.”
“Do they know it’s about my father?”
“Yes. They have been informed.”
I felt my palms sweating. “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be ready to go.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Christopher said. He turned to leave, but then he stopped and took a small envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Oh, I almost forgot. . . This is for you,” he said, handing it to me.
To Louise, the writing on the front said. It was from Will. My hands shook holding it.
“Thanks,” I said, before I went back into my room, closing the door behind me.
Swallowing, I tore the envelope open, and took out a small note that said:
“They say true love can withstand all the trials it faces. . . I guess they forgot to mention that true love can also be the cause of the problems people need to overcome. . . I never meant to make you suffer, Louise. I am so sorry. . .
P.S. Don’t be nervous or afraid. We will do this thing together; you are not alone. And as long as I am alive and breathing, even if you don’t want me, you will still never be alone again. I will always be here waiting. . .
All My Love,
W.”
My heart sank at the words. Will knew I was terrified of doing the press-conference. He also knew I was angry at him. But he still found a way to encourage me, he knew I needed his support, regardless of my lack of desire to see him.
But today was the day that I had been waiting for. After everything that had happened in the last few days, it felt like it took an eternity to arrive. It was the day of my revenge, the day when every small thing that I had ever cried about was going to be repaid, the day when my not so precious father was going to find out just what happens when you break the law, earn money illegally, and murder people. . . He was going to find that his fall was going to hurt, and it was going to hit him where it counted the most. . .and I wasn’t talking about his manhood, I was talking about the public figure he had worked so hard to create for himself. He wasn’t the gem the world thought he was, and they were about to learn the truth that he worked so hard to hide.
My eyes ran across the words in the note one last time, then I put it back into the envelope, set it on my nightstand, and went to a shower.
***
We were in Will’s office, and there was already a horde of reporters waiting outside of the conference room. We could hear them talking amongst each other trying to guess what we were going to tell them. Our small group consisted of: Will, Christopher, Kate, Drew and myself. I looked around the room, and felt fortunate that I had every single one of them with me to do this. Will was right, I wasn’t alone.
Will and I didn’t say a word to each other. When I entered his office, he gave me a brief nod and handed me a folder with the documents that I needed for my speech. Then Christopher accompanied Kate and me to the conference room. After that, I didn’t get another chance to talk to Will, which was both a torture and a relief. I didn’t know what to say. . .
The conference room had a large table in the front of the room with several microphones in front of each chair. The middle to the back of the room was set up with rows of chairs for all of the reporters to sit in. We all stood near the table at the front of the room, ready to take our seats when the time came.
“It’s time,” Drew said, looking down at his watch, and breaking me from my thoughts. “Are you ready?” He asked Will, who was standing behind me. I could swear I could feel his stare on my back, but I didn’t dare to turn around and look at him.
“Yes. Go ahead and let them in,” Will said.
My heart started to beat faster. This is it, I thought to myself, there’s no way back, Louise. You have to do this. . . Do it for your mom, for Will, and for yourself.
“Open the doors,” Drew said to the security guards.
“No, wait!” Will said and came closer to me. He turned me around and looked into my eyes saying, “If you don’t feel like doing this, we don’t have to. We can tell them our information came from a bad source trying to throw his campaign, and they will go home.”
“No. We have to tell them. They deserve to know the truth. . . No matter how terrible it is.” I almost wanted to tell him, ‘yes, let’s forget this and go home. Tell them we were wrong.’ Then I thought about my mom, laying in the hospital, barely breathing, and lucky to be alive. . .for now. And I remembered Will’s dad, and his boating accident, and Isabel: the young girl who did nothing but go with the wrong man. And I had my resolve.
We were standing so close to each other now. Will’s hands were on my shoulders, and for a moment, I felt like leaning into him, only for a moment, to feel the support that I desperately needed.
But Will had a better idea. . . He bent down, and placed a small kiss on my lips, both firm and tender enough to say everything that I needed to hear.
“Now?” He asked, with his hands on my shoulders.
His kiss left me speechless and breathless, so I just nodded in response.
“Okay, now you can open the doors,” he said, stepping away from me. His eyes stayed locked with mine, until I heard steps behind me and turned around to greet the reporters.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Please come in and take your seats,” Drew said into the microphone in front of his chair. I sat down in the chair next to him, and William sat down in the chair to my right.
Cameras started to flash, taking shots, one by one, lights flickering throughout the room.
Let the conference begin, I said mentally to myself.
Drew spoke again, “As you all know, you were invited here today to be informed of the crimes that have been revealed during an investigation on Senator Montgomery. . .”
The reporters exchanged a troubled look. Apparently, the word ‘crimes’ did what we hoped it would do. They knew the press-conference was supposed to be about my father, but obviously none of them expected us to accuse him of committing crimes.
Drew asked Will’s secretary to turn on the screen behind us. We had created a slideshow with the evidence we managed to find against my father.
One by one, the reporters started asking questions. I could barely hear any of them. All my thoughts were focused on a piece of paper I had found in the folder Will had given to me earlier that day. I hadn’t seen this specific piece of paper until right this very second, and what I saw on it was more than enough to turn this press-conference into a massive explosion.
“So it’s true, the sharpshooter was hired by Montgomery,” I whispered to Will, covering my microphone so the reporters wouldn't hear me.
Will nodded in response. “Drew recognized him as one of your father’s former guards. He’s a military man, and he sure knows how to use a gun.”
“I was right after all… The bastard wanted to kill mom.”
Will didn’t say anything to that.
“Louise, are you ready?” Drew asked.
Oh, I was more than ready. I was so pissed, I wanted to kill my dear daddy with my bare hands. But he didn’t deserve such generosity from me. A life sentence would be so much better than a quick death.
I moved the speaker a little closer and spoke, “Eighteen years ago I was sent to the orphanage, called Paradise. . .”
Will’s news about his father’s death was supposed to be the last news we gave them. His father was a well-known person. So, naturally Montgomery’s involvement in the story about the acc
ident was going to be a front page story.
When I got to the part about Isabel’s murder, Kate became nervous. She knew the poor girl and she still couldn’t believe she had become a victim of my father’s jealousy.
That was just the beginning of the long list of everything that Montgomery had done wrong, but neither of us was going to stop the press-conference. We had a deal with one of the TV channels that was showing it online, so millions of people all over the country could see how far from perfection one of their favorite candidates for president had been.
I didn’t regret a single second of our interview. I never even felt sorry for the man who had ruined my life, and the lives of so many other people. I didn’t know his wife or his daughters, but something was telling me they were not much different.
And I was right. After the press-conference was over, we saw an online video with my father’s lawyer denying everything we said to the reporters. He said it was a lie and that Senator Montgomery didn’t have anything to do with the crimes we were accusing him of. It was a little too late to say that he was innocent. The judge that was at the press-conference had already opened a case against him and he had to stand his own trial. I didn’t know what the outcome of the whole thing was going to be, but one thing I knew for sure – my father got just exactly what he deserved – an ugly life with no one and nothing to hold on to. . . The same life he had created for me when he made my mother think I was dead at birth. . .
Chapter 23
After the reporters left, I got a call from the hospital. My mom’s doctor said she was awake and I could come and see her. It was the best news I could have ever hoped for after the hellish morning I had had.
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?” Kate asked, after hearing the big news.
“No, thanks, I’ll get a taxi.”
“You shouldn’t go there alone,” Drew said.
I smirked. “I don’t think my father will risk killing me right after he has been arrested as the prime suspect in two other murders.”
“She’s right,” Will said, surprising me with his words. “You are free to go, Louise. No one will follow you anymore.” There was so much sadness in his voice and in his eyes. And I probably should have said to hell with my anger and just asked him to go with me, but for the first time ever I felt like he didn’t want to be with me now. . .
“I’ll call you when I see her,” I said to Kate and Drew. I gave Will one last look and left the room, both excited and even more nervous to see my mom than I had been before the interview.
The hall of the hospital never seemed so long. Mom’s ward was at the end of it and I counted every step I took, bringing me closer to her.
Only when I opened the door, I saw a picture that terrified me. Mom was lying on a bed, with several different machines around her, showing her vitals, pumping her full of medications, and there was a respirator, although she wasn’t wearing the mask, which I took as a good sign.
“I thought you said she was awake,” I said to the doctor who followed me into the room.
“She’s fallen asleep, but she should be awake any second.”
“She looks so pale…” I walked closer to the bed and looked down at Sabine’s motionless body. It was still a little surreal to call her my mom, even though nothing had ever felt more natural.
“Her blood pressure is normal now, and she can breathe without the help of the oxygen mask,” the doctor said.
“Can I stay with her?”
“Yes, now that she’s not in the intensive care unit anymore, she can have visitors. The nurse will come by later to help you feed her. Until then, she’s all yours.” The doctor smiled and headed for the door.
As soon as he was gone, I grabbed a chair and pushed it closer to the bed. I sat on it and took Sabine’s hand in mine.
“Hi, mom,” I said, feeling tears blinding my vision. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long. . . You can’t even imagine.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. Her skin was so cold. For a moment, I panicked. But then, I looked at the screen, monitoring her pulse, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Stop being paranoid, Louise!
“Actually, I can,” Sabine said in a whisper.
I looked up at her and she smiled slightly at my shocked expression.
“I can easily imagine everything that you are feeling, my sweet, sweet girl. . .” Her voice was quiet and weak, but the fact that she could speak thrilled me to my core.
More tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry Louise,” she said. “We should be happy now. . . We shouldn’t cry anymore. We have cried enough tears for the last eighteen years.”
I laughed through my tears. “You are right, mom. But I’m crying because I’m happy, so happy. . . I don’t think I have ever been happier than I am now.”
She smiled again. It looked more like a ghost of a smile, but it still felt so good, knowing that she was awake, and talking to me.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Despite everything, I feel endlessly happy.” Her eyes traveled up and down my face, as if she were trying to memorize my features. “You are so beautiful,” she said.
I remembered my first meeting with my father. I knew I looked a lot like him, and I wondered if she could see it too.
“It feels so unreal. . .” She said. “As if I am still dreaming. . .”
“You are not dreaming, mom. I am real, you are real. Finally, our reality is better than any dream.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more, my girl. My girl… Will I ever get used to calling you that?”
I smiled. “You will. From now on, we will be together again.”
“I never stopped loving you,” she said. “I thought you were a boy, but that doesn’t matter. I always loved the baby I gave birth to. I never forgot about you, I never stopped missing you.”
There was no point in trying to stop my tears from falling. They kept coming, washing away every single moment my mom and I were forced to spend apart.
“Now everything’s going to be different,” I said. “It’s going to be perfect. . .”
***
Two weeks later, I still couldn’t believe I had a mom that I didn’t need to imagine, who was real, and who was the best mom in the world. I spent my every day with her. Even when she was asleep, I didn’t leave her alone. Only when night came, she sent me away, saying she needed a healthy daughter, and for that, her daughter needed to get enough sleep. So she sent me home to rest.
Mom was getting better. She was still in the hospital, but the doctors promised to send her home in a few days.
“You should have stayed with Will for Christmas and New Year’s Eve,” she once said, when I came to visit her. “I bet he was upset about celebrating the holidays without you.”
I hadn’t told her that Will and I hadn’t seen each other since the day of the press-conference. I didn’t call him, and he never called or texted me. I didn’t know what to think. I still remembered the look he gave me when the meeting with the reporters was over. His eyes were empty, cold, without a trace of the love that used to brighten them whenever I caught them watching me. And yes, my heart hurt like hell. . .
Finding my mom couldn’t be compared to anything in the world. But could I have been eternally happy without Will? I didn’t think so. . .
“He was here yesterday,” mom said.
“Who?”
“William. He came to see me and to say good-bye.”
“To say good-bye?” I felt like the ground was melting under my feet. “Is he leaving?”
“I thought you knew. . . What is going on, Louise? Have you two broken up? Will wouldn’t tell me about it. But you haven’t told me anything about him either.”
“We didn’t break up. . . Or maybe he broke up with me. . . I don’t really know.”
“Why? What happened after the showcase at school? You two looked so happy that night.”
“Well, it’s complicat
ed. . . I got angry at Will because he didn’t tell me about you. I thought if anything happened to you, I would never forgive him for not telling me the truth. He knew I was angry at him, but he didn’t try to talk to me, or get me to come back to him.”
“He left something for you,” mom said, pointing at her bedside table. There was an envelope with my name on it, written in Will’s beautiful handwriting. How could I not see it?
I grabbed the envelope and opened it, pulling out a letter written for me.
“My Dear Louise,
Time will never have enough magic to heal my wounded heart. But no matter how much it hurts to say this – I need to leave. . .
I’m going back to Paris, leaving my heart and my soul here, with you. Enjoy your time with your mom, you two have a lot to catch up on.
I will never forget you, Louise. . . Never.
If you need anything, call Christopher. My house is still at your disposal.
P.S. My flight is scheduled for three o’clock in the afternoon, tomorrow. If there is anything you need from me before then, you know where to find me.
Always Yours,
W.”
I swallowed, trying to not cry.
That was it, the end. . .
“What did the note say?” Mom asked.
“You were right. . . He’s leaving.”
“For how long?”
“Forever, I guess.”
“Oh, Louise. . . Tell me, are you still angry at him?”
“I don’t know. . .”
“What is stopping you from being with him? I’m fine now, and you and I both know the truth. We are happy to have each other again. So what’s the problem?”
“The fear. . .”
“The fear of what?”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see you lying on the floor, with your dress covered in blood. . . I have never been more scared in my entire life, mom. The sharpshooter was there to kill you, and I didn’t even know you were my mom. I could have lost you without getting a chance to know you first! That fear still lives inside me. I can’t get rid of it. I don’t know what to do to stop thinking about it. . .”