A Wife for the Billionaire
Chapter 72: RICHARD

Chapter 72: RICHARD

In all my meetings with the aged Dame, I haven’t seen her show even a glimmer of weakness. But now, it seems she was close to tears.

"Are you alright, Madame Dame?" I found myself asking.

"I didn’t think she would be taken away from me, I... I... just can’t believe she’s gone" and this time, the tears dropped, clear drops unevenly cascading her slightly wrinkled face.

With the color of her eyes, it seemed like her pupils were squeezed to render such streaks.

If I was nonplussed by her statement on the roses, now I was totally at sixes and sevens. I had no idea what she was talking about, or whom she was referring to.

Or...

Could it be that the aged Dame was already experiencing the senility of old age? Was she that old that her mind was deteriorating already?

I hated such sights, it did something to my heart. I had made mention of being a tad bit more emotional than most, but seeing someone in tears, that was like the highlight.

It usually took a lot more to hide it. A mountain of piles to layer the feeling that wrecked at me when I see someone in tears.

I thought I was getting good at it, at least yesterday morning I had done a wonderful job with Chad, but watching Madame Dame, one of the toughest women I know, shed tears, not just tears.

Her entire demeanor spoke of hurt, her right hand was at her chest, as if it could lessen the pain of her heart. Her rugous face was tightly squeezed that her eyes appeared shut while she cried like a babe abandoned by the mother... without the wailing part of course.

At that moment, she reminded me of my nana, Diane. And how she had cried when she came to the hospital after my birthday spectacle.

Such sight never spares me, and as I did that day, I felt my eyes welling up as well.

I hated feeling this way, it was pathetic. Totally absurd and against everything I stood for.

I had told myself that day after I forced my parents to tell me what the doctor had said, that I wouldn’t cry. Since the discovery at 11, I knew it was inevitable, that death stalked me like a shadow. So, when they came into my special ward after seeing the doctor with forced smiles, pitched tones and couldn’t meet my eyes, I knew.

I don’t really know why people did that? Why pretend when in the act of pretense you are plainly showing that which you intended to hide?

In spite of being able to guess what the doctor had told them, I had asked. Not because I really wanted to know, but because I felt it was necessary to know, to be exact rather than hold onto the unreliabilities of guesses.

No matter how much I knew I would dread it, I forced myself to grit out the question,

"What did the doctor say?"

Claire had tried to wave it off,

"Oh dearest, it’s nothing to worry about, all you have to focus on is getting better" she had said, coming to fuss over me, her fingers trailing my cheeks in the affection of a mother.

I had slapped her hand away as I rebuked,

"Don’t give me that crap, I’m the one with the disease, so go ahead and spill it, you don’t have to treat me like a child. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown"

I hadn’t really been angry with them. I was more angry at life and the accursed disease, but in that moment they were just close enough to get laced.

It was Edward who steeled himself and told me.

"Doctor Tex," he had begun as Claire screamed,

"Edward, what are you doing?! He shouldn’t know, at least not now." Then pleadingly, tears streaking her rosy cheeks, she begged, "We can always tell him later, please Edward, not now. You heard the doctor, the news could traumatize him and there’s high chance he might die"

Waving her off, Edward continued,

"He’s right. He’s no longer a child and keeping it away from him would be cruel. Richard, according to Doctor Tex, while this new transplant would help, it’s not a cure. There’s still a chance that the disease will recur in the transplanted heart, and the underlying genetic and cellular abnormalities can still affect the new heart. Suffice to say, a transplant is just a way to slow it down, for you to age into your gray hairs, you would have to continue heart transplants and while that ’s an option, he fears that the rate at which your condition deteriorates, you don’t have much longer. With this new heart and the rate of your condition, he was able to surmise at least 20 more years with the possibility of more transplants, of course."

If I didn’t fear Edward before, I did at that moment. He had remained cold and expressionless as he spoke, not to mention it felt like he gave me the exact replica of the information the doctor had given them.

"It’s really not as bad as it sounds" Claire had said, squeezing my hand.

That was a bald faced lie and I knew it. But in my heart, I appreciated her effort at trying to make me feel better, not that I allowed her to see or even feel such.

As alien as the heartbeat that palpated in my chest at that moment, those words sounded foreign to my mind.

I don’t really know how to explain it, like I understood those words, but I was yet to fully take it all in. Or maybe it was that I’ve always known that I wasn’t created to live long, that my days were numbered, perhaps that was why I really didn’t react the way any normal person would.

I think all I said was,

"At least I now know the time I have left"

When I didn’t say more, and silence stretched, my parents were completely at loss with words made up excuses and left. Claire left first and I knew she was going to cry out her eyes as she couldn’t do in front of me. Edward followed almost immediately, and I knew it was to console her while remaining stoic.

We tried not to discuss it, until Nana came.

Nana was my favorite person in the entire universe. She was the only person I could boldly say that I loved. And the only one that I know for certain loved me.

We had been close, very close until Papi died and she moved to London to oversee our properties. I had been 10 when it all happened. When the ever cruel hands of fate tore us apart by taking away Papi.

Nana still came for holidays, important events of the Empire, and whenever I needed her. In spite of all she was taking care of in London, at my call, she would drop everything and be on the next flight to New City.

That was just a literary expression, the last statement I mean. Just like the Wellington Estate, the London Villa where Nana lived boasted of a helipad, for landing and take off of our private helicopters.

"My heart," she called softly in that raspy voice she had grown in old age. I remember her brown hair was rimmed with gray and more wrinkles lined her face than the last time I saw her.

"Nana?" I managed, straining to sit upright.

Framing my face with her soft leathery hands, she protested,

"My heart, please don’t stress yourself. I’m so sorry I missed your birthday, bad weather delayed my flight. No please don’t say anything, let your nana finish. I heard what happened, how are you feeling now? Are you in pain?"

I had found it funny that she didn’t want me to speak and at the same time, bombarded me with questions. Even as I made to answer, she shushed,

"Don’t say anything, Nana is here now. I’m here now. My poor baby," her voice broke.

The first tear dropped.

Her grip on my hands tightened.

"Pay no heed to what they say, you will live for me. My heart, you will keep beating even after I’m gone. You will live" and then came the tears and then the heart wrecking sobs.

"But Nana, I’m fine"

"Shush my dearest, shush" she reprimanded, using a finger to keep me quiet.

Then softly, she whispered,

"Yes, my child, you are fine. You are fine. You are fine. You are fine. You are absolutely fine." With each time she repeated those words, she trailed kisses on my knuckles and on my palms.

I had tried hard not to cry, but it seemed it was at that moment that the realization of the doctor’s words sank in.

I didn’t just cry that day; my heart wept as well and now Madame Dame was not only reminding me of that day, but her actions were like an appeal for a repeat of that day.