98. Macy was running through a maze as she laughed merrily.
She and two children were playing hide and seek and she was the one who was hiding.
“Maaaa! Come on out now. You won’t be It,” the voice of a boy said and Macy stopped.
“Kay, have you found her?” A girl asked.
She could clearly tell that the girl was Mel but she had no idea who the boy was.
His voice want familiar.
She decided to go to them and see who it was. From her memory, she could remember playing hide and seek but she couldn’t remember who the boy was.
As she ran back, the maze dissipated and she found herself in a house.
The house looked Victorian and everything in it screamed opulence.
She looked around and couldn’t remember whose house it is as or what she was doing there.
“Mel?” She shouted but the voice echoed back to her.
The chairs in the house looked expensive. Very expensive and she wondered whose house it was and why she was there.
There was no sign of life save for her and then she saw Richard.
His eyes lacked the life he always had though he rarely smiled.
She knew right away that things weren’t good because instead of talking to her, he passed by her as if he hadn’t seen her.
“Richard? Are you okay?” She called puzzled as to why he would pass her like that.
“I am not work Macy and you of all people should know.
Why? Why Macy? Even if you hated me, did you have to do it?” He asked her and she felt a pang in her heart.
Do what?
“Do what? I don’t understand you,” she vocalised her thoughts and he sneered.
“It’s not like you to pretend. You killed him and now you are here as if you don’t know what you did?
You didn’t even have the courtesy of attending his funeral,” Richard accused again and every word he said threw Macy off because she had no idea what he was talking about.
She looked at him with more questions than answers and turned his whole body and faced her.
“Macy, I never thought you could never do that to our son. He died because of you!” Richard screamed at her and the look on his face made her cringe.
She had known hate all her life but she never thought that the man she loved would turn on her like that.
What was he saying?
“Richard? Please explain yourself,” she asked as a torrent of tears ran down her cheeks and she had no control of them.
She held his hand and he cringed at the touch and threw her off him with a force she didn’t know that he possessed.
She saw herself flying and gravity took over and she knew that she would land with her head and she prepared for the impact as she screamed and stretched her hands to hold at invisible barriers and she knew that if she landed, she would die.
She screamed with fear and then sat upright.
She was sweating all over and her eyes were teary.
She blinked them and looked around and then held her head between the palms of her hands as she tried to will away the headache that was splitting her head.
She didn’t understand where she was or what would make her have such a bad dream and then she heard the door click open.
She lifted her eyes and then saw Richard.
“You are awake? How are you?” He asked and Macy froze.
“You… didn’t you…” she almost accused bht then remembered that it was a dream.
“Where are we?” She finally asked as she willed the headache away.
Richard looked at her with worry and then the bed gave as he sat by her side.
“What’s wrong? Why can’t you remember?” He asked as he stretched his hand.
She flinched but didn’t move. He felt her forehead and then her neck and listened and the more he listened, the more the frown on his face deepened.
“You are running a fever. Why?” He asked as he took his phone from his trouser’s pocket.
He dialled a number and Macy was too given to even care what he was doing. All she knew was that she wanted the headache to go away.
“Joey, I need you at Royal Gardens ASAP,” Richard said without preamble and listened for a second, “no questions. Just come. I suspect a fever,” Richard said then hang up.
He didn’t know what to do as he looked at Macy who had drifted off again with her body still on a sitting position.
He helped her lie down and she was burning.
Richard didn’t know what to do because this was a grownup person and the only person he had ever taken care of was Mel.
When Cassandra left, he had to learn how to take care of a baby and that had made him even better than a certified nurse.
He became an expert jn mixing formula milk, tying diapers, checking her vitals, organizing her clothes, tying the diapers, reading her moods and such.
Mel was always sickly and that was why he had to have a doctor like knowledge and him being a soldier meant that he had to have the ability to perform first aid just in case on of his men was injured while on a mission.
He liked at Macy and figured that it wouldn’t be very difficult. He could always imagine himself as the father taking care of Mel or as the general taking care of one of his men.
He stood up from where he was seated and went to the adjacent bathroom. He then left the bathroom walked outside.
He had brought Macy to his room when she collapsed the night before after he told her everything.
He, after a while, came back with a small basin full of water. He had to go for it in the kitchen after he couldn’t find anything that could hold water in the bathroom.
He then went to the bathroom after placing the basin carefully on the side table of the bed and came back with a small towel.
He uncovered her and started singing her body with the warm water.
He knew that for the fever to leave her, he had to make her sweat and the faster the better.
He decided to do it before the doctor came and checked on her. He wasn’t a certified doctor and for all he knew, his diagnosis could be wrong.
“Macy, you can’t get sick.
They have already apprehended Maxwell and I was coming for you so that we could go and get our boy.
You can’t get such on me. I am sorry that I was unable to keep the truth from you.
If I had known that it would make you sick, I wouldn’t have told you,” he talked in a small voice as he continued with his wiping. It was like he was afraid that he would wake her up if he increased the volume of his voice.
Joey was at the door in exactly fifteen minutes. It was like he had ran a race because he was panting.
“Rich, are you well? What’s wrong? Do you have a fever,” the doctor asked as he got into the room even without knocking.
He was that worried.
“It’s not me,” Richard said to the man who had been frozen at the door.
How face contorted and then he looked at Richard and then at the girl on the bed and then at Richard again.
“I thought you had mysophobia? Why is there a girl in your bed?
You wouldn’t even let me touch you and we have been friends for twenty years now Rich! Twenty years since our junior school days.
My heart feels betrayed and broken,” the other man lamented and all the while, Richard hadn’t said anything.
In fact, he wasn’t even listening to Joey as he was concentrating on Macy.
“Don’t tell me… OMG! Don’t tell me… Rich? Finally! Oh my fucking God!” Joey walked in looking as if he had had his eureka moment.
“Are you checking on her or not? I can replace you, you know?” Richard said in a cold small voice that said that he was worried about the girl that Joey was still wondering what her identity was.
Joey walked to the bedside table and took the basin with water and gave it to Richard.
He then placed his medical bag on the table and removed this and that from it until he found his stethoscope.
Richard was pacing up and down, to and fro.
Within minutes, Joey had checked all her vitals and then he turned to look at Richard.