Chapter 34: Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Harry

I am happy. I am feeling fulfilled. Ever since I saw her, ever since I decided that she will be spending some time with me, I feel like she is going to be my saviour. I want to tag her everywhere but she doesn’t like it. She is one of those people who believe in hard work, something I have never seen any sense in since I was born.

She is focusing on her work and the best I can do is to let her. I like it when she is aiming higher when she has goals to meet and dreams to achieve.

I will give her a nice surprise today. I hope she likes it.

Dad and mum have been working really hard to feed us. They’ve had a shit load of money since time immemorial and I trust that that’s one of the reasons I never bothered to work in the past. I mean why I drifted in all the wrong directions.

Unlike her, she seems to have had a poor but perfect life.

I admire her.

I love her.

She is lost in thoughts and I wonder why she would do that when I am with her. It must be what I just told her. I still don’t know how she has taken it and I desperately hope that she doesn’t judge me for it.

‘’Um … I hope you understand me, Clarita.’’

‘’Yes, I do understand you.’’ She says gently with a very slight smile. ‘’I just want to know what happened after Ellen’s death.’’

‘’Her death started haunting me, I could see her in my dreams asking me to get justice for her. I met her several times walking to my house in my imagination. She was always the very first patient I treated when I got to the hospital. I wallowed more on alcohol and many other drugs. Have you ever been treated by a drunk doctor?’’ She shakes her head.

‘’Have I ever gone to the hospital? Let’s start there.’’ She says jokingly.

‘’Well, I was half or fully drunk almost all the time and I swear I knew I was going to be fired any time soon. She kept me company when I didn’t have patients and most of the time when a patient came in and found me talking to myself, they could rush out and you know that’s not a good thing.’’

‘’I know.’’ She says with a nod. ‘’Wasn’t the hospital your dad’s?’’

‘’I nod at her. It was but there were BODs obviously and other bodies involved. That’s how it works. It took several months, I went to the hospital but did not work. How could a psychologist be the one in all that mess and expect to attend to patients? I could spend my nights drinking so that I could not remember anything about her, then spend half the day talking to her and half-sleeping in my office. One day, I was about to be summoned when Anita gave me a hint. Dad had given up on me because I never listened to him. We never had a man-to-man chat, I hated mum because she was partially the cause of my misfortune. I tried as much as I could to never see her but it didn’t work at all. I was in my room at night when I heard a knock.’’

‘’Came in, I said with totally no interest. I didn’t want to see anyone but I was curious as to who would have been knocking my door. No one used to knock it.

‘’When Anita walked in, I saw an angel in her. I have never felt what I felt that day, I stoop up on my feet and walked hastily towards her. I hugged Anita like never before. I hugged her tight and when I pulled away, I was shedding tears like a young baby. She never judged me, she let me cry as much as I wanted. She locked the door and started talking to me after leading me to sit on the edge of my bed.’’

‘’You are a great person, brother. I value you. You are cool and probably one of the big-hearted men I know. I may be your little sister, but that doesn’t mean I will just watch you mess up.’’ She spoke very gently as I keenly listened to her. ‘’I want you to do me a favour.’’ She said looking at me keenly.

‘’What favour?’’

‘’I want you to go to the best rehab ever. I want to see my brother progress and go back to his feet. I want to see the strong, enthusiastic and flamboyant brother I had a few years ago. You and I both know that you are going to die and once you are dead, we will throw your memories down the pit and we will forget we ever had a brother called Harry.’’

‘’That’s fine, Anita.’’

‘’Don’t interrupt me!’’ she said firmly and even though I didn’t want to, I cowered. ‘’We both know that dad isn’t your favourite person, mum who has all along been spoiling you doesn’t wanna see you right now and the worst is that you are going to lose your position in that damn hospital very soon and I mean sooner than you can ever imagine.’’ She explained looking at me keenly.

‘’I don’t know what had been happening but the talk was slowly getting into me. I had had several of such talks before but the way she was being keen with me was on another level. She kept on telling me that we will not be pointing fingers at anyone because that wasn’t the best way to get better.’’

‘’So, brother, I am and will be the one sneaking you out of home to a rehab of your choice. I have been doing my research around and guess what?’’ I turned to fully face her, giving her more attention. ‘’I have decided that we will go to Promises, Malibu, US. One of two Promises clinics, the Malibu location is particularly popular among those used to a life of luxury; celebrities, business executives and government officials. A world-leader in drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, Promises Malibu was the first centre of its kind to address patients’ underlying problems as well as their addiction.’’ ‘’What should I do, sister?’’

‘’Good question, brother. Resign from your job. Don’t talk to anyone about this, just do a letter and I will take it to the Hospital tomorrow. I already have a friend who will get us tickets secretly without dad knowing it. You and I will travel to the US and I will hang around for you until you get better.’’

‘’Don’t you think we should inform just dad, maybe? He is well allied and will locate us in a matter minutes if he wants to.’’

‘’We will, brother and trust me dad will be in support of this.’’

‘’At some point, I was about to protest when she explained to me that no one, absolutely no one had an idea of what we were about to do. I hated everyone including Henry who was studying abroad. I knew it was never gonna be an easy task but I was willing to take the challenge. Anita was so focused that I thought she had been asked by dad or maybe mum to do that but she assured me that none of them knew. It was a bit hard to get to the Malibu clinic but we did at long last. Dad’s connections were really and greatly of help. We used his name, obviously.’’

‘’I have to go, brother. When can we leave?’’

‘’As soon as you think is okay.’’

‘’Any time for me is okay, brother. We only need to get tickets which by the way will not take a full day, then head straight to the airport and get you to the best clinic in the world.’’ She said with a smile and I smiled back. ‘’Do me a favour, brother.’’

‘’I am listening.’’

‘’Let’s start by cleaning your room. Then you can write the letter as I make a few calls. We can either choose to deliver it to the hospital or maybe leave it here for dad to find it later.’’ She had to change her mind about leaving my bedroom.

‘’I prefer the latter.’’

‘’Good. But hey, no need. We will hand it over to dad because we must hold a brief later with him.’’ I shook gently.

‘’Let’s just not hold a one on one. Let’s write a letter and leave them here so that he will find it.’’

‘’We cleaned my room and got like over fifty bottles out of whiskey in my room. I didn’t know that I was that bad but I realized. We did the letters. One was a resignation letter and the other one was an explanation to dad which of course I asked him to keep a secret.’’

‘’Wow! That must have had been a very difficult one.’’

‘’It was, baby. Very difficult.’’

‘’What happened next?’’

‘’Anita, my beautiful sister went ahead and took me to the rehab. It took me a few months to get used to it. I was supposed to be released after six months but I personally requested to take a few more months after having a discussion with her. She told me that I should stay a bit longer so that I could get stronger. She was always there, she visited most of the time and encouraged me more each time.’’ ‘’That was so beautiful of her.’’

‘’I know, right?’’ she nods gently. ‘’Anyway, here I am. After the long journey, I was released. Anita in the meantime never went back home. She stayed in the US and enrolled for a course. Dad was good enough to pay for her fees. He never mentioned a single word to mum about my whereabouts, he kept it a secret like I had requested him to do it in the letter that I wrote. Mum pretended to be worried but that wasn’t our worry.’’

‘’How do you know she pretended?’’

‘’I know because mum has never cared about me, Clarita. There is this kind of love that you and I will never use on our babies.’’ Her mouth hangs open and I smile. I hold her chin and lift her face towards me. ‘’Don’t be scared, beautiful. We will only have kids when the agreement is mutual. We cannot have kids if we do not want or if you are not ready.’’ ‘’I hope so.’’ She says after heaving a sigh of relief.

‘’Well as I was saying if we ever get kids, we will teach them how to behave. We will reprimand and scold them all the time when they make mistakes and you and I will have to be speaking one language. We will never give instructions separately.’’ She seems not to believe me because I spot her shaking her head slightly. ‘’I came back home and since then, I don’t know why but mum was never happy. She keeps threatening to unleash the police on me. I was a changed man after the rehab period. I was brought back home by Anita, since then, I swore never to have anything to do with women until I saw you.’’

‘’Why me?’’

‘’Matters of the heart, baby. I personally cannot explain this to you.’’ I tell her politely. She rolls her eyes visibly making me chuckle. ‘’Hey, I hope you forgive me for all these.’’

She stands up and walks towards the window. She faces outside before she speaks. ‘’Whatever happened is in the past. You never killed any of those girls but they died maybe because they were associated with you. I cannot use that to judge you. You were young and under pressure and drug influence. You probably never wanted that to happen. Do you know what makes me happy though?’’ I shake my head.

‘’Tell me, beautiful, I’d wish to know.’’

‘’That you amended your ways. That you accepted your bad moves and corrected all that. All shall be well my dear. Your mum blackmailing you shall all come to pass, okay?’’ I have never felt happy. I have never met a positive girl before and for that matter, I will make her mine.

I walk to the window and hug her from behind. I am hoping that she will look at me so that I can kiss her. She turns immediately and our lips meet in a frenzied kiss