Louise: A New Beginning (22 page)

Just when I brought my glass to Sabine’s, her glass cracked, shattering into tiny pieces, falling to the ground, splashing and ringing against the marble floor.

“What the. . .” It took me a few moments to realize what was going on.

“Sabine!” Will cried, catching her.

I looked at her face and saw pure horror written all over it. Then my eyes slipped down her cream-colored dress, until they stopped at a huge red spot, right in the center of her chest. It was blood…

“Call the ambulance!” Will said, carefully laying Sabine on the floor.

My hands shook.

My phone… I need my phone? Where’s my phone? I don’t have it. . .

“Someone call the ambulance!” I shouted, kneeling down next to Sabine.

“Louise. . .” She said in a barely audible voice.

“Shhh. . . It’s okay, everything’s going to be okay. The paramedics will here in a few minutes. Just stay awake and keep breathing.” I looked at Will. “What the hell just happened?”

“Louise. . .” Sabine called my name again.

“Please, don’t speak.” I felt tears rolling down my face. I don’t know why it felt like I was losing someone very close to me, like I was losing a part of me.

“Someone shot her,” Will said. He was almost as pale as Sabine. He rose to his feet, took out his phone and called 911. Then he called Christopher, saying, “Come inside, now!” He bent down and grabbed Sabine’s wrist, checking on her pulse. “It’s weakening.”

“Oh, God. . .” I couldn’t find the words to describe all the thoughts running through my mind. I was too shocked to think straight. “We need to put her somewhere else.”

“No,” Will protested. “We don’t know if the bullet hit any vital organs, and moving her could be even more dangerous.” He took off his jacket, pulled his shirt out of his pants and ripped a piece of it off. “Press this against the wound,” he said, putting a piece of fabric over Sabine’s chest.

“Where are you going?” I asked terrified, watching him leave.

“We need to catch the shooter.”

I looked down at my hands, pressing against the white piece. It turned red the second I pushed down, making me cry even harder.

There were people gathering around us, but I didn’t care.

“Louise,” Sabine spoke again. “I need to tell you something very –” she coughed, blood spilling from her mouth, and then attempted to continue, “important.”

“Let’s talk later, okay?” I tried to force a smile, but I don’t think I succeeded. “Please don’t waste your breath talking.”

Where are the damn paramedics?

“Listen to me, Louise. . .” Sabine tried to touch my hand, but failed. She was too weak to move. “I’m your-”

“Where’s the victim?” Someone shouted.

I looked up and saw three men in dark blue scrubs, trying to make their way through the crowd entering the room.

“Over here!” I waved for them.

“They’ll take you to the hospital. You’re going to be okay,” I said to Sabine.

“Louise. . .”

“Miss, please step back,” one of the paramedics said. He checked Sabine’s pulse, then opened his bag and pulled out something with a silver tank, with a clear tube and mask attached to it. It was a respirator to help her breathe.

“Ready?” Another paramedic asked.

The first one nodded.

“One, two, three.” The two men put her on a stretcher and quickly rolled her to the exit.

I ran after them. My dress was too long, and the heels were too high, and definitely not made for running, but I ran anyway.

“Will she survive?” I asked the paramedics.

“I don’t know. We need to get her to the hospital and have the doctors run some tests.”

My whole body shook. “Can I go with you?”

“Are you her relative?”

“No, but-”

“Then you’d better stay here and call her family.”

They started to push the stretcher into the ambulance, when one of them said, “She’s trying to say something.” He bent down and removed the pump.

“Louise,” I heard Sabine saying.

“Are you Louise?” The man asked.

“Yes.”

“Come here.”

I came closer and took Sabine’s hand in mine. Tears wouldn’t stop falling down my cheeks.

“I need to tell you something. . .”

“Oh, please, Sabine, let them take you to the hospital first.”

“You are. . .my. . .daughter. . .”

She closed her eyes and the paramedics pulled me away from her, quickly pushing the doors to the ambulance closed. The next thing I knew, sirens were loudly ringing, and the white truck was speeding away. With
my mother
in the back, with a bullet hole in her chest. . .
My mother . .?

I stood on the side rode, paralyzed. I guess my shock was too strong to let me think at all. People, cars, buildings around me – all mixed into one blurred picture, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and blended the shades of everything I could see, turning it into chaos.

I swallowed, looking around. I didn’t know what to do, where to go, whom to call. I was so lost. I didn’t remember walking into the hall full of terrified people, talking about what had just happened.

My eyes searched for Will, but he was nowhere in sight. I went to the changing room where my purse was, found my phone, and called Will.

He answered the call after the second ring.

“Where are you?” I asked in a trembling voice.

“I’m outside,” he said. “I’m talking to the police. Where are you?”

“In the changing room.”

“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay.” I ended the call and sat on a bench, feeling my knees and hands shaking. Tears that I hadn’t noticed I was holding back, ran down my cheeks. I was shocked and upset about Sabine, but more than anything, I was scared. . .

So scared, every time I closed my eyes, I saw the glass breaking in her hand and then a huge blood spot on her dress, getting bigger and bigger with every small breath she took. God, it could be me, being transported to the hospital, or Will, or anyone else from the party.

What the hell was going on? Did someone try to kill Sabine? Why?

Nothing about what had happened made any sense to me. I didn’t even hear the shot. Whoever was shooting, must have used a silencer on their gun. When I realized what was going on, it was too late to change anything. Though I don’t think I would have been able to change the way things went down. No one saw it coming. Everything happened so fast. One second we were talking and laughing, and the next second Sabine’s glass broke, and everything turned into chaos. Only a few moments later, when everyone saw Sabine lying on the floor with blood running all over her dress, did the people realize that something terrible had happened. They started screaming, gathering around us. But I didn’t see any of their faces.

I saw only
her
. . . Looking at me with so much fear in her eyes. I will never be able to forget her look at the moment. She kept repeating my name, as if it was the only thing that she could make herself say at the moment. She wanted to tell me something.

And she did. . .

The words she said right before the paramedics took her away surprised me beyond words. She couldn’t be right, could she?

No, no, no. . . It couldn’t be possible. Sabine couldn’t be my mother. She must have been too shocked by the shot. Yes, she did treat me differently than she did everyone else, but I was sure it was all because she didn’t have children of her own. And she said I reminded her of her young self. Yes, that must have been the reason for her strange words. She wasn’t thinking straight.

“Louise?” I heard Will calling my name.

“I am in here!” I replied, wiping the tears away with the back of my hand.

“Oh, Louise. . .” Will entered the room and sat next to me, wrapping both arms around me. “How are you?” He asked, caressing my back.

“Don’t know. . . It was so terrible. I’m so scared, Will.” I put my hands around him, seeking for comfort.

“Don’t be. It’s okay now. They found the man who shot her.”

“Oh, my God! Really?”

“Yeah, turned out one of the guys who had been guarding
Balero’s
territory tonight, saw a man on the roof of the opposite building. Too bad, he got there too late, and Sabine got hurt. But fortunately, he managed to catch the sharpshooter. The police are questioning him now. 

“Do you know who he is?”

“No. He wouldn’t say a word about who had hired him, or who exactly he was here to kill. He only said he needs a lawyer and he won’t say a word without him.”

“Who do you think would want to kill Sabine? She’s such a good person. She would have never hurt anyone.”

“I wish I had the answer to your question, Louise.” He kissed my forehead, then pulled me to his chest again. “We need to take you home.”

“No. I want to go to the hospital.”

“Louise –”

“I can’t go home, not now. I need to know that Sabine is going to be okay. Please, Will, take me to the hospital first.”

He hesitated, but after a short pause, he nodded and said, “Okay. I’ll take you there.”

I got changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt, washed away my ruined makeup, and Sabine’s blood. Then Will and I headed to the hospital where Sabine had been taken.

***

“Louise?”

I turned around, hearing someone say my name.

“Regina!” I saw Sabine’s friend coming to me.

“Oh, girl, I’m so glad to see you,” she said, hugging me. “Can you tell me what happened? Sabine’s driver called me saying she was shot during the party, but he didn’t know the details.”

“Actually, we don’t know anything either. Everything happened so fast. We didn’t see who was shooting, but the bastard is at the police station now. He was caught right after he made the damn shot.”

“What a terrible coincidence.” Regina cried. “Who would want to hurt our dear Sabine?”

“I keep asking myself the same question. God, she looked so pale. . . Have you talked to the doctors? What did they say?”

“Nothing promising. . . They took her into surgery, saying she had lost too much blood and that they need to remove the bullet. So I guess we will know more when the operation is over.”

“Too bad we can’t do anything to help her.”

“We can pray,” Regina said, smiling slightly. “It always helps.”

I heard Will talking to someone, but the man he was talking to didn’t look like a doctor.

“Who’s that?” I asked Regina.

“That’s Nigel, Sabine’s husband. You haven’t met him yet, have you?”

“It’s the first time I have seen him.” Mr. Cormac looked a lot older than his wife, ten or fifteen years maybe. He was tall and well-built for his age, he had that perfect salt and pepper colored hair aged men get. His small glasses and a mustache made him look like one of those professors from
Balero.

“What does he do?” I asked out of curiosity.

“He’s a chemist. He works at laboratories experimenting on mineral resources, testing their nature. Sabine met him when she was a student. He’s fourteen years older than her, so naturally her parents were not thrilled with the idea of their only daughter marrying
‘the old man’
. But after some time, they saw how happy she was with him and gave their blessing for their marriage. Nigel is a wonderful man. He helped Sabine deal with her loss, and then –”

“What loss?” I asked.

I could see that Regina was getting nervous. “It’s nothing, forget it. It’s Sabine’s personal life, I have no right to gossip about it behind her back, especially now while she is in surgery.”

“Does it have anything to do with her inability to have children?” I don’t know why I suddenly asked that question. It flew out of my mouth before I would think twice about what I was saying.

Regina’s expression darkened. “We shouldn’t talk about it, Louise. Sabine will tell you everything when she’s ready.”

“Tell me what?” I had a very bad feeling about the whole conversation Regina and I were having. She was obviously hiding something from me, and I couldn’t understand why. “What’s going on?” I asked, looking nervously at Will, who was still talking to Mr. Cormac.

All of a sudden, I remembered Sabine’s words.

“Did she lose a child?” I asked carefully. Putting two and two together wasn’t that difficult for me. At least my assumptions would explain Sabine’s weird behavior. I have heard about people who had been through some terrible losses, imagining someone else being those they had lost. Maybe that was Sabine’s problem with me. Maybe she saw her lost child in me. It was not the first time that thought came to my mind.

“Why would you think so?” Regina asked, watching me carefully.

“Right before Sabine was taken to the hospital, she told me something. . . But I guess she was hallucinating.”

“What did she tell you, Louise?” Regina looked at Will and Mr. Cormac, and then back at me again.

I shook my head, smiling, “She said I was her daughter.”

Regina’s face became as pale as a sheet. She stepped back, and sat down on a chair behind her.

“What is it?” I asked, worried. “Are you okay? Do you need some water?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Why did my words shock you?” I asked, sitting next to her. “I was right about Sabine’s child, right? She had a child. . .and then she lost it?”

Regina swallowed, nodding. “It was a terrible time for her.”

“Was it Nigel’s child?”

“No. She got pregnant from a different man. But he was married, and they couldn’t be together. Though she still wanted to keep the baby.” Regina’s voice trembled. “She was so happy, buying all those sweet, tiny clothes for her future child. Losing it almost killed her. I don’t think I have ever seen her so lost and devastated. She didn’t want to live. Her parents and I were afraid she would do something to herself. But then, she met Nigel. He helped her get through it. He made her believe that she could live and dance, and be happy again. No matter how much her loss hurt. He taught her that the pain only enhanced her dancing. He showed her how to put all of that agony into her movements, and her dancing blossomed into what it is today.”

“No wonder she opened a school of dance. She loves every single one of her students.”

“Yeah, she has always wanted to have children of her own. . . Too bad, she never got pregnant again, after what happened years ago, fate decided to not give her a second chance. Only after she found out about you. . .” Regina stopped abruptly.

“Found out about me?” I asked. “You mean the day she saw the tape of my performance?”

“Louise, is everything all right?” Will came to us, Mr. Cormac at his side. “I wanted to introduce you to Sabine’s husband. This is Nigel Cormac.”

“Nice to meet you, Sir.”

He smiled at me. “Likewise, Louise. Sabine has told me a lot about you,” he said as one single tear rolled down his cheek.

I looked at Regina again. Something wouldn’t let me go without getting the answer to my question first.

“What did you mean when you said after she found out about me?” I asked again.

Will’s jaw tightened. Mr. Cormac’s posture tensed. Regina shared a glance with Will that I didn’t like.

“What the hell is going on here?” I asked, rising to my feet.

“Louise, it’s not the right time or place to talk about it,” Will said.

“Talk about what?”

“Why don’t we wait for Sabine to get better first?” Regina said.

Mr. Cormac spoke, “I think Regie is right. Sabine’s health is what we need to think about now.”

I think even back then, I already knew what neither of them had enough courage to tell me. I recalled the things that William once told me about my mother. About her pregnancy and my father’s inability to be with her because he had been already married. Then I started thinking about everything that Regina told me about Sabine’s loss, and how she felt about it. Then the image of Sabine, watching me during Regina’s café’s opening party formed in my head, and I guess that was the very moment when everything became so clear to me, starting the day my father sent me to
Paradise
, and to the moment Sabine called me her daughter.

“She wasn’t hallucinating, was she?” I asked in a trembling voice.

“What are you talking about?” Will asked. I didn’t tell him about Sabine’s words.

My eyes bored into Regina’s. “She’s my mother, isn’t she?” I felt so weak at the moment. I didn’t feel my body, like it didn’t belong to me and I was just a ghost possessing it temporarily. I couldn’t bear thinking more. “Tell me, is that true?” I raised my voice, unable to control myself any longer.

“Louise, calm down, please,” Will said.

I didn’t listen to him. Regina had been Sabine’s friend for ages, only she knew the truth, only she could confirm or deny my words. So I spoke to her again, calmly this time, “Please, I need to know.” I was so close to breaking down, and she could see it.

She spoke to Will, “I can’t do this anymore. Sabine’s so bad now. . . What if she. . .”

“Don’t say that,” Mr. Cormac said, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “We need to be strong, for her.”

Then Regina looked at me and said, “I’m not the right person to tell you about it, Louise. . . But I guess considering the circumstances and your questions, it would be pointless to keep lying to you. . . Yes, you are Sabine’s daughter.”

I gasped. “Oh, God. . .” My heart raced in my chest. It was beating so fast, I could barely breathe, feeling like my every breath could be my last one.

I sat down on a chair, too shocked to speak, or think, or move.