Page 94 of Inevitable Inheritance

When Taylor had gone to sit by Simon, he had reached for her hand, and she took his.

“Taylor,” he said softly, like it was actually work to get it out.

“Shhhh, don’t talk, Simon. I’m here with you. Derrick and Marty went to talk with the doctor,” she said, hoping to relax him.

“I need to tell you something,” he said.

“No, Simon, don’t—”

“Please, I have to tell you,” Simon wheezed and coughed silently for a few seconds. “I told the kids, but they won’t remember, please.”

Taylor heard the pleading and knew it was important, or at least important to Simon, and he deserved to have his last wishes heard. “Okay, tell me.”

“My arrangements—they are all set up through Montgomery’s,” he began, and Taylor really didn’t want to hear him talk about what to do after he was gone, but she listened. Intently. She made sure she understood it all. He went over how everything should go and be handled, and he even had the number memorized and asked Taylor to put it in her phone. It took him a long time, with time for rest and coughing, but he got through it.

“I got it all, Simon. I will make sure it is taken care of,” Taylor reassured him. “You just rest now. I promise I will take care of everything.”

“I know you will take care of it. You always have, Taylor. There is one other thing I have to tell you.”

She knew this was taking a lot of his energy, but she just could not say no to him. “Okay, Simon, let it out.”

Simon gave her hand a hard squeeze. “I told him not to see you that night.”

Taylor furrowed her brow and wondered if Simon was speaking nonsense. Her grandfather had spoken in riddles toward the end. The nurses assured her it was the medicine, that it was all normal. “I don’t understand—”

“After his mother passed, he was going to take you out. I told him …” Simon coughed, then sucked in air and deep breath, and continued on, “I told him he wasn’t good enough. I was mad, I was so mad at everyone, at everything, and I took it out on him.”

Oh this wasn’t nonsense.

Taylor’s eyes widened in understanding, and she went back to that night in her head. The hurt she felt from the way Derrick had messed with her flashed back. It was like cutting open a scarred wound.

“I, I don’t understand, Simon, why would you …”

“Because I was hurting,” Simon croaked out, tears falling from his closed eyes. “He was going to get to be with the person he loved, and I had lost mine. I was selfish and angry, and just inhumane,” Simon paused.

Taylor had a feeling she wasn’t the only one reliving pain.

“Instead of hurting one person that night I hurt two. I often wonder if he had taken you out as he had planned if maybe we wouldn’t have had to abduct you like we did.”

Taylor sat numb and slack-jawed at Simon’s confession. “Why are you—”

“I just wanted you to know, Taylor. I know he won’t tell you, so I wanted you to know. The reason he didn’t go to you is because he loved you enough to let you have someone better.”

Taylor just absorbed his message. And she thought about the man confessing to her and looked over to the man talking to a doctor and comforting his sister. And then she thought about all the hate and anger she had thrown at him because of that night.

“He holds you in the highest esteem. He protected you even when you were nowhere to be found. He went crazy when you were gone—”

“Simon, why are you telling me this?” Taylor said, cutting him off. She knew that this was his time to get things off his chest, but Taylor wasn’t sure she could hear any more.

“Please take care of him. He will love you forever, Taylor, he always has, and you make him so happy. Please just make sure he stays happy,” Simon pleaded.

Taylor just looked at Simon wide-eyed. How did she respond to that?

He took some long deep breaths and shut his eyes. “I have to rest now. I just had to let you know,” he said, and he drifted into a shallow easy breathing pattern.

And now here she was hoping to ease a dying man’s guilt.

“I do,” Derrick’s voice came through Taylor’s thoughts, bringing her back to the here and now.

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