Chapter 90 Her mother’s bratty youth
Delanie couldn’t make head or tail of the situation but also couldn’t completely accept that Roger wasn’t related to her by blood.
Roger made a call to his father. “Dad, I’ll be late for the meeting.”
“Why? Isn’t Delanie there? She said she was coming to get you,” Giovanni informed. Roger replied, “She's here, and everything happened just as you predicted with Oriana.”
“Fuck!” Giovanni hissed from the end of the line. “I’m coming,” he said, but Roger stopped him. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it and bring her as soon as I’m done here.”
He ended the call before Giovanni could say anything more, then turned to Delanie.
“Mom and dad wanted to tell you, but I told them not to,” Roger lied to save his parents from Delanie’s wrath. If anything, he wanted to bear the responsibility alone.
The boys were much easier to deal with than Delanie. Yes, she was the most feared of the Dawsons after Roger.
“I’m sorry, Delanie, I didn’t know you were there,” Oriana said with remorse, but Karen felt there was something off.
This was getting interesting, and she also wanted to know what the Dawsons were hiding from her.
“How is she your half-sister?” Delanie asked again, her eyes blurred by her tears. Roger extended his hand to hers. “You’ll have to calm down before I tell you everything.”
Taking a deep breath, Delanie joined her hand to his. She wanted to know, so she forced herself to calm down as Roger began to explain it all.
“Growing up, it was just me and dad. He told me I didn’t have a mother, and mostly, I would hear him talk to a woman on the phone. Ever since I knew, he was there for me every day except Saturdays and Sundays. Those days, he spent with a woman I came to know as my biological mother, Octavia.”
Both Karen and Delanie were stunned. Delanie had tears in her eyes, disappointed that her family had lied to her. Aunt Octavia, her father’s ex, was a surprise revelation. Before she could ask for more details, Roger continued to speak.
“Everything I remembered about her was bad, nothing like the woman she is now. She was cunning, selfish, and, damn, she hated me. I could see it in her eyes whenever she looked at me. The only time she claimed to want me was to get back at Dad.”
“She wanted to use me to get to his heart, but that would come later. She never wanted me, saw me as a hindrance taking all my father’s attention from her.
I never told Dad, but I agreed with him that I didn’t have a mother and I hated any woman who came close to him.
Most of them wanted to use me to win his heart but failed until Molly came along. Seeing her the first time, I knew she was different. But if my own mother didn’t want me, then how different could she be?” Roger recounted, his lips pressed into a bitter smile.
“I found ways to make her upset so she would leave, but she didn’t. The more I hated her, the more she loved me,” he smiled when he remembered how Molly showered him with love he never expected from anyone who wasn’t his dad.
“I tried to get my father’s attention from her, but she never even fought for it, always making me her priority, prioritizing my happiness until I called her mom.” He paused and wiped a lone tear from the corner of his lips.
Oriana was shattered as things did not seem to be going the way she had expected. The memory of Octavia’s youth seemed to be making everyone, including Karen, upset.
Roger continued to recount the past. “The joy and shock on her face when I called her mom made me happy. From that day on, I realized that family wasn’t blood but those who are ready to give themselves for you.”
“So, Aunt Octavia was Dad’s first love?” Delanie finally asked. Roger shook his head.
“That’s what I thought before, until one day when Uncle Hank picked me up to take me somewhere. He told me there were some bad people after Dad, and they kidnapped Molly, so I had to play by his rules.
I was curious and a little afraid, but he kept talking, telling me that Dad wasn’t my real dad. I didn’t believe it, but he insisted he was taking me to my real dad and I had to see a video.
In it was my dad and Aunt Octavia. There was a baby by her side, and I knew that was me from the conversation they were having.
“Since you insisted on my giving birth to him, I want nothing to do with him. I have to go back to school, and you have to be there every weekend without excuses,” Octavia was saying to Dad. She was much younger then, pretty but spoiled rotten by Dad.”
Everyone was surprised to hear that Giovanni spoiled someone like Octavia, but Roger was not done explaining it. “You have my word,” Dad said. Octavia stared coldly at me in the cot and scoffed. “You are a busy man, but this boy will only slow you down. Give him up for adoption.”
Oriana was beginning to understand Roger’s coldness towards her, but now, it was too late to take back her stubbornness. Her mother’s bratty youth was in the open, and there was nothing she could do about it.