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Dale put his arms around me, pulling be down to the sofa beside him.
“It’s okay!” Sidney Clare informed the crew, waving them back. “She’s his girlfriend.”
“Dale, are you okay?” I ignored her and Tyler and everyone else.
He gave me a slow nod but I knew better. Inside, it was turmoil. I could see it in his eyes.
“I think…” He hesitated, looking up and seeing John and Chrissy both coming onto the stage, Debra following tentatively behind.
Dale stood as his father approached and I’ll never forget the look of confusion on his face. And it was that moment I saw it, really saw it. Dale wasn’t Tyler’s. John and Dale had the same blue eyes, the same high cheek bones, the same dimpled chin. John’s features had been so covered in hair, his eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses, I’d never noticed it before.
“I’m sorry.” John put his arms around Dale and brought him in for a huge hug. I cried just seeing them together like that. Chrissy leaned against her father’s side and he included her too, the three of them standing on stage, one little family that had been the victim of more than enough drama in their lives.
“I was just trying to protect you,” John said. I saw he was crying too. “Your mother… when she’s not on her medication, she has these mood swings. She’s very volatile. I wanted to protect you from that. From her obsessions and her lies. I had no idea… I didn’t know, until Chrissy told me, that she’d convinced you both you weren’t even my children.”
“She told me Dad didn’t want me,” Chrissy said, her lower lip trembling. “She told me he only wanted you, because you were a boy. So I stayed… I stayed with her. Dale, she got so bad. Finally, Dad convinced her she needed to get help, go back on her medication.”
“She really is out of control when she’s not on her medications,” John said sadly. “She will go to great lengths to convince you to believe in her delusions. But I can assure you both, we never had a problem conceiving. You’re both very much my children.”
“Psst.” Sidney Clare tried to interrupt their little threesome. “Um, can you save some of this for when we come back live? This is great stuff!”
I stared at her, disbelieving.
“Fuck you, lady.” Dale shook his head. “Come on, let’s go home.”
“Wait!” Sidney Clare called after us as we started off stage. “Don’t you want to hear the DNA results? Tyler has a blood test that proves—”
“I don’t need proof,” Dale replied, looking straight at John. “This is my father. And I believe him.”
Backstage, the crew was going crazy, trying to get us all back onto the stage. We all refused, so Sidney Clare continued to talk to Tyler. I saw some of it as John and Dale and Chrissy stood there talking and hugging and telling each other things they’d never shared aloud to one another before.
Tyler did have DNA evidence. He’d done it, he said, to prove to Dale’s mother once and for all that he wasn’t the father of her children. She accused him of faking the test, switching samples. She simply wouldn’t believe.
Then Ben came backstage, giving me a giant hug before he said anything at all.
“You sure you want me as a daughter?” I asked. “We’re a pretty crazy family.”
“You know what?” Ben asked, smiling down at me. “I’ve found sometimes the best things in life are crazy.”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “You’re going to fit in just find around here.”
“Aimee!” I cried, waving her and Matt over. They’d found their way backstage. “Oh my god, you look gorgeous!”
“I look fat.” She made a face, rolling her eyes and smoothing her hands over her growing belly. “But she’s growing just fine, so I can live with it for nine months I guess. Looks like we’ll have a Christmas baby.”
“She?” I raised my eyebrows. “For sure, a girl?”
She nodded. “I think Matt wanted a boy but…”
“Nope.” Matt shook his head. “I just have to make sure I get myself a shotgun to sit on the porch with.”
I laughed.
“Well since the gang’s all here, how about we go to dinner before my son has to go play his music in front of thirty thousand fans?” John suggested, his arm around Dale’s shoulder.
“Proud Papa.” I kissed John on his now very smooth cheek.
“I have to make a phone call first,” Dale said.
