AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I figured I'd surprise you. There's something I wanted to talk to you about that couldn't wait."
Dad pulled back and looked at me, his eyes traveling the length of my body like he was making sure I was okay. "Whatever you wanted to talk about could've been done on the phone, you know. That's a long day of driving for you."
I shrugged it off. "It was actually a peaceful drive and something I needed to clear my head."
The woman to my right shifted from the corner of my eye and I glanced at her. She was still staring at me. Sunlight filtered through the room from the large window behind Dad’s desk and cast over the petite woman. God, she looked familiar and I wished I could place her. I noticed the color of her hair was a dark brown, but when she tilted her head just slightly and the sun hit it at the right angle, there was a red undertone to it.
The same undertone as mine.
Something in my chest immobilized me and my arms went numb, my fingers tingling with iciness.
Dad cleared his throat and I tried to look at him, but my gaze was locked firmly on her cobalt blue eyes. She had porcelain skin, a small but pointy nose, and I thought I caught sight of sun-kissed freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose the same way mine were.
She stood up and instinctively I took a step toward my dad. My knees shook and my heart pounded. She didn't move closer, and she looked scared. She was about a couple of inches taller than me but had the same exact body type as I did.
"Dad? Who is this?" I whispered, blindly reaching for him. My voice actually shook, but somehow, in the pit of my stomach, I already knew the answer.
She looked at my dad then back at me, fear showing on her face. Her gaze told a story, and it was one I had a feeling I wouldn't be prepared for.
"Adrianna?" she said, in the softest, gentlest voice I’d ever heard. She covered her mouth. And somehow, someway, I knew who she was in that moment.
I gasped, air lodged in my throat. My heart raced faster than it ever had. I couldn't deviate my gaze from hers, it was impossible when she looked at me like she'd been waiting her whole life for this moment. Breathing in, my chest rose and fell so fast it was starting to ache.
Her eyes watered and she lifted her arm and reached out like she couldn’t believe I was standing in front of her, then she pulled it back. She clasped her hands in front of her like she was struggling to stand in place. A tear rolled down her cheek.
"Adrianna, sweetie," Dad said with a bit of a wavering voice. He moved to stand to the side so he was in my vision. "This is Sophia."
"Sophia?" I whispered, testing the name out and her eyes flickered. "Sophia?"
It was the strangest thing. It was like Sophia and I were in a daze and it was only us in the room. I could feel her reaching out for me, I could feel her need to be closer, but she was scared and didn't know what she should do. Truthfully, I didn't know what to do myself. In some unexplainable way, I knew in my heart who she was the moment I’d stepped into this office, and I didn't know how to feel about that.
"She's your…" Dad paused, and swallowed. "She is your biological mother."
Another tear rolled down her cheek and something inside me chipped away. I was sad. I suddenly felt bad she'd never gotten to see her child in the flesh for nearly seventeen years, and I put myself in her place. I'd want to run to my daughter, wrap my arms around her and never let her go. But she couldn't do that since I was virtually a stranger, even though I gathered that her heart was crying out to. She probably didn't know what the right thing was to do, or how I would react. I wasn't sure how to react. She was the mother I was supposed to have but instead I grew up with Cruella de Vil, for reasons I still didn't know. But something in my gut told me those reasons were not because she didn't want me, not with how she looked like she'd been looking for me my whole life, like I was the missing piece of her heart she’d finally found.
So I took it upon myself and walked over to her until I was standing just a few inches away. I had to look up, but not by much. I put my hand out to touch her hair, and saw the color was exactly like mine. The resemblance was staggering. When I walked in and felt like she looked familiar, it was because we were practically identical. The only difference was the color of her eyes, but everything down to the heart shape of her face, the way the freckles lightly decorated her creamy skin, her full lips that were trembling, and her wide, downturned eyes, was all me.
This was why Thomas wanted to make my dad aware I was home. He’d known Sophia was in here.
"You look just like my sister," she said in awe. She stared, her eyes unblinking. Sophia's voice broke like she was on the verge of a breakdown. "It's startling." There was a slight accent to her words, but I couldn't place it. "There are so many things I want to say to you, but I don't know where to start."
Something inside me perked up. "I have an aunt?"
Her eyes watered again and this time her jaw trembled. "You had an aunt."
"Oh," was all I could say. My shoulders dropped a little.
"Her name was Francesca. She died a month before you were born."
* * *
"Francesca?"
I turned back to Dad for clarification. He walked over to us, nodding.
"This isn't exactly how I envisioned you guys would meet," he said, his voice full of regret. "I'm sorry for this."
I shook my head, baffled. "You didn't know I would be here, and I didn't know she would be either. It was just by chance." And the perfect chance, really, after what I had learned today. Only, I wasn't sure how I would broach the topic now that she was here. Was it acceptable to start digging around about her family history on the first day? Probably not.
