Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Chapter 18

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  May 2018 bring you everything you need and want.

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Jon looked at his youngest son; his heart breaking.  To think that Ro had been holding that in for so long, he wanted to scream at Dorothea, for doing this to Romeo.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard the whispers.  “Romeo looks nothing like Jon.  Romeo, looks more like Richie than Jon.”  He knew Dorothea had affairs, the dojo instructor, the guy she ran into at the bookstore; one of the ‘friends’ she had at school. Richie, he didn’t know about, that’s one more black mark in the brotherhood, code of ethics. Seems that there was going to be a call to the west coast. 

“Come to the office so we can talk, ok Ro?”  Jon pushed away from the table.  He never knew when those files were going to ever see the light of day. Looked like today was going to be the day.

Romeo followed his dad. He would finally have the answers, which bothered him for years.  He heard it in school, you don’t look like your brother.  Then his mother’s rants, it just made him think about it more and more, was he not a Bongiovi?  Could he really be a Sambora?

Jon held the door open, and allowed Ro to come in. He sat in what he called the stink eye seat.  Jon went to the file cabinet, and brought out the file, he hoped would never see the light of day.  It wasn’t very thick, only having three or four pieces of paper in it. 

“Your mom, well, her sickness didn’t just start in the past few years.  It just got worse.”  Jon said as, instead of going behind the desk, he sat in the other chair next to Romeo.  “When your mom told me she was going to have a baby I was excited. I knew, that baby, was going to be our last one.  The doctor, he told us about this new treatment, would make it impossible for us to have more kids.  It broke your mom’s heart.  Then she started to blame me.”  Jon thought back on those horrific months.

“But pops, why would she blame you?  It was her drugs and her sickness, I don’t understand.”  Romeo face showed his confusion.

Jon remembered the day she was diagnosed with bipolar, manic depressive disorder.  She drugged herself to hide what was going on.  Touring and the fans, really got on her nerves.  The new meds gave her this Jackal and Hyde persona. 

“She blamed me for her having to be on the hotel road trip. For having fans hide in our room.”  Jon remembered one hotel that the walls were so thin, with Richie’s in the next room, having an orgy.  They had a huge blow up and he left and went into Richie room.  Dorothea, left the next day and that was their first break up.  But they made up, and she got her Dojo. That was the first time she took a lover.  “Your mom found someone to entertain her while I was on tour.” 

“She had a lot of friends Pops.”  Romeo told him.

“She sure did.  But she wanted to have more kids.  So for a few years, there were no more friends.  I took some time off, and it wasn’t long till Jake was born.”  Jon looked to see if Romeo was understanding.  “Then we had to go out on tour.  I came home as much as I could. Your grandparents took the Steph, Jesse and Jake for a few weeks and your mom came out on tour.  I could tell, she would be on and off her meds.  Then I heard, she was going to come off this one med, so she could have another baby.   I was excited when we found out it was a boy.”

“That was me, wasn’t it?”  Romeo asked. 

Jon took out the ultra sound photo and handed it to Romeo.

“That was your very first picture.”  He remembered how heartbroken Dorothea was, that it was another boy.  She had wanted one more girl, this was another stone around Jon’s neck.

Romeo looked at the ultrasound photo.

“Is it true, you were in London when I was born?”  Romeo handed the photo back to Jon.

“That’s right I was, but the jet was on standby, and I got here just minutes before you were born.” He remembered the inflight calls and being cussed out and called every name in the book. The car ride to the hospital was one of the longest he had ever ridden.  “I was in the room, when you came screaming into the world. I cut your cord and you peed on me.”  Jon smiled at the memory.

“Oh Pops.”  Romeo laughed.

“We hadn’t even gotten you home, when your mom, decided to tell me about how she spent her alone time.”  Jon got serious, and remembering the venom she spewed, in the earshot of his mother.  She had demanded that Jon get a paternity test, which he had been thinking, after all the accusations.

“Your Nana, was very mad.  She wanted me to test to see if you were my son.”  Jon watched Romeo closely, just to see how he accepted all this. It was a lot, even for a thirteen year old to take in.

“So you didn’t think I was your son?”  Romeo asked.

Jon took the final paper out of the file.  Handing it to his son and watched.

Romeo took the paper and began to read.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Chapter 17

The call to his parents went about the way he thought it would.  Dad just as easy going as always, mom like a terrier worrying a bone.  “How well do you know her and her family, is she after your money?  Don’t you think it’s too soon?”

He bit his tongue till he thought it would fall out of his mouth, when his dad finally reigned his mom in.

He called for a car to pick Colleen and the girls up, so she didn’t get lost.  Stephanie and Jesse would meet, him and the boys, at their grandparent’s house.   He and the boys would drive over later.

As Stephanie said, they would run the gauntlet early for him, and he would meet the driver, so they could get into the gated community.  He kept thinking, that he should warn Colleen about his mother, but he didn’t want to scare her off.  It had been six months since Dorothea has passed. Most of the men in his grief group, the one he had attended for two weeks, have moved on in a matter of weeks.  He was ready.  Why else would God have sent him into that bar in the Hamptons, if it wasn’t to meet Colleen?

He and Romeo sat down that morning over breakfast, not sure what was going to happen.

“Hey Ro, I wanted you to know, I invited Colleen and the two girls for lunch today.”  Jon buttered his toast, and watched his son for a reaction.

Not even a lift of an eyebrow or a sound, came from his youngest son.

“Is that okay with you Ro?  You had fun at dinner yesterday with the twins, didn’t you?”  Jon another tactic.

“Yeah I guess,” Romeo mumbled around his cereal.

“You like Miss O’Sullivan, don’t you?”  Jon prodded his son. It was like pulling teeth to get his normal hyper son to talk this morning.

“Yeah.”  Romeo mumbled.

They sat there quiet and all of a sudden Romeo spoke.

“Pops can I ask you something?? Romeo looked up at Jon.

“You can ask me anything Ro, you know that don’t you?”  Jon pushed his plate and coffee cup away.

“I guess.”  Romeo pushed his mushy cereal bowl away.

“Do you miss momma?”  Romeo looked up very seriously.

“Sure Ro, I miss her.”  Jon reached across the table toward his son.  “We were together for so very long, you know this.”  He watched the emotions cross his youngest sons face. “Is this because I’m starting to date?”

“I guess, I Stephanie and Jesse said we need to let you date, and the more I thought about it, I thought you forgot momma.”  Romeo looked up them.

“Ro, I will always miss your momma.  She was my life.  We were together for more than half of my life.”  Jon spoke from his heart.

“But pops, she left us.  She stopped taking her medication, and she let it make her different.”  Romeo told Jon.
This was the time when he was gone for a few short dates. He had noticed when he was home, that Ro had gotten quieter and was never alone with his mom.

Jon had some idea that Doro was pocketing her pills. Her idea was to tear down Jon. She would never go after her kids. It was always Jon, if he really loved her, he would stay home and be with the boys or take them with him.  He had noticed, that Romeo had changed so much.  He stayed more in his room.  He acted up at school, and both were not the Ro he had seen before Dorothea progressed in her illness.

“That was part of her illness Ro. It took over her thinking, she didn’t know what she was saying at times.”  Jon tried to explain to Romeo, what the doctor had told him, as her illness progressed.

“So, if she said something, it doesn’t mean it’s true.”  Romeo asked looking up very serious.

Jon was not expecting this question, he thought maybe she was rough with Romeo. He had such a happy inner spirit, but he knew that Romeo had changed so much in the past year.

“Ro, you know you can ask me anything.  I will always tell you the truth, no matter how hard it is.”  Jon was almost afraid of what he was going to ask.  He would talk to Jake and Jesse tomorrow at lunch to see what the hell they knew.

Romeo looked down at his mushy cereal, since his mother passed, he thought more and more about what she had screamed at him one day. Pops, was coming home late, last minute interview.  Jesse was at Notre Dame, Steph was in the city working fashion week, for uncle Mookie and Jake was at a football weekend.  So that left Romeo at home with a really pissed off mother.

“You, you called to tell her you were staying an extra day in London, she was so mad at you.” Romeo looked up and his eyes looked so like his mothers.  “I must not have done something right.  She started to yell at me, she threw her coffee cup at me and called me her worse mistake.  How long was she going to have to pay for her past sins?”  Romeo finally looked up at Jon, “I asked her what past sins, which wasn’t the right thing to say, she threw her plate at me.”

The more Romeo talked the madder he got. If Dorothea wasn’t dead, he would’ve killed her again.

“She told me she could’ve ended it all, but this was Gods punishment, that she would have to see me every day.”  Romeo had finally said the words he had been thinking those early Saturday morning words, before his mother went to the hospital.  “She said I was not your son, that Uncle Mookie was my dad, didn’t I ever notice, I don’t look like Jesse or Stephanie or even Jake?”

Jon sat there stunned.

“Are you my dad?” Ro finally asked, eyes on his dad, begging him to call his mom a liar.