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.