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.