For Her Honor

Chapter 26

"What Do you mean she isn't my mother?" I asked again when no one answered me the first three times I stated my question.

My heart was pumping at a rate I didn't even know was possible. My cheeks heated until it matched the temperature of an active volcano.My stomach churned uneasily as my fathers words continued to ring in my ears over and over again until it was the only thing I could hear within this otherwise silent room.

What happens when she finds out that this isn't her mother...

I wanted to believe that I just came into the conversation at a bad time. I wanted to believe that this was all some sick joke and soon they'd all jump up laughing. I wanted to believe that this wasn't the truth. But by the way everyone was staring at me speechlessly, I knew it wasn't any of those things that I wanted to believe in. This was actually happening to me right now. The woman that I thought was my mother, wasn't.

I didn't know who she was.

"Harmony, you should sit down." My father began, slowly making his way around Marco and towards me. But I backed up until I felt the door at my back. My father's face twisted in hurt, his eyes drifting to the floor while he tried to conjure up some way to explain what I had just heard.

"I don't want to sit down." I answered him quietly, wrapping my arms around my waist in the only way I knew to comfort myself, "I want to know what's going on."

My father scrubbed his hands down his face, then turned to look at the rest of the people sitting at the table. But still not a single person moved, not even my so called mother. She was watching me though, her eyes filled with tears as if she might cry. But why would she feel the need to cry, she hadn't just learned that she had been lied to her entire life.

"Okay, I guess there isn't any way to cover it up any longer." My father mumbled more so to himself than to anyone else. He finally dragged his eyes up to meet mine though I saw how unstable they were. As if he, too, would break down into tears at any moment. But I couldn't comprehend how either of my parents felt like they had the right to cry when it was me who was directly affected in this situation.

"Cover up what?" I interrogated slowly, watching him carefully.

He licked his lips in anticipation before speaking, "That woman standing behind me, the one you know as your mother...didn't give birth to you."

I had already known that sentence was going to leave his mouth but the moment he said it, I felt like I had just been hit by a truck. Or maybe a planet.

"What the hell does that mean?" I felt the tears gathering in my eyes, just barely blurring the vision of the man I had once respected whom stood before me, "How can she not be my mother? I remember her from when I was a kid, I remember her."

My father was nodding through my words but I saw how his shoulders sagged in guilt and defeat, "Yes. She raised you from the very second you were born and for all intended purposes, she is your mother. But not biologically."

There was this strange tug at my heart and I panicked that maybe it was going to stop beating all together. But with every word my father spoke, my pulse quickened until I feared that it might pound its way right our of my chest, "So are you saying that I'm adopted?"

My father shook his head and I could tell how badly he wanted to lock me in his arms and hold me until I stropped crying. It's what he always did, since the day my mother - or my 'not' mother - left us and went into hiding.

"No, you are my daughter biologically, just not Helen's." My father was staring at me desperately, as if he were begging me to understand. But I didn't understand any of this. I looked just like the woman sitting at that table, I acted just like that woman, I was basically a mini version of that woman. So how could I not be her daughter?