Chapter Thirty-four

**OLIVER**

Things never remained the same after my conversation with Sasha. I mean, how was I supposed to go pin living life after finding out that I had a half-sister who despised me and openly prayed for my downfall? Now, even more than ever, I was convinced that she had a huge part to play in the bloodshed that was coming. I swore under my breath and watched Gabriel as he downed the large bowl of food before him contemplated telling him the truth about Sasha, and then decided against me. For all I knew, she was lying, she might be psychotic.
“Your mind seems to stray far these days, Oliver,” Gabriel said, as he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “That’d make you grow old fast.”
I chuckled. “Well, I should be happy then that I have you by my side then.”
Gabriel laughed and then his face turned serious. “What are you thinking about?” He asked. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
His eyes dug into mine, as though trying to find the answer he knew my mouth wouldn’t speak, I looked away, not ready for him to unravel the storm brewing inside me.
I sighed. “It’s nothing…”
“Don’t lie to me, Oliver.”
I sighed again, he wouldn’t back down, that much I knew, and the intensity in which his eyes held mine hostage forced me to blurt out the first thing that came to mind.
“I’ve been having dreams…” I started. “Bad dreams…”
Gabriel nodded slowly. “What about?” He asked.
I shrugged and allowed my mind to wander back to the dread that visits me every night. “Blood…death…something dark, something really powerful,” my breath shuddered. “And then there was a war.”
Gabriel nodded slowly, as though trying to piece together tiny bits of a puzzle. “You too?”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I’ve been having those dreams myself. They seem to be getting worse with each passing day.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
Gabriel shrugged and raised his glass of water to his lips. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” he said and took a sip of water. “Matter of fact, I’m not sure I think anything of it now.”
I sighed. “There’s a storm brewing, Gabriel. I can feel it.”
He nodded and stood to his feet. “And when it comes, we will be here to face it. I have to go.”
I nodded and watched as Gabriel walked out of the house. His optimism was something I could use in this instant. I sighed and let my mind wander back to Sasha. I held my phone in my hand, turning it over and over, as though expecting it to do the difficult job of phoning my mother for me. I took a deep breath and pressed the phone to my ear, my breath shuddering with each ring that went unanswered. Finally, her voice came over the phone.
“Hello…”
“Hey, mom. It’s me.”
She chuckled. “I know it’s you.”
Silence reigned over the phone, the only thing to be heard was the static over the phone. At that moment, my mind went back to when we were kids, and all of the fond memories I had of my mother. At that moment, I wondered where it all went wrong.
And then I remembered. Jamie’s death. I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling the beginning of a headache.
“So…” she started and cleared her throat. “You called me.”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. Yes, I did…”
Silence again. The words were there, but the absurdity of the situation made it quite difficult to speak.
“I know you didn’t call because you miss me, Oliver,” she said. “So, what is it?”
“I mean, I do miss you…” I said and realized for myself how true the words were. I missed my mother, the one who stayed up late and played with us as kids. I didn’t recognize the woman who was my mother in my later years.
“Is Gabriel okay?” She asked, filling the silence.
“Yes, he is,” I took a deep breath and decided that it was time to stop beating about the bush. “I want to ask you something, and I need you to be very honest with me.”
Through the silence, I could hear my mother’s apprehension. “Okay…is something wrong?”
“Have you ever had an affair?” I asked, the words flowing quickly from my mouth.
The silence on the other end of the line was loud. The calm before the storm.
“What!?”
“Mom, I’m sorry…I know how this sounds, but…please, tell me the truth…”
“Of course not, Oliver!!”
I nodded slowly to myself and massaged the bridge of my nose, fighting the steady pounding in my head.
“Are you saying that you don’t know about a certain someone whose name is Sasha Brown, who has blond hair and blue eyes and just happens to look a lot like you?” I asked calmly.
The sharp intake of breath answered my question even before she opened her mouth to respond.
“You…” she stammered and her voice shook. “You’ve met Sasha?”
“So, you do know Sasha…”
“Oliver…”
“That brings me back to my earlier question of if you had an affair twenty years ago.”
I could hear her shuddered breath and sniffing on the other end of the line, accompanied by the sounds of her shoes and doors.
“I’m sorry…”
“About what?” I asked, genuinely not understanding what she was apologizing for.
“Not telling you about her…you see, her father just happened.”
“Well, she’s here…”
“Sasha? What is she doing there?” My mother asked, shock evident in her tone.
I could hear the anguish in her voice, each word heavy with regret. My grip on the phone tightened, my knuckles turning white as the anger bubbled within me.
“She’s your daughter, Mom,” I said, my voice strained and laced with bitterness. “How could you keep her a secret all these years? How could you never bring her to us?”
My mother’s breath hitched on the other end, and I could almost see the tears welling up in her eyes, the guilt that had been eating away at her for years.
“You don’t understand, Oliver. Your father… he would have killed us both. I couldn’t let that happen. Sasha was… she was my little secret. I had to protect her.”
I clenched my jaw, trying to steady the storm brewing inside me. The thought of my mother hiding something so monumental, an entire human being, shattered whatever little respect I had left. A small part of me had secretly hoped and prayed that Sasha had been lying, that everything she had said was mere hopes and aspirations.
“So you just… abandoned her? Left her to fend for herself while you played house with us?”
“It wasn’t like that!” she cried, her voice breaking. “I loved you. I loved Jamie. I loved her too, but your father was… he was dangerous, Oliver. I was scared. I didn’t want to lose any of you.”
A wave of rage surged through me. “You lost us anyway, Mom. You lost everything. And now she’s here, blaming me for your mistakes.”
My mother’s sobs echoed through the phone, the weight of her choices pressing down on her like a heavy burden she could never unload. “I didn’t want this, Oliver. I didn’t want any of this. I was trying to survive.”
I stared at the ceiling, blinking back my tears. The room felt colder, and darker, like the walls were closing in on me.
“You had a daughter. My sister. And you kept her a secret. Do you have any idea what that did to her? What it’s doing to me?”
The silence on the other end was deafening, punctuated only by the soft hiccups of my mother’s crying. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice small and broken. “I was selfish. I know that now. Please… let me come and see you. Let me see her. I need to make things right.”
I hesitated, my heart warring with my head. Could I let her back in? Could I forgive her for all the lies, all the pain she had caused? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Fine,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “You can come. But don’t expect this to be easy. Not for any of us.”
There was a pause, and then she whispered, “Thank you, Oliver. I won’t let you down again.”
I ended the call and dropped the phone onto the couch, the heaviness of the conversation settling over me like a thick fog. I had never felt so lost, so angry, and so conflicted all at once. My mother’s secrets had poisoned everything, and now, Sasha’s presence was a ticking time bomb threatening to tear apart whatever was left of my fragile world. And the fact that I still didn’t understand her mission for being here or how she planned to achieve it unsettled me greatly.
As I stared at the space Gabriel had left behind, I wondered if he’d be by my side when this storm finally hit. I wondered if any of us would survive it.