Chapter 19

Erin fell asleep somewhere around one AM but Sonny was wide-awake.  The news he had heard from Karen prevented him from sleeping.  Sonny sat next to her and watcher her sleep.  He had never noticed how little she looked like Charlie until then.  Charlie used to have blond hair, pail skin, and blue eyes; Erin on the other hand had brown hair, brown eyes, and a dark complexion.  She was a startling contrast to her mother’s fiery red hair, dull blue eyes, and freckled skin.  Sonny smiled when he thought of Marie.  Erin defiantly got her temper from her mother.  Sonny had met Marie when Charlie had first come to work for him, which was before they had been married. Sonny remembered the night Marie had come to him asking for advice, her and Charlie had, had a big fight and she was worried that it was the end for them, all Sonny could do was comfort her the only way he knew how.  All of Marie’s worries had been for nothing, two days later her and Charlie got back together.  Charlie had proposed to Marie as soon as he had found out she was pregnet, seven moths later Erin was born.

Erin had been Charlie’s heart and soul.  She was the best thing that had ever happened to him; thank god Charlie wasn’t alive to hear what he just heard.  “If only I had known.” Sonny said in a whisper.  He reached out and stroked Erin’s hair softly.  “If I had only known, things could have been different.”  Sonny paused to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.  Then he continued to speak to Erin as she slept, this was the only way he could tell her, while she was asleep.  There was no way he could tell her this if she were awake.  “You know, I first met your mother seventeen years ago.  She was one of the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen, but she was taken.  Charlie loved her a lot, but Marie was a free spirit, she didn’t want to be tied down, not then, not ever. 

“But I still remember when she came to me, it was the middle of December, and she was worried that her and Charlie were over.  You see, they had gotten into a big fight over something, I don’t remember what, but it must have been something big because Charlie told her to get out of his sight, he didn’t ever want to see her again.  So she came to me, she wanted to know what I thought she should do.  I told her just to weight it out and to see what would happen.  She didn’t have anywhere to go so she stayed with me.

“It didn’t take long before Charlie missed her and asked her to come back to him.  Two moths later they were married, and then you were born in August.  You see, your mother was two months pregnet when her and Charlie got married.  I never did the math, but something caused me to do the math today, and if what Karen said was true, Charlie wasn’t your father…”  Sonny had to stop there, he couldn’t pronounce what he was thinking.  His heart and mind told him it was true, but he couldn’t believe it.  Silent tears were steaming down his face when he got up the curare to say what he knew in his heart was true.  “…I am.  I am your father.”

Sonny got up and turned away.  Guilt consumed him; all these years Charlie thought that the most important thing to him was his, but it turned out she wasn’t his daughter.  When Karen had taken him aside she told him that she had checked Erin’s records to get her blood type, and it also said her parent’s blood type.  At first she hadn’t caught it, but when she was looking over Erin’s chart to make sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything, that’s when she had seen it.  Erin’s mother’s blood type had been B and Charlie’s had been AB.  Erin’s blood type was O.  If the information was right then either Marie or Charlie wasn’t really her parent.  Sonny knew for sure that Marie was her mother, he had been there when she was born and he had watched her grow up.

One forgotten mistake had come back to haunt him.  That’s what it had been, a once-in-a-lifetime mistake that he and Marie had promised to forget.  They had never spoken of it again, but now he had to face the facts, there was no way that Charlie could be her father, and his blood type was O, a match to Erin’s.  How could Marie have kept this from him?  Why did she let Charlie believe that Erin was his daughter?

There was only one way to make sure that all this was true, he had to go back to the penthouse and go over his old employment records.  If what he found coincided with what Karen had told him, then he would call for a blood test, a secret one of coarse.  If his memory served him right, it wouldn’t take too long to get the results of the test.

Sonny’s brain was swarming with thoughts; he had to find some way to clear his mind.  He left Erin’s room and checked with the guard outside to make sure that no one was allowed in unless their name was on the list.