Page 15 of Tito
She raised it up and stared at the photo, just as the phone dinged again. Her expression at first looked confused, then her eyes widened as she realized what I had. With a gasp, she whispered in a barely there voice, “He even sent the birth certificates?” Raising her stunned almost identical gaze to me she muttered, “This cannot be true…”
Romeo reached over as he gently took the phone from her and studied the messages there. “The hell is this?” he asked in confusion. “What…he can’t be real with this!”
Still shaking badly, I held my hand out to him.
Raising his gaze from the phone, he looked at me and placed it into my trembling hand.
I stared down at it then enlarged the photo of one certificate. “I can’t believe…” My voice faded away. Looking at the photo, I shook my head. “Is this really us?” I raised my gaze to Julianna.
Her face had lost almost all of its color as she stumbled to a chair and sat down. “It sure looks like it. Our parents have pictures of us as babies and we did look just like that. I don’t understand.”
“Me either. But it looks like…I was Ophelia’s daughter after all. The birth certificates are for the year we were born. But our names aren’t…” I felt light headed and moved over to the empty chair to sit down again.
“What are you saying?” Tito asked.
I studied the certificate and said, “This says our mother was Olivia Claire Walker…”
“What?” Zia exclaimed.
“No, no…” Julianna kept shaking her head in denial as she looked stunned.
Romeo placed his arm around her as he looked upset.
“Deacon sent an old picture of Ophelia and she is holding two babies. Then he attached two birth certificates. One for each of us?” I shrugged as I felt a little sick to my stomach.
“Can I see it?” Tito asked.
I handed him the phone.
Sitting in the chair, he’d uprighted from the floor, he peered down at my cell phone. After a minute, he read it aloud, “The mother is cited as Olivia Claire Walker. Father unknown?” He raised his head up to stare at me. “Then we have no idea which certificate belongs to which of you. It looks like…It has names similar to yours but—”
“They aren’t real!” Julianna exclaimed.
I looked over at her to ask, “And how do you know that?”
“Because we have parents. They live in New York. In fact, they…” She shook her head and went on, “They're coming to see us both soon. I was going to tell you today.”
I stared at her and asked, “You say they are Italian, correct?”
“Yes, they are.”
“And do either of them have green eyes and red hair?” I asked. “Like we do?”
She glared at me but she didn’t answer.
I waited a minute then asked again. “Well, do they?”
With a sigh, she shook her head as tears filled her eyes.
I felt bad as I didn’t mean to upset her further. “I-I’m sorry, Julianna. I’m just as confused as you are.”
“It has to be made up!” Julianna almost yelled as she clenched her hands into fists. “I mean those aren’t even our names! Either Ophelia did some manipulation with the photo or Deacon did.”
“Maybe.” I shook my head. “But what if that is the answer? What if she took me because we were really hers?”
“Then why just take you?” Zia asked.
Julianna and I looked at each other.
