Divine Deception“Inside Sadie Lawrence”
Five months. William's five months already and he's growing up so fast. I get it, I'm a mother and I'm supposed to say it, but when they say that in a blink of an eye your children will be leaving the house, I have come to the conclusion that they might be right. He's grown a thick head of hair, he's already outgrown most of his sleepers. William's begun crawling and grabbing onto things. It's strange to think it was only Love Day that he came into this world. Being at that spa with my mother, being in Sunset Valley... It was so long ago. My heart drops a bit every time I think about it, how Nathan's already missed so much of his son's life. What's even more frustrating is the fact that I know if Nathan was himself, he wouldn't want to be left in the dark. He'd want to be here, by my side, being a father. I guess things change, though, and others won't. After coming home from Master Lee's funeral, I decided that William is my top priority. Seeing Daniel proved to me that a child can't be ripped from a parent's grasp, and if Kyra even thinks about doing something so preposterous, I will be ready for her.
William, my mother and I are at Tiny Prodigies and my mother is prattling on about this, that and the other while we sit a little ways away form the play pen William is in, waiting for the session to end with the teachers. I'm not listening to much she says. She's been talking since the moment we returned after grabbing a cup of coffee.
I turn to look at her eyes and say, "I'm thinking of changing my name..." I glance down to the pen William is in, "our name."
Sadie comes up short, tilting her head as if she's hearing something completely off the walls. "Your last name?" she clarifies. "Where is this coming from?"
"From everything that's happened," I say. "If you think about Peters and the whole mess regarding Paragon, it was all tied to the Alto name. Just because we are a part of the Alto heritage, we're linked to that all the time. It's not enough that the simple folk see the name as a disgrace, everything bad that has happened to us has been because of the name as well." I pause as I look back at William again. "And now with this whole thing with Master Lee and Kyra... I'm scared and... I don't want to be on the run all the time. I shouldn't have to run because my father and Vita were bad, bad people."
Sadie takes a deep breath across from me and ponders what I've just said. She turns and looks out the window, out to the blue sky, the sunny day. It's absolutely perfect out and there's something in her eyes that she sees that I can't. Something far off in the distance, maybe even back in time.
"I can't say Vita, or even Nick for that matter, were ever completely bad," she says, looking back at me. "Nobody is, Delilah. We make bad choices for some of the stupidest of reasons, but even the cruelest of people can have a warm heart."
I sense that she's talking about herself. We've spoken on and off about what she did to the Altos, how she slithered her way into the family and tore them apart from the inside.
"Vita could be seen as a terrible person. She made bad decisions, she swindled a government and did a lot of illegal things. It was one of the main reasons why I was activated to destroy her." Sadie pauses, reliving a memory I still can't see. "But when I was singed by my own flame, so to speak, it was Vita who took you in, took you in and loved you like you were her own. Vita Alto was a better mother than I could have been for you. I was a broken woman. I could barely be there for myself."
Sadie clears her throat and blinks incessantly. "What I'm trying to say, Delilah, is not to let your past frame your future. You're a smart girl, and as much as I hate to say it, it's not because of me. The Alto name isn't all bad and if you're thinking of changing because of that, I would suggest holding onto it. Don't live in the bad of the Alto name, do something good with it instead."
Looking down at my hands, I don't know how I should feel after that. Why am I changing my name? Sure, my first impulse to change it is because I fear my child, my family getting into danger because of my silly link to my previous life. But I've been hiding behind my alias Deli Solomon since I arrived at Vic and Sadie's house last Christmas.
"I've just heard so many stories about them, seen so much on the news... Sometimes I just don't know who they really were. The media, everybody has made them look like monsters and I don't want William to grow up with a tainted history."
I watch my mother give me a look and then glances outside again. After a moment, she pulls out her phone, steps away to make a phone call and then returns. She tells me that Vic is on his way to pick up William and that she is going to take me out.
My mother tells me to close my eyes the moment we get into the car and while I may be reluctant to do so, the last time she said she was taking me somewhere we ended up in Sunset Valley, I close them anyway. The drive is a short one, maybe five minutes, and when she tells me I can open them, I am looking at the large banner above the complex in the parking lot.
The Summer Festival.
"Over that year with your father and Vita, I used to come to these things all the time," Sadie tells me as she closes the door to the car and begins walking up the strip. "Summer, fall, winter. I think I only ever missed the spring one in Sunset because I was pregnant with you and you were sending little hints you were on the way."
I only went to a few during my years in Sunset, yet I remember how the central park in town was always bustling with the town folk and even with people from miles away. It was a big deal back then. And it seems to be no different here. Men and women gather round to the local festival, paying for tickets and shoving their way inside to get started with the day of fun.
My mother hauls me to the skating ring. As she is taking off her shoes and replacing them with a pair of roller skates, she says, "It feels so right putting these on again." She ties the pink laces at tight as they are willing to go.
I know my mother is a good skater. I saw her on the ice this past winter and I've heard how she'd go with my father to the festival and either ice skate or roller skate. She once told me that she enjoyed it much more when my father was around. Supposedly, once or twice she'd been grouped up with a man named Gobias and she absolutely dreaded going anywhere with him. Skating wasn't fun with him around. Actually the only reason she agreed to go with him to the festivals was so she could get away from him if that makes sense.
Unfortunately, I learn early on that I am not naturally gifted like my mother in the skating sense. I remember as a kid how I could skate like nobody's business, though now that I think about it, it might have been because I used inline skates.
After I take out an elderly couple and almost take a child down to the ground with me, my mother is at my side, helping me with my balance and bringing me to the centre of the ring to help me out.
"Just like your father," Sadie comments with a smirk.
I huff a bit, doing everything in my power to keep upright. Any slight movement left or right and the both of us are going down with a loud thud. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that you have terrible balance, just like him." Sadie begins to laugh and I do too. "Ah, don't fret. He could make a killer snowman. I'm sure you can as well."
We both get a bit hot and decide to head outside to cool off. There's a balloon fight fortress on the far side of the complex and the sound of laughter and balloons breaking in a gush gravitates us towards it.
Sadie grabs a balloon from the basket on the ground. "This was how I first met Vita. Gobias dragged me to my first festival in Sunset. He's probably the one person I don't regret walking out on."
I know what she means. Sadie throws her balloon across the way and hits an older woman in the face. She falls backwards and upon closer inspection I realize it's Flo Broke. I smile inside and out. As much as my mother disliked this Gobias person, I don't much like Flo.
"But," my mother continues, "because of him I was able to meet Vita. That night we pummeled Gobias with water balloons just like these. Ah, to see those ugly face paintings smear and drip off his face."
Tossing the balloon in her hand in the air and catching it, Sadie readies herself to throw it at the newcomer across the way. Yet as she leans back, as she stretches her arm back to gather some good power, my mother stalls, stops and hesitates to lob it over to the other side. It takes me a moment to realize why...
The woman almost looks like a younger version of Vita Alto. From the hair, all the way to the burgundy jacket I know Vita used to wear all the time in photos. I can only wonder what is going on through my mother's head before the balloon comes and hits her.
My mother is a good sport. She laughs it off, but I was able to see the surprise in her eyes. I was able to witness how she really believed Vita was across from her again, playing a round of water balloons like it was twenty years ago. How couldn't she? Even I thought for a split second that Vita had come back.
Once our balloons are gone, I bring my mother over to a picnic table next to the band in the corner. I tell her that I will be back and that I am going to grab each of us a drink. When I return, a bottle of water in each hand, there Sadie is with the band. She'd taken one of their guitars, borrowed more likely, and has led them in to play some song I don't know.
"You play the guitar too?" I ask, baffled. Is there anything this woman can't physically do?
"I'm a woman with many talents," she says to me and keeps strumming. She finishes the song and hands the guitar back off to its rightful owner. "Vita taught me how to play when I first moved in to Alto Manor," she says softly as she grabs her water bottle from my hands and takes a seat at the picnic table again."
"You two were really close, weren't you?"
My mother nods. "It's funny, I think about that whole moment all the time... How I met Vita, how she welcomed me into her home, asked me to her parties..." She chuckles and pulls her arms close to herself. "Told me I could live with her when Gobias kicked me out. She was always there and even if she did bad things, deep down she really was a good person. She was a good friend..." Sadie brings her eyes up to meet mine. "And I destroyed it."
I see in my mother's eyes how much this affects her. Everything that happened the moment she'd been asked to travel to Sunset Valley, dropped off at Gobias's house and asked to destroy Vita and Nick...
"How do you get past it?" I ask her. I watch her consider the question and she turns her body towards me, like she'd ready to open up and that's when I hear the loud alarm go off. Across the path from us a hotdog eating contest is about to begin. They're just waiting for somebody to fill the final spot.
"That brings back memories," she says to me as she gets to her feet. She's already started walking towards the table before I grab her arm.
"No, wait, how did you get past it?" I repeat, but she's not listening. She'd actually dragging me with her to the table, going on and on about some person named Marlie and how they had met each other during one of these contests.
And then it hits me.
The alarm goes off again, readying everybody, my mother included, behind the table. Another goes off and all four of them begin stuffing their faces with hotdogs as the time counts down.
"She's never gotten over it," I whisper to myself. The moment we arrived, my mother's been bombarded with memories. From my father to Vita, to the havoc that erupted between everybody to the little things one would think she'd forget. Roller skating and balloon fights. Guitar playing and hotdog eating contests. Everything was thrown at her from the moment we stepped out of that car and each time Sadie relives it, she rushes on to the next thing in hopes that she'll forget. Sadie Lawrence has never gotten over the hell Paragon put her through. All she does is bury it in hopes that she'll never have to experience it again.
It takes a while for it all to set in. I separate from my mother for a few hours while she plays the guitar again. I grab a snow cone and think about what I've come to realize.
When I first came to her doorstep back in the winter, I looked up at my mother because I thought she was some strong woman. Watching her fight off against Peters and work her magic to make sure I was safe after he was out of the picture. Everything she did was so on point that I looked up at her like she was some super human, a woman with an impenetrable finish.
But as I pull back that stiff layer, I see that fragile person that hides inside. Sadie Alto was built to destroy. From the time she got hooked up with the Altos all the way until she was destroyed by her own fire, everything, everyone in her path was expendable. Sadie Lawrence wasn't, however. She's a normal person with feelings, who experiences pain and heartache. Who feels remorse and has regrets. She's a human being just like me. Who put herself in so much danger after I was born to keep me safe...
I spot her walking up the stairs, looking for me. She sees me and makes her way over.
"There you are!" She takes and seat and twists off the cap of her water bottle. "I've been looking for you for ages."
"Sorry, I just needed a break."
"What have you been doing?" She gets a glimpse of something on my face and grabs a napkin to wipe it from my cheek. "Other than eating snow cones?"
I swat her away like a child. "I've been thinking."
"About?"
"Changing my name," I answer.
"Again?"
"I want to change it to Lawrence." I can see a flash in her eyes, confusion, disagreement maybe, so I don't let her speak, not yet. "I know it's been rocky between us since the beginning, but over this past year... I see things differently now. I've made a lot of mistakes and a lot has gone on, yet you're always there for me. You speak about how you've made a lot of your own mistakes, but you are my mistake... I... I..." I stop and take a deep breath. "I've judged you from the very beginning... I judge everything because I am judgemental... But I can kind of see everything clearly now. I've blamed people I shouldn't have, I've blamed you for things that didn't even have to do with you."
"I've made a lot of mistakes, Delilah. Don't pretend like they never happened."
"I know, but I can't keep dwelling on it either. Over this past year with you and Vic, I feel right being with you. It feels right."
"Delilah..."
"I respect you and I forgive you. I want you to be a part of my life, and that's why I want to take the Lawrence name back."
A smile slowly forms on my mother's face. "You know nothing would make me happier. I love you, Delilah. I have since the moment I brought you home and it has never stopped. Not eighteen years ago, not now."
In the moment, we head down and take a photo of ourselves. When we're done, we are just in time for the fireworks to go off. I stand there, my mother next to me and as the sky bursts in beautiful colours high above us, all I can do is stare at the side of my mother's face. For how long I have hated this woman. I have blamed her for a life I thought once was full of misery. I forced myself to keep distant even when I was welcomed into her home. And right now I hate myself for putting not only myself through it, but her as well.
As the final firework goes off, I lean into my mother like I did the day I ended up on her doorstep. I wrap my arms around her and hug her. My mother hugs me back, tightly, as if never wanting to let go.
Arms still holding each other, I look up at her. "I had a really great time today."
"I did too. You know I love you."
I nod. "I love you too... Mom."
I haven't called anybody Mom since the night of Vita's death. It sounds strange saying it again at first, but the more I think about putting the label with Sadie in my mind, the smoother it becomes. It's taken me this long to embrace her as my mother and now I can call her it too. Mom... Mom... I didn't lie when I said to her that being with her felt right. I am no longer looking at Sadie Alto, the destroyer. I don't see a hardened shell fighting off the Reginald Peters of the world. I see my mother, Sadie Lawrence. The woman I trust, the one I love. It feels so easy now that it all slips past my lips and thoughts. I guess it just took getting inside Sadie Lawrence's head to come to the realization.
