Loving Ashlynn (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 36 - Happy Family Reunion (Kalenah POV) pt.2

Chapter 36 – Happy Family Reunion (Kalenah POV) pt.2

When you find out that someone has deceived you beyond belief and expectations, I'm not sure but for me my own reaction would be to deny the truth despite it standing right in front of me, punching my wife and mother of my children. But that would only happen if I hadn't known the minor truths that came with Faith, the details I knew not as her step in guardian but as someone that was meant to be her therapist. With Leslie calming down Genesis, and all of the children coming to gather around Cynthia, I noticed two people who didn't have that same reaction.

The first was Naomi and of course considering this was a family issues that could explain why she wasn't checking on Cynthia. However the person I would expect before Leslie, Lydia and Lia to be catering to his mother – Andy – wasn't. Instead his eyes seemed to be gazing at the spot Faith once stood with unseeing eyes.

"Are you okay?" Took a step towards him, worried.

Blinking confused, he stared at me, his face ashen, "She – she's real? Fay is real?" and my heart broke all over again, not just for Faith, but for Andy as well.

"She – I didn't make her up?" he squinted, his head cocked to the side, one eye closed as the lines on his forehead deepened as growing frown.

"That girl is – is – must be an imposter!" Danny stood leaving Cynthia coming over to stand by Andy, resting a hand on the young boy, but he shrugged him off, "No – she – that's Fay," Andy whipped his head from side to side.

Danny, in a slower identical movement, "Fay was an adult – she was captured with your mom-"

Wide angry, boiling green eyes snapped open, "No she wasn't, Fay was small, she wasn't a grown up," Andy snapped, leaving no room for argument. "All these years, I thought I made her up," the ire gone and leaving behind a pitiful moan.

"Your mother – she – she believed that Sophie-"

"Fay."

"Faith." Andy and I interjected simultaneously, correcting Danny.

"There was no Sophie, Faith's name is Fatima Safiya Ashlynn," gazing at his eyes, his facial expressions I could tell none of those names meant a single thing to Danny letting me know that Cynthia had never once tried to come clean to her own husband. Which still left me wondering; why had Cynthia abandoned Faith?

"Danny... she lied to you, to us all," Jonah came forward to his own son, "She – you don't know what that poor girl has suffered because of your wife," Jonah's words harsh and direct, a father chastising his son.

"Dad – Cynthia wouldn't – it's all a big misunderstanding-"

"How can that be true Danny? Look at Andy right now? Are you calling him a liar as well?"

Grasping at straws now, "How do we even know that child – the girl – is related to Cynthia?"

"First that girl, her name is Faith, use it..." my anger building as his denseness seemed to multiply by the second, "second, she is the one that pulled my Talia out of a burning dorm room" Andy's eyes widen finally making the connection, "and third, we love you, but when you're in this house, you're in Faith's home, please respect that and if you can't get out," monotone and only getting worse, I let him know exactly where his family stood right now.

"She left Faith in Denver, Danny. She escaped with Andy, and purposely left Faith behind... in the same place that left her in the defeated and damaged position you found her in Danny! Then to gain your sympathy, she pretended that her own child had been murdered... you want to know why Faith punched her?"