Chapter 34 Thunderstruck
“Alright, alright, enough.” Philip waved his hands impatiently. “We have no time to lose. Get registered right away. If someone asks, say you’re married a long time ago and lived separately because of disagreements. Now you have made up, so you came back. My grandsons will be legitimate children then. I won’t butt in about how you do this, but I won’t let anything happen to my grandkids.”
Madeline thought, You just told us to get registered right away, and that’s ‘not butting in’? But I’m fine with that. Getting her sons the ‘legitimate children’ status was too tempting, and she gave in, so she looked at Sebastian.
Sebastian nodded. “We’ll go right away.”
Philip snorted and rolled his eyes. “Never knew my son’s a sucker for good looks. Shallow! How disgraceful!”
Well, you can call me shallow all you want, because you’re my dad. He looked at Madeline. “So, do you have your IDs?”
“Yep,” she said. “But we can’t go right now. We have to wait until the boys wake up so we can tell them where we’re going. Buddy will cry if he doesn’t see me when he wakes up.”
“It’s fine.” Philip waved them off. “I’m here to keep an eye on them. If they want to see you when they wake up, I’ll just call.”
“Um…” Madeline hesitated.
“Let’s do as Dad says,” Sebastian said. “The more you stay with them, the less confidence they’ll have when the time for you to leave comes. If you leave them alone a few times and come back within the time limit, they’ll know you’ll come back no matter where you go. It’ll be easier for them to accept it when you have to be separated from them for a few hours every day eventually. Once you settle down, it’s time for them to go to school, and you can’t stay with them all day, can you?”
Madeline was still hesitating, but she was convinced in the end. What Sebastian said made sense. The boys were growing up, so what she had to do was build their sense of security up so they could be independent instead of overly relying on her. Now, they would get nervous and anxious the moment she was out of their sights. “Okay.” She nodded. “Let’s do this.”
She left the kids to Philip and took her IDs before she went with Sebastian to the Civil Affairs Bureau. Sebastian was driving.
She looked out the window while she was on the way there, and she felt like everything was a dream. All of a sudden, she was getting married to a man whom she just met. She would never have thought of this even in her wildest dreams. But even if this is a dream, it’s a good one. My boys will be legitimate children very soon. No matter what happens to this marriage, at least the boys won’t be looked down on because of their background. She held her IDs tightly, her heart filled with excitement.
Suddenly, her phone rang. She took it out and frowned when she saw who the caller was.
Sebastian noticed the look on her face, and he glanced at her phone screen. It read, ‘Uncle’. Oh. Nigel. The Taylors’ leader who looks smart but actually got played like a fiddle. He smirked. He could see that his life would be really interesting for a very long time. His life before this was dull and without excitement. He preferred the excitement.
Madeline sighed almost inaudibly, but she took the call. “Hello, uncle.”
“Madeline…” He called Madeline’s name, but he couldn’t say anything else. The words were stuck in his throat like a fishbone.
After Phoebe got into trouble, he came to Dusktown all the way from Worrick, but the moment he came to the Taylors’ base in Dusktown, Dan came to him, looking distraught and sad. He said Madeline could be Crystal’s real daughter, and that Angie was just a fake. He told her Madeline was most possibly the Wendel couple’s real child.
The news shocked him, and he couldn’t believe that it was real. But when Dan sat down before him and threw all the proof in his face, he had to believe it. The clues lined up perfectly, and the explanation was logical. When he came to that conclusion, he had plopped down on his chair and fell into a trance.
If Madeline is Crystal and Michael’s kid, that means she’s my own niece. And how did I treat her all these years? Like a servant whom anyone can order around. Phoebe and Isabel especially. They don’t even think of Madeline as human.
The first two years after Madeline came, Sam was studying abroad, he was busy with work, and Dan went on a globetrotting adventure, leaving only Phoebe and Isabel as masters of the house. They had almost tortured Madeline to death.
When Sam came back, Madeline was nothing but skin and bones. She had injuries all over her body, and she was almost dying. Sam flew into a rage and chastised Isabel. That made those women hold back. Sam then sent Madeline to a martial arts class so she could learn how to defend herself. Even so, that only made sure Madeline wasn’t beaten up physically.
The mental torture never stopped, even until she had left the Taylors. They saw Madeline as less than trash, saying that she was a stain on the family name. They said the Taylors had raised her, and that was already kind enough, so they justified working her to the bone. ‘Debt repayment’, they told him.
He was busy with work, and he couldn’t care less about the drama between women, so he let Phoebe and Isabel do as they liked. He too shared their opinion. Since Madeline was Cameron’s daughter, and Cameron’s mother destroyed his parents’ relationship, he saw no point raising a homewrecker’s granddaughter.
It if weren’t for Dan going against him in his younger days and threatening to do something outrageous unless they took Madeline in, he would rather feed their leftovers to the dogs instead. Just like what Phoebe and Isabel had said, he thought it was already magnanimous enough for the Taylors to raise Madeline. She was just the granddaughter of a homewrecker. He couldn’t and wouldn’t raise her like a young miss. That was what he thought.
Because of that line of thought, Madeline was only a young miss in name, but a servant in reality. He never cared about her, as he thought that was what she deserved. Reality, however, decided to teach him a punishing lesson. The girl whom I have mistreated for so many years is my real niece and not a homewrecker’s granddaughter? Gods. How am I supposed to face Madeline now? How am I supposed to face Crystal and her husband?
