Chapter Nine
"I... I'm..."Stella stuttered.
She had played this conversation in her head dozens of times on her way over here, but now she couldn't seem to get a word out.
Tomas Gerold just stood there staring at her, not moving a muscle his face as white as a sheet. He stared at Stella in complete shock.
Stella mentally chastised herself.
What had she been thinking coming here? It was a stupid idea to begin with! What did she think his reaction would be? How could she do that to him? She remembered the reaction of everyone at the lab to seeing her after thinking she was dead and what did she do? Run to the person who loved her sister!
Well she was here now so she may as well explain herself
"I'm Stella Bonasera. I'm sorry ... I know what you must be thinking... Aletheia and I we are... we were twins..."
"I...I... I don't know what to say...", Tomas finally managed.
The both of them stood in door an awkward silence between them. Suddenly they heard a whimper and a moment later Lilian started crying.
"Why... why don't you come in?", he asked obviously still shocked at her appearance.
Stella nodded gratefully and entered the hotel room, while Tomas headed towards his crying daughter.
She had half expected him to slam the door in her face. She would have.
The hotel room seemed nice enough; there was one main room with a couch and a TV. It was painted a light green colour that matched the furniture.
He gestured for her to take a seat before he disappeared through one of the two doors leading of the lounge, which presumably led to the bedroom and the bathroom.
Stella sat down looking around the room until Tomas came back with little Lililan curled in his arms. She sobbed clutching a doll to her face.
"I think she's hungry...", said Tomas. He stalked off retrieving a bottle and giving it to his daughter. But Lilian just turned her head away and started crying again.
You miss your mummy don't you? You're probably wondering why she left you alone, abandoned you... Poor baby...
Stella watched Tomas trying to convince the baby to take the bottle he offered, but Lilian just cried harder.
"Lili baby, please, I know you are hungry...", he whispered, but the words just made Lilian cry harder.
"Ali was still breastfeeding her and she just doesn't want to take the bottle", said Tomas to know one in particular.
Stella didn't know why she suddenly felt angry.
Angry at her sister for not fighting harder, for dying, even though she knew how irrational that was. Angry at herself for not being able to do anything.
Angry at the world for letting her sister die and most of all angry at the person who murdered her.
She always considered that she wasn't capable of committing murder, but now she had to rethink. What would she do if she had the chance for revenge, would she take it? Was she capable of killing someone for her sister?
She honestly didn't know anymore.
It seemed that Tomas had finally convinced Lilian to take her bottle and diverted his attention back to her.
"What are you doing here? Aletheia never told me she had a sister", Tomas looked at her doubtfully.
"She probably didn't know, in fact I didn't even know I had a sister until ... well...until I saw her body...", What was she supposed to say to him.
That she came here because she had been curious? That sounded stupid and selfish!
Well maybe it was, maybe coming here in the first place had been selfish.
Looking at the man in front of her she felt that she should start at the beginning. She took a deep breath.
"I grew up in an orphanage. I never knew my parents. As far as I was aware I had no family. Then I found out about Alethia…."
She noticed him frown in confusion. "I am a detective with the crime lab when... they found your wife... Aletheias body, they thought... it was me... and well that's how I found out, that I ... had a sister... "
Stella ended her story and looked up at Tomas. She wondered if he had understood one word she had been saying, because she was sure she had rushed it all out in one breath. Hell, she wouldn't have understood a word she had been saying.
"So you and Aletheia... you never knew you were sisters or that you existed for that matter?"
"No... " God, what was she doing here? This man was obviously still in shock! "Look I'm sorry I shouldn't have come over here like this", apologized Stella.
"No no that's ok, it's just kind of sudden", answered Tomas, he looked down at Lilian, who had fallen asleep in his arms the bottle still in her mouth.
"I better take her to bed."
Stella sat still and for a moment she considered getting up and running away.
She didn't know what she was doing here anyway. She knew that Mac would kill her for this. He had told her to stay away.
"What do you want?", asked Tomas when he came back in.
Stella jumped at the sudden question, she had been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn't noticed Tomas coming back in.
"Sorry that was kind of rude, I just don't know-" He stopped unsure of what to say. He was just as unsure about this situation as Stella.
"That's ok…look I know this …all of this is a shock... I came here, because well I want to know something about Aletheia, about my family. For example what kind of person was she? Do I have more any more brothers or sisters? Was she adopted? ..."
That thought had never occurred to her before. It was a possibility she never considered.
She didn't know which answer she would like better. If she discovered that they were both put into care then there was the question of why Aletheia had been adopted and why she hadn't.
If Aletheia hadn't been adopted then there was the question of why had her parents given her up and kept Aletheia. She was surprised at the stab of jealousy she felt at her last thought.
Jealousy with what seemed to be anger at herself. Was it her own fault she had ended up in an orphanage?
"Her parents died in a car accident 3 years ago, it hit her really hard", he remembered with a slight smile on his face.
Stella looked at him strangely. How could smile, while telling her that her parents had died? Her parents were dead! The fact just registered in her mind.
Alethia's parents, her parents, were dead, she would never meet them. She was three years too late.
She was surprised she didn't feel more upset at the discovery. Was she a horrible person for not being sad? But all she could feel at the moment was numb.
Her whole world had been turned upside down in the last couple of days. It was just too much for her to take in.
"I'm sorry, it was a hard time for both of us and it was a terrible thing for her to loose her parents, but if she hadn't then we would never have met."
"Excuse me, but I don't understand...", said Stella, her tired brain wasn't really up to processing information.
"We met in a grief group, she couldn't deal with her parents death and I had just lost my first wife and my child, you know she was pregnant when she died."
Stella looked up and saw tears forming in his eyes. "I'm really sorry."
"We helped each other, I don't think I could have done it without her", he put his face in his hands, to cover up the fact, that he was crying.
"What am I supposed to do now? I can't live without her! I don't even know how to comfort Lillian, I mean I'm her father and I don't even know how to deal with her", he couldn't hide the sobs any longer.
Stella didn't know how to act, what to do.
Her sight was blurred from the tears that had begun forming in her own eyes as she finally allowed herself to cry.
For her sister, for her parents, both of whom she never met and yet she still felt like she wasn't a whole person without them.
Two people in the same hotel room, who didn't even know each other, yet crying for the same person. Sitting there together and yet isolated from each other, both lost in their own thoughts in their own worlds.
AN: This part was really hard to write and I'm still very unsure about it. You can thank my beta reader that I put it on at all. So please, please tell me what you think of it!