Stolen Identity: Mute Heiress

Chapter 348: I Can Be That?

As Callan walked into the house, he was surprised to see his mother in the living room, busy on her laptop.

She raised her head when she heard him walk in and smiled at him. "Good morning, darling. You’re back."

"Good morning, Mom," he greeted as he walked over to where she was seated and kissed her cheek. "Why aren’t you at the office?" He asked curiously, since he had expected not to meet either of his parents at home.

"I have a couple of things to take care of. And I wanted to be home when you came in. You’re leaving tomorrow so I have to spend some time alone with you," she said with a wink, then took a closer look at him. "Why do you look like you didn’t sleep well?"

Callan brushed his fingers through his hair. "Because I didn’t," he said with a sigh and sat down next to her. "What are you doing?"

"Something that can wait while I talk to the second love of my life," she said, and Callan’s lips lifted in an involuntary smile at that.

"How was your sleepover? Were you able to talk to her?" She asked, pushing her laptop aside to give him her full attention.

"Yeah," Callan said, not sure how much to reveal to her.

"So? How did it go?"

Callan shrugged. "I still have a long way to go. I’ll update you when I make progress."

"Good. Don’t give up, okay? Good thing you both have some months to go in Husla," she said, and Callan smiled.

"What if I don’t want to stay until six months? Can I come back before six months if I wrap up everything in time?"

His mother arched a brow. "Sure. But why do you ask? Do you want to leave Emily behind in Husla?"

Callan looked down at his phone when it buzzed. His heart skipped a beat when he saw it was a text from Emily. He looked at his mother, "I’m just asking. I don’t think I want to be away for that long," he said, and then gestured towards his room. "I need to go in to freshen up. I’ll be down in a jiffy."

"I’ll be waiting."

As Callan climbed the stairs, he opened the text.

Emily>: What did Mari say to you? Are you okay?

His steps faltered as he read the text and he once again wondered why she cared about him so much.

Callan>: I’m fine. She didn’t say anything bad, so you don’t have to worry. Thank you, Em.

Just as he walked into his room her response came again.

Emily>: What are you thanking me for?

Callan>: For seeing me and caring about my feelings the way you do even though I don’t deserve it. I’ll be better. I promise.

Emily responded with a rolling eyes emoji followed by a text.

Emily>: We will see.

Guessing that the text was over, Callan went in to freshen up, and when he returned he picked up his phone again and sighed when he saw there was no more message from Emily.

He went downstairs to join his mother again, and when he got there she was busy on the phone with someone.

She smiled at him as he sat beside her. "Yes. We’ve talked about it. We will get it done, then Genevieve will deliver it to Westend."

Callan raised a brow at that, but said nothing until she hung up the call.

"What was that about?" Callan asked.

"Ryan’s lawyer got in touch with the hospital and he was connected to me. He says Ryan’s wish was to be cremated and for his ashes to be spread over your mother’s grave. I spoke with Genevieve earlier. She should be here soon. She offered to take the ashes to Westend."

"Why do you have to obey his wishes when he didn’t care about ours?"

His mother gave him a soft look. "It’s okay if you don’t want to get involved," she said gently without answering his question.

Callan’s jaw tightened. He leaned back into the couch and crossed his arms. "I just don’t get why you’re doing this."

"I know," she said quietly. "And you don’t have to understand it. You just have to know that I’m doing this both as his cousin, and as your mother so we can finally close that Chapter."

Callan let out a slow breath, then nodded once. "Fine. Do whatever you think is right."

She reached out and squeezed his hand. "Thank you for trusting me."

Just then, the doorbell rang.

His mother glanced toward the door. "That must be Genevieve. I’ll get it," his mother said, already rising.

She walked to the door and opened it to see Genevieve standing there, looking a little bit uncertain and tired.

"Hello, Genevieve. Good morning," Delilah greeted warmly. "Please, come in."

"Good morning, ma’am," Genevieve greeted with a polite smile before stepping inside.

"Please sit," said kindly, pointing to the couch when they got to the living room.

Genevieve’s eyes flicked to Callan just for a second. He gave her a polite nod.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she replied, her voice low.

An awkward pause settled in the room since they both didn’t know how to address or treat each other.

Delilah cleared her throat. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

Genevieve nodded. "I didn’t have anything to do. And I thought it would be better to handle it early."

Callan looked at her. "So... you’re really taking the ashes to Westend?"

Genevieve clasped her hands together in front of her. "Yes," she said. "I’ll leave after the funeral."

His brows pulled together. "I saw the way he talked to you at the hospital. You saw what he did. How he didn’t care about any of us. Let’s not forget the video he made making you look like the bad guy. Why go through the stress for someone like that?"

His mother shot him a warning look. "Callan."

Before any of them could say anything else, Genevieve spoke first. She gave a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

"No matter how badly he treated me, he was better than my mother. I wish he didn’t do what he did, but knowing that he wasn’t my biological father made me come to terms with the way he treated me. I want to send him off properly. He deserves that much from me. I don’t expect you to understand."

Callan sighed and rose from his seat. "I’ll leave you both to it," he said, and excused himself.

"I’m sorry about that," Delilah said as Callan walked away.

"It’s fine. I can’t imagine how he must feel," Genevieve murmured.

"What about you? How do you feel? I saw your video," Delilah said, smiling at her. "It reminded me of myself years ago."

"In what way?" Genevieve asked, confused.

Delilah smiled. "A long time ago, I did some pretty terrible things. I used to pretend to be in love with men from wealthy homes and then I’d make their mothers disapprove of me to the point they’d be willing to offer me huge amounts of money to leave their sons."

Genevieve’s eyes widened. "You?"

Delilah giggled at her surprise, "Yeah. Actually I targeted my husband with the same plan in mind, but he knew about it even before I got to him. He outsmarted me."

"And he married you?" Genevieve asked without thinking, but amazed and amused by the story.

"Yes, he did. Even when I didn’t want to get married to him, he convinced me to. His grandmother, God bless her soul, also encouraged me a lot despite knowing all I’d done. They didn’t mind that my reputation might affect the Quinn family name negatively."

Genevieve frowned. "I don’t understand how it relates to what I did."

"It’s a long story. But the point is, I chose to expose myself before anyone else could. I confessed to my crime and all. The truth set me free. In the same manner, your truth, would set you free. It must have taken a lot of courage to put yourself out that way," Delilah said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it.

"I didn’t exactly do it for myself. I did it because I wanted Dawn to get closure."

"How do you know exposing you herself wouldn’t have been a way for her to get closure? What you did had little to do with her and more to do with yourself. You can’t determine how she gets her closure. That’s for her to decide. But I’m telling you what you did is not a bad thing. You did what was right for yourself."

Tears gathered in Genevieve’s eyes. "I wasn’t trying to be selfish."

"Doing what you did does not make you selfish. When I released the news about myself, I did it because I was worried about my husband than myself. I did it because I wanted to control the narrative. I wanted the truth out there to be from me. It’s okay, Genevieve. You did what was wrong, don’t beat yourself over it. Life wasn’t fair to you and you survived the best way you could. You’ve learned your lesson. Pick up yourself and do better going forward. That’s what I did."

"I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what to do," Genevieve confessed as tears dropped from her eyes.

"Live right. Take it one day at a time. Focus on being a good person today and making the lives of others better. You could find purpose in your pain. You could even decide to be a human right activist for sexually abused kids."

"I can be that?" Genevieve asked thoughtfully.

"Yes. You can do anything and be anything you want to be, my friend," Delilah said with a sweet smile as she patted Genevieve’s hand. "And I’ll be more than happy to assist you however I can. So, you can consider me your friend."

Genevieve swallowed hard, her throat tight with tears. "I can?"

"Of course. I understand you. And I know you need a friend. I’m happy to be that friend. I’ll go up to get my bag and then we can head out to get the suit and head for the funeral home to conclude the arrangements. After that we can talk some more," Delilah said before shutting down her laptop and excusing herself.

As Genevieve watched her go, she felt the weight in her chest lift and hope filled her heart.