Donte finds out the truth

News of Donte started to ripple through the Allencourt family. Family members who had heard of the rumor for years brushed it off as slander in the beginning.

Especially finding out that Elizabeth Morgan-Allencourt had a mixed-race child meant that she had procreated with a Black man. Many couldn’t conceive of such a thing. Her parents had threatened to disown her and cut her out of her inheritance if she didn’t give the baby up for adoption.

* * *

Quisha called up Heavenlee to set up a meeting for Chad and Donte.

“Did you talk to Donte about Chad yet?” Quisha asked over the phone.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

“Chad wants to meet him. How can we get this set up? Quisha asked.

“I’ll talk to him tonight,” Heavenlee said before they got off the phone.

* * *

Later

“Donte, there’s a man that would like to meet you,” Heavenlee said as they lay in bed watching TV.

“What man?” Donte asked.

“Well, um, well I think he might be your brother,” Quisha said.

“What!” Donte said and sat up and looked at her. “Where did you meet him?”

“A friend of mine is married to him…” she started then stopped when he got out of the bed.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I need some air,” he said and pulled on his clothes and left. He drove the twenty minutes to his parents’ house. It was after eleven. He knew his parents would be in bed, but this couldn’t wait. For years he asked his parents about his true parentage and they were lying to him.

As he stood on the porch a particularly hurtful time flooded his memory. A cousin used to mock him— telling him he was adopted—calling him a White bastard. Finally his father opened the door.

“Boy, what are you doing here so late?—Pounding on the door like the damn police.”

“I want the truth, Dad,” Donte said and walked in.

“What truth. What are you talking about?” his father asked.

“Dad, I’m not in the mood for games…”

Hearing her son upset, his mother came down the steps.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I want the truth out of you and Dad.” His parents looked at each other and his mother’s face softened.

“We might as well tell him,” his mother said. Donte’s heart sank. He hoped they would continue to deny what he felt in his heart all along.

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” his father said. His mother went to prepare some coffee.

“We’re sorry, Son. We just never thought this day would come,” his father began.

“When I met your real mother she was from a very wealthy family and she was White. By the time her family found out about me, about us, she was already pregnant. Her parents told her to give you up for adoption. I couldn’t let that happen. After you were born she kept in touch with me until you were about two years old but by then she had married another man.” His father took a deep breath. “And severed ties with me, with…you.”

“When did you meet Mom?” Donte asked and looked at the woman who had raised him.

“You were six months old when she came into my life,” he said and took her hand and kissed it. He knew it was hard for her. She loved Donte as her own. Tears filled her eyes as the story unfolded. Elements of the story she had pushed from her mind came back.

“My brother wants to meet me,” Donte said and looked at his parents.

“Your brother?” his mother said.

* * *

Two weeks later

Chad, Quisha, Heavenlee, Donte, Bryan and Gretchen all sat in a restaurant staring at the man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Chad. The only difference as noted by Heavenlee was the texture of hair and Donte was only slightly darker than his White siblings.

“Mom, um, our mother would like to see you,” Chad said.

A look of relief washed over Donte as he expected to meet his mother right away, not his siblings, though he was glad to.

“I want to meet her too. I had a wonderful mother, but, I always felt a void that I didn’t understand,” Donte said. Bryan and Gretchen looked at their half-Black brother. They wanted to denounce this as some scheme on Quisha’s part, but they couldn’t ignore the almost mirror image between him and Chad. Both men took after their mother.

“We should go tonight to see Mom,” Chad said. “She’s anxious to see you,” he finished.

Donte and Heavenlee followed the Allencourt children to what should have been his familial home from the start. He felt anger and envy. Anger at being given away by his mother and envy towards the children she kept. He wanted to face her in anger but when he was told that she was dying he calmed down, glad to have this opportunity to get answers.

They reached the house. Elizabeth got out of bed for the occasion. She wanted to look the best she could look, not sick and dying in bed. When Donte walked in the house and into the living room she started to cry.

All of the anger he had inside melted away when he saw her. He walked over to her. She stood up to be embraced by the son she abandoned thirty-plus years earlier. She clung to him and cried.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered against his cheek. “Please believe me when I say I never stopped loving you and it wasn’t my choice to give you away.”

“I know,” he said.

She held him at arm’s length and then hugged him again. Gretchen stood in the background with tears in her eyes as her mother hugged her older brother.

“It was a different day and time,” Elizabeth began. “I’m just glad I got this time to see you. I strongly believe fate brought Quisha into our lives for this very reason,” she said and continued.

She was tired but she had to get her side of the story out and started with how she’d met Donte’s father and her parents’ reaction upon finding out she was not only pregnant out-of-wedlock, but pregnant by a Black man.

She swallowed and went on as her children and Quisha all went back in time as she laid out the story and personal anguish she went through in having to give away her child.

Chad and his siblings looked at Donte as he sat mesmerized by the tale. A mix of emotions flooded him.

* * *

Brothers and sister

It took some getting used to, but the Allencourt children slowly began to accept him as a part of their life. There was nothing they could do about it. They loved their mother and Donte was a part of her whether they liked it or not.

Bryan, true to form was the hardest to get to. He didn’t want to accept that he had a half-Black brother, and his animosity stirred up against Quisha, who he was convinced was the reason his family had shame brought upon them. Donte was finally able to put the secret of how he came about behind him and heal from there.

Occasional lunches and dinner with Donte gradually turned into a routine as he and his newfound siblings warmed up to each other.

“Do you think it’s a good idea for me to see Donte’s father? Elizabeth asked Gretchen.

Gretchen sat her mother’s tea and a slice of lemon cake in front of her.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Gretchen said. “I mean, only you know if it’s best or not.”

Elizabeth hadn’t seen Nathan Washington in over thirty years. She chose family, status and money over a man she loved deeply.

* * *

“What are you thinking about?” Quisha asked Chad as they lay in bed after a night of passion. Sweat still glistened on his chest, he threw an arm under his head before he answered.

“Everything is so surreal,” he said. “Thinking back, I can vaguely remember my parents arguing over my mother wanting to go visit a boy in Detroit and my father hitting the roof, vowing divorce if she ever did it.” Chad took a deep sigh and continued. “It’s all so clear now,” he finished and continued to stare at the roof.

“I’m going to meet him for lunch tomorrow,” he said absently.