Cilia
Chapter 14						Accueil   Home

54

At the same time in Santa Barbara Kelly and Connor arrived in the prison where they wanted to visit Marcello Armonti and ask him some questions about Cilia. Kelly hoped that Marcello would tell them something about this girl, but what if he would tell them something could she be able to believe him?

While they waited for Marcello, Connor realized that Kelly seemed to be very nervous and so he decided to ask her right away what she had?

"What's the matter with you, Kelly?" Connor asked and softly touched the shoulders of the woman he loved.

"Well, Connor! I'm a bit afraid of what Marcello will tell us, but what scares me more is that he could try to hypnotize us because he's a master of his work!"

"Kelly, I'm sure he wouldn't dare to try something like that. You don't have to be afraid because I'm by your side." Connor replied and took Kelly into his arms to comfort her.

The door opened and Marcello entered the room. Kelly looked at him and recognized that he hadn't changed a lot since she saw him for the last time. Sure time had left its traces on Marcello's physical appearance, he had some grey hairs and some wrinkles adorned his face.

"Hello Mr. Armonti! I'm police officer Connor MacCabe and I'm sure you still know Kelly Capwell!?"

"Officer MacCabe! Hi Kelly! How are you?"

"Hello Marcello! I'm fine and you?" Kelly asked to be polite but she wasn't really interested in how Marcello was.

"I'm ok! How's Sophia? Has she finally left your father?" Marcello said and a nasty smile appeared on his face.

"Momma's alright! But I have to disappoint you Marcello, Mum and Daddy are married to each other again. My parents always loved each other and they still do!" Kelly replied and felt that fury rose in her. She would have preferred to leave immediately but than she wouldn't find out anything about Cilia.

"Great! So tell me why are the two of you here? I'm sure it's not because you wanted to make some small talk with me or that someone would have missed me!" Marcello answered.

Kelly who hadn't calmed down yet looked at Connor and so Connor decided to talk to Marcello about Cilia.

"Well Mr. Atrmonti! You're right we're not here for small talk. I've got some questions to ask you!"

"About what?"

"The right question would be about whom?" Connor said and made a short break. "The questions I'll ask you'll concern your stepsister Cicilia Armonti!" Connor said and looked at Marcello to see how he would react when he would hear this name!

"About whom?" Marcello asked to win some time to think about what questions the police officer and Kelly could ask him about his sister. He would have loved to ask how they found out about her existence, but he didn't dare because he would have to reveal that he exactly knew about whom Connor was talking.

"A few weeks ago a young woman showed up in Santa Barbara, her passport is registered on the name of Cicilia Armonti! What do you know about her?"

"I don't know anyone who's called Cicilia Armonti!" Marcello replied while he asked himself why Cilia had come to Santa Barbara.

"You're lying just like you did all those years ago!" Kelly shouted at Marcello.

"Kelly, please! I want you to let me ask the questions!" Connor told the woman he loved. "Back to you Mr. Armonti! You must know Cicilia Armonti, because she was raised as the count Armonti's, your adoptive father, daughter and she lived at the Armonti property in Italy, where you used to live before you came to Santa Barbara."

"Even if I would know her, why are you asking me these questions about her? Did something happen to her?" Marcello said and felt that he was worried.

"A few days ago she was beaten up by her ex-boyfriend, but that's not the reason why I'm here." Connor replied because he had realized that Marcello's behavior has changed since he had mentioned that Cilia has been beaten up by Angelo.

"So why are you here and why do you question me about that girl?"

"She claims to be the daughter of Sophia Capwell Armonti Capwell! What do you know about that?"

"What should I know about that? Why don't you ask Sophia if she has another daughter?" Marcello answered and hoped that Connor would give up questioning him about Cilia.

"The fact is that Mrs Capwell can't remember having given birth to another child!" Connor told Marcello.

"You know I'm a psychiatrist and I tell you that there are two possibilities why Sophia isn't able to remember having another daughter!" Marcello said and was happy that he was now the one who led the discussion.

"What two possibilities?" Connor wanted to know, because he hoped that Marcello's theories could help them to find out if Cilia is really Sophia's daughter or not.

"First: Sophia can't remember having another child because she didn't have one after the boat accident and second: it is possible that Sophia had banished the fact of having another child from her memory."

"I know a third possibility, Marcello!" Kelly said and looked straight into Marcello's eyes. "Perhaps you hypnotized my mother and made her forget everything about Cilia, because you knew that Momma would come back to us as soon as she remembered everything that happened before the day of the accident!"

"Kelly, please!" Connor tried to calm her down by gently touching her shoulders, but Kelly freed her from his grasp.

"No, Connor! He has to face the truth. Marcello, you did that because you didn't want that Cilia would be raised under the influence of my father, because you hated him so much you destroyed so many persons' lives."

"No, Kelly! You're wrong! I would never have done anything to hurt Sophia. I loved her. She was the only person who was always there for me." Marcello said.

"Yes, until she was back in Santa Barbara and you tried to kill my father."

Connor took Kelly to the side and told her that it would be better if they would leave.

"Darling, even if he knows something about Cilia he would never tell us."

"I think you're right, darling!" Kelly said and smiled at Connor in love. Her fury had gone from one moment to the other.

"Mr. Armonti! I thank you that you had time to answer my questions!" Connor said.

"You're welcome, officer! I wish I could have helped you! Kelly, would you please great your mother from me?"

"Yes, I'll do!" Kelly replied but she didn't have the intention to tell her mother that she and Connor visited Marcello in jail.

"Bye officer MacCabe! Bye Kelly!" Marcello said while Kelly and Connor were about to leave the room.

"Bye" they said at the same time.

55

Some hours later in Santa Barbara, the whole town seemed to be asleep and having nice dreams, except three people. At the one end of Santa Barbara Marcello Armonti was still awake, he couldn't sleep because he had to think about Cilia. He had so many questions on his mind that he would have liked to ask her. He didn't understand why she came to Santa Barbara and why she wanted to be acknowledged as Sophia's daughter, how many times had he told her that her mother never really loved her. He knew that he lied to the small girl, because Sophia really loved her, but he wanted to protect Cilia from being hurt by the Capwells. Marcello thought about how he could contact Cilia and ask her all these questions, but if he would be able to talk to her only a few minutes later the Capwells would know that he knows that girl, because he knew how much influence C.C. Capwell had in Santa Barbara.

Marcello remembers the day when he found Sophia on the beach, he exactly knew who she was, but he wanted to take away everything from C.C. that he loved, that's why he brought Sophia to a hospital in Italy instead of bringing her into the hospital in Santa Barbara. Later when she was in Italy and when she was able to remember everything from her past, he tried everything that she wouldn't come back to Santa Barbara and when she didn't hear, he followed her. Suddenly Marcello had an idea, why should he try to contact Cilia he would call Sophia the following day.

At the other end of Santa Barbara Sophia seemed to sleep very troubled, she turned herself from one side to the other, so that C.C. who laid very close to hear woke up. He looked at the woman he loved from the bottom of his heart, he knew how much she suffered since Cilia came into town and claimed to be her daughter. C.C. wanted to wake Sophia up, but than he noticed that she was speaking while she slept and he decided to listen to her for a while because he hoped that she would say something that would help her to remember her past in Italy if he would tell it to her when she woke up.

In her dream Sophia was in a wonderful garden with lots of beautiful flowers, but it wasn't the garden of her and C.C.'s house in Santa Barbara, but the garden some how reminded her the one of the Armonti property in Italy, where she used to live for many years. Suddenly a small girl appeared close to Sophia.

"You ask me why flowers have to die before they can make us happy? Sweetheart, I really don't know why we cut them off before they can make us happy, but I think it is because people want them to decorate their houses!"

"You ask me why you look so different from me? I'm gonna tell you something, it's because you have the same dark, curled hair than your father and you have his eyes."

C.C. listened carefully to what Sophia said, but she could have said this to one of their children when they were small!

Sophia's dream was very confusing, because she had not only one dream but her dream was built of sequences of her past in Italy. A past that she had so hard tried to forget, because during all these years in Italy she was separated from the persons she loved most. Sophia now dreamt about a discussion she once had with Marcello.

"Marcello, I've to go back to my family in Santa Barbara, I miss my children and my husband and I'm sure they have so many questions where I've been the last years and I'm ready to give them the answers to them. Can't you understand that I don't want to stay in Italy!?"

In her dream she heard Marcello's explanation, why he didn't want her to leave.

"I don't want you to go back to Santa Barbara because you will separate your daughter from her family, the only family she ever knew."

"Nothing that you say can stop me from going back to my family and I'll take my daughter with me and there isn't anything you can do about it!"

After what C.C. had heard he knew that there would be only one possibility to find out if Cilia is really Sophia's daughter, to search Marcello Armonti and have a serious talk with his wife's ex-psychiatrist. Suddenly C.C. was torn out of his thoughts because Sophia's voice became lauder, she almost screamed.

"No, Marcello! I don't want you to hypnotize me again, because I don't trust you anymore. I'm sure you'll use it to make me forget my family in Santa Barbara or the daughter I have here." Sophia's voice changed, it became calmer. " I'm getting so terribly tired, my eyes are so heavy I couldn't keep them open anymore."

C.C. couldn't listen anymore, because he felt that Sophia really suffered while dreaming about her past and he wanted to support her. So he decided that it would be best to wake Sophia up, he gently touched her arm and softly called her name because he didn't want to scare her.

"Hey" Sophia said, her eyes still closed but with a big smile on her face. C.C. took her into his arms and gave her a tender kiss on her forehead. Sophia looked at him and saw how much he loved her and realized that she needn't have fears to tell C.C. about her dream.

"You know, I had a very strange dream!" Sophia said and moved closer to C.C. and leant her head against his chest.

"Do you want to tell me what it was about?"

"Yes, but I don't want to hurt you by telling you thinks from my past and destroy everything that we have now!"

"Darling, nothing that you could tell me about your time in Italy could hurt me that much that it could destroy our marriage!" C.C. said, took Sophia's face into his hands looked deep in her eyes and said: "Do you remember? This time you'll get me for good, what ever the circumstances and consequences! And this counts also for me!" Then C.C. softly kissed her. A smile appeared on Sophia's face and now she knew that C.C. meant what he said and that he really had changed, even if he hadn't talked to her about his feelings since Cilia and Eden showed up in town.

"My dream took place in Italy at the Armonti estate. I was in the garden and I talked to a little girl, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't see her face in my dream. But I felt that I had very strong feelings for that girl, I'm almost sure that you can say that it was love that I felt for her." Sophia said and her eyes were filled with tears because she was sad about the fact that it seemed that she had forgotten her own child.

"I'm sure that it was love what you felt for this girl." C.C. had to make a pause because he tried to find the right words to tell Sophia said she had spoken while she was asleep and that he had listened to her. "Listen, darling! I don't want to upset you, but I want to be honest! You talked while you were sleeping and I listened to what you said for a few minutes! I hope you don't mind!?" C.C. said and felt that he was a bit afraid of Sophia's answer, but to his relief, Sophia smiled at him in love and gave him a kiss on his cheek.  

"I don't mind!"

"But darling, it's possible that in your dream you mixed your past here with our children with memories from the location in Italy!"

"I don't know, but I would never have told Eden or Kelly that they look like their father!"

"I know and I wish I could help you!" C.C. said and felt helpless.

"I know! I think there are two possibilities to find out if Cilia is my daughter or not!"

"Which ones?"

"First I could fly to Italy and try to remember anything about Cilia and her and my past at the Armonti estate. I mean that it would perhaps be easier for me to remind things from my past, a past I tried so hard to forget because it hurt so much." Sophia said and wiped away some tears which were running down her cheeks. "Second I could consult a psychiatrist who could hypnotize me to find out if Cilia's story is true or not!"

"I understand that you want to find out the truth and I want you to know that I will always support you in everything you want to do! I love you so much!" C.C. said to the woman he deeply loved.

"I love you too. And I know that you'll always be there for me but I'm also scared!" Sophia said and moved closer to C.C..

"Are you scared about what you could find out?"

"Yes, but I'm more scared what influence that could have on our marriage! I mean what if... I'm really Cilia's mother? You know that there's a possibility that Lionel might be her father!" Sophia said and looked into C.C.'s eyes, because she wanted to know how he would feel about this topic, but to her surprise C.C. smiled at her in love.

"Nothing's gonna come between us this time and I promise you that I would never do anything to destroy our marriage. If Cilia's your daughter and even if I'm not her father I would accept it!"

"How could you accept that your wife has two children with your worst enemy?" Sophia said and her beautiful blue eyes were filled with tears.

"I would accept it because I love you and besides there's a chance that Lionel isn't and that I'm her father!"

"And if she would be our daughter, could you ever forgive me for forgetting her?"

"From what I heard from your talk while you were sleeping it seems that Marcello hypnotized you one more time and made you forget everything about Cilia!" C.C. replied, took Sophia's face into his hands, looked deep in her eyes and than kissed her passionately.