THIRTY-FIVE

TWELVE YEARS AGO AT THE CLEAR OPAL MANOR

Just after 2AM, Iris walked down the sixth floor of the mansion. It was the floor which held a total of six suites, three of which were occupied by the de Milo children. One of them, the largest of the suites, belonged to Roderick and Shimmer.

Iris was just checking if the children were sleeping well, as was one of her duties. After that, she wanted to go downstairs to the kitchen to make fruit juice. Shimmer was usually served freshly prepared midnight juices, especially when her husband was not around, for she said she failed to sleep then. Iris saw that Dylan's lounge lights were still on. She knocked but there was no response. She slowly pushed the door open and entered into Dylan's suite.

The first room was a mini lounge which connected to a study. Seated on his desk, Dylan was asleep. With his arms folded on the desk, his head rested sideways on top of his arms. Iris looked at him and saw that his face was swollen, especially the eyes. It was evident that he had been crying a lot. She walked into his bedroom and picked the bed linen which was all over the floor, made up the bed and went to shake Dylan.

"Sir Dylan! Sir Dylan, please come to bed and have some rest".

Dylan opened his eyes which were bloodshot red and very puffy. As Iris guided him, he walked towards his bedroom and lay on the bed, instantly falling asleep. Iris covered him neatly, and she turned to leave. She went to the desk to close the laptop but when she touched it, she accidentally activated it and these words flashed in her face, "there is a girl at the orphanage".

She pulled a chair to sit down, and read out the whole piece. Tears ran down her cheeks; the words greatly touched her. She wiped the tears away, lifted the laptop and went straight to Shimmer's bedroom, and knocked.

"Yes Iris," Shimmer said. She was sitting in her bed, many thoughts running through her mind, concerning Dylan and his obsession with the orphanage.

"You brought my fruit juice?" Shimmer smiled.

"No ma'am. I will bring the juice later. You need to see this first!" Iris placed the laptop in front of her employer.

"She asked me, what is there at the orphanage? There is a girl at the orphanage!", Shimmer read it out loud. "What is this?", she asked Iris with a frown.

"Sir Dylan wrote it ma'am. Please read it" Iris insisted.

Shimmer read every word slowly, and with each word she read, she became seriously infuriated. Line after line, stanza after stanza, her breathing became heavy and painful. She clenched her fingers in great anger, and her whole body shivered with irritation and disgust. Her entire being and soul soaked in a marinade of pure hatred, and she felt her throat drying up.

"You may leave now!!" she shouted at Iris, who was still standing in the room.

"Shall I bring the juice, ma'am?" Iris asked politely.

"No!! What juice? I said leave now!!!" Shimmer screamed.

"Yes ma'am," Iris said as she literally ran out of the room.

Shimmer took the laptop and read the piece again. She read it over again. And again. And again. With every word she read, she felt a ball of anger welling up in her chest; it felt like something came to settle as a huge rough rock blocking her throat. She shivered in serious aggravation and lifted the laptop, hurled it into space and it plunged onto the bathroom door and onto the floor with a thud.

Shimmer pulled on her morning gown and headed to Dylan's suite. The boy was sound asleep, his face visibly swollen from the crying. She wanted to wake him up, but she decided against it.

"Do you not know who you are, son?" Shimmer spoke to the sleeping Dylan. "You are a de Milo, my child. Do you really need some worthless girl at an orphanage for you to be happy? She is not as special as you think, she is just a useless orphan!" she whispered with gritted teeth. Dylan remained in his sleeping position without the slightest movement.

"Oh God why me? Why does my son have to fall for that thing?" Shimmer raised her hands up into the air and brought them down to her hair. She pulled slightly on her hair and sat on the bed next to Dylan. She stroked his hair softly, making sure not to wake him up.

"You need to know your worth, my son. You are the son of multi-billionaires…"

When Dylan shifted as if he was going to wake up, Shimmer decided to leave the room. She walked back to her own suite, but failed to fall asleep. She hissed in anger, went for the laptop and forcefully stepped on it several times.

She reached out for the nearest item and landed on a bottle of shampoo on her bathroom table. She pulled it and used it to hit hard on the laptop. Continuously the bottle went up and down, mercilessly crashing on the buttons of the laptop. The bottle ended up cracking and the shampoo splattered all over the laptop, and she kicked the laptop, sending it sliding into the wall.

"Ouch!" she hissed lividly as the pain went through her leg which she had used to kick the laptop.

"Iris!!" Shimmer's voice bellowed through the manor. She picked her phone and dialed Iris' number. As soon as the phone connected, before Iris could say anything, Shimmer ordered in a loud angry voice,

"Bring the bandage and stuff, I hurt my foot."

Sure enough, in no time Iris came running with the requested items.

"What happened…"Iris asked while standing in the doorway.

"Bring the damn bandage!!" Shimmer seethed with anger.

When Iris knelt down as she prepared to attend to the bleeding toe, Shimmer pushed her away with:

"I can do this myself! Leave now!!!"

"Yes ma'am", came Iris' scared voice.

The lady took the bandage and tied it roughly around her toe. Cleaning the wound…oh she did not even clean the wound. She walked into the bathroom and placed her foot in the bathtub. When she opened the water, it gushed on to her hurt toe, and she threw the bandage away. She quickly unrolled a new bandage and tied her toe. She continued to curse and say any and all bad words that came to her mind.

"What got into you, son? What do you see in that worthless excuse of a human being?..." she laughed sarcastically and shook her head.

"Who would have known that my own son would have such a poor taste in woman? Why then do I take you to fancy luxurious places where you meet the daughters of fellow billionaires? You're supposed to open your eyes, my son!"

She laughed to herself and threw herself on a chair in the bathroom.

"But he is still young. Dylan is still young," Shimmer comforted herself. "Surely he will soon realise who belongs in his world and who doesn't."

She closed her eyes tightly and the lines in Dylan's poem flashed in her mind; "I see her face in my dreams, I hear her song in my dream. When I close my eyes to sleep, I see her smile…I hum to the tune of her song, her song is my daily lullaby, it is also my wake up alarm, She has become a permanent resident of my mind'.

Shimmer hated those words! She violently shook her head, trying hard to forget the words, but the more she shook her head, the more the words appeared bigger and bolder. The anger which was starting to die down seethed again, this time coming with greater impact.

At 5.45AM of the same day, Shimmer made a call to the PR manager of the de Milo Group of Hospitals. The man was just coming from taking a shower, and was rather surprised to receive a call during that hour.

Failing to hide the anxiety in his voice, he answered, "Good morning ma'am, how are you this morning?"

"Did the delivery trucks go to the orphanage yesterday?", she asked in a cold tone.

"They did ma'am, did something happen?", the man asked in fear.

"Write a letter to the orphanage today. Inform them that the donations that we sent yesterday were the last ones. The de Milo Group of Hospitals is no longer in a position to send any more donations to Olga Children's Home."

"Oh!" the man went silent, then "do we have a reason for stopping the donations, ma'am?"

"Do I need to explain myself to anyone? Since when do people have to explain themselves for not willing to donate?" the rage in her voice was piercing.

"Please ma'am, for the sake of procedure, may I have this instruction in writing? Please?"

"Listen, Mr PR Manager, or whatever your name is; I want that letter sent out today. I am the GCFO of the de Milo Group of Hospitals, and need I remind you that Roderick, our children and I co-own the group? You don't ask us to explain ourselves to you. This is our family business, handed over to us from the great de Milos who lived before us. If you still value your job, do what you have been told!!" she sneered and ended the call.

In the end the PR manager had to come up with an explanation which he just made up. He released a press statement stating that since the Group was in the middle of constructing the Roderick Eye Centre, which they were, their funds were strained, thus leading to them failing to continue with the donations.

When the issue of the de Milos ceasing their donations to the children's home came to be known by the public, it was met with mixed reactions. Many accused them of being selfish and neglecting the poor children without notice. However, some defended them, stating that it was never appropriate to force a person to make a donation; thus the de Milo Group was not obliged to continue with the donations. The issue was the trending topic before it quietly died down and was soon forgotten.