Her Last Plea✨

Chapter 47

Note: The underlined, italics section are a flashback.

............xxxxxxxxxxxxxx............

Wide awake at a quarter till 4 in the morning, Delphina sat up on her bed as she looked around the room she was staying at. Gingerly, she climbed out of bed and opened the drawer on her dresser. Taking out five letters, she placed them on her nightstand as she took deep calming breaths. Why she took out the letters now, she didn't know. But, a voice in her head kept nagging her to do so.

Quietly, she walked out of her room, an instinct to check on her children overpowering the tiredness she felt. Passing by the sitting room, she saw that Mike and Alexis were fast asleep on the couch, papers spread out all around them. She stood there for a few seconds and watched them, figuring they must have fallen asleep while doing some work for the office. Sighing, she shook her head at how comfortable they looked with each other, before climbing the stairs to reach Marvin's room.

As she opened his door and walked in, she smiled as she saw him flopped over on his back, his mouth slightly ajar and his thumb resting against his lower lip. A heavy sigh escaped Marvin's lips as Delphina lightly brushed her hand over his hair while he slept in his crib.

"My sweet boy," she whispered. "I waited so long for you…."

"You know, Delphina, it wouldn't kill you to pay attention and dote on your other children," Mike snapped as he watched his wife pull item after item out of her shopping bags as six-month-old Marvin sat in the middle of the bed that his parents rarely shared, gnawing on a teething ring. "You should have seen Ara's face when she realized you went shopping without her. She was completely devastated!"

Rolling her eyes, Delphina popped the tags off of the garments she purchased for Marvin and laid them in a pile to be properly washed before he could wear them. "For God's sake, Mike, it was one shopping trip. She doesn't need to be with me everywhere I go."

She jumped as his hand slammed into the top of the dresser. "Goddamn it, Delphina! Of course she wants to be where you are - you're her mother!"

Marvin let out a startled cry, his eyes squinting shut as his cheeks turned red. Delphina instantly scooped him up off of the bed and cuddled him close. "There, there," she cooed. "It's alright. Mommy has you. Daddy didn't mean to lose his temper for no reason -"

"Oh I have plenty of reason," Mike sneered. "I told you that I would try for a son as long as you stopped ignoring our daughters and you aren't holding up your end of the bargain."

Delphina let out a laugh. "So what, because I don't pay the girls as much attention as I do the baby - the one who isn't self sufficient - you want to what, throw him out?"

"Of course I don't!" he growled, outraged at her words. "Unlike you, I don't play favorites among my children. Delphina, you have two daughters who would kill for a quarter of the attention that you give our son, so would you please be a mother to them? I shouldn't have to beg you!"

Quickly, Delphina wiped away the tears that were threatening to fall. With a kiss to the tips of her fingers, she pressed them gently to his cheek before walking away.

Walking another flight of stairs, she crept into Ara's bedroom. Ara slept peacefully, engulfed in a world that Delphina had wished for everyday as a little girl - with the pink walls and plastic jewelry scattered about her dresser and her nightstand. Plastic high heels in obnoxious pink and purple colors were piled in a corner, next to a rack of princess dresses and a truck full of tiaras and feather boas. Pictures she drew herself with markers, crayons, and paint were haphazardly taped to the walls. Her imagination was endless, and neither Delphina nor Mike knew where it came from as they both had been far from imaginative as children. She assumed it was Alexis's influence, or Alexis's parents' influence as they indulged Ara with her every whim.