Black Diamond

11

Omniscient POV

Lance sighed. He knew this moment was coming, he just never imagined that Normani would figure it out on her own, or at least that fast. He figured that by not telling her, he was protecting her from the hurt of finding out who she was and the magnitude of who she is. 

"Sit down, baby girl let's talk about this."

They went into the living room and sat down on the couch. Normani was upset for a few different reasons. She was upset because all of her life she has always wondered who her mother was and if she knew who she was despite the fact that her father wouldn't tell her, but not only did she know who she was, but it just so happened to be her favorite singer, a person who she admired and saw as an inspiration to her life. She was upset with her father because he knew all of that and still kept that from her, and she was upset with Beyoncé because after meeting me she knew that she was her daughter, and she still didn't say anything, and for abandoning her period. 

Did she not want me to know who she was? Normani thought to herself. Does she still not want to be a part of my life even now that she knows who I am? In that moment, Normani had never felt more unwanted. 

Lance took a deep breath, and scratched his head, trying to find the right words to say. "Baby girl, I know this is a lot to take in right now, and I'm so sorry that I kept this from you all your life, but you have to believe me, I didn't tell you because I was only trying to protect you."

"Protect me from what?" 

"Protect you from getting hurt, I knew that if I told you when you were younger that Beyoncé was your mother you would be hurt because she was never there for you, and never tried to reach out to you or see you. I was trying to protect you from the world because if the world knew who you were you wouldn't have had the normal life you had, you would have always had cameras in your face and people would always be in your business, and that's not the life I wanted you to have. When Beyoncé first left, I didn't have to worry about that because nobody knew about you, or her, but once she did begin to blow up and I would see her on tv and in magazines and saw how she had essentially no privacy, I knew then and there I didn't want that for you. Time went on and you got older and you started to ask me more about who she was and every time the guilt would kill me more and more because I knew I was keeping something so big from you, but I would convince myself that I was doing the right thing. And then when she went and got married and had other children, and seeing how people and the media talked so bad about her AND her children, I knew I was doing the right thing not telling you. You have to understand, once a person has a child, if they really love that child, they will do any and everything they can to protect them from anything that could cause them harm. And because I love you so much, and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you hurt, I made the decision to keep this from you. I knew that one day you would find out, and I know you probably hate me, but you have to believe me baby I thought I was doing what was best for you."

Normani sat, crying silently as she listened to her father. "Daddy I don't hate you; I could never hate you. When Beyoncé left you could have run too, you could have left me with grandma or worse gave me up for adoption, but you didn't. You stayed and raised me and loved me, and tried your best to fill the role of both parents. And I'm forever grateful for that, I could never take that for granted. But I want you to realize that all of my life I have felt like half of a person, because I didn't know who my mom was. But you knew, you knew and you refused to tell me. 

I get that you were trying to protect me, but in an effort to protect me you were the one inadvertently hurting me. If I had always known that she was my mom I would have been ok with her absence, because to me knowing all of who I am meant more to me than having her in my life. It's been twenty years and I'm not naïve, I understand that if someone doesn't want to be in my life then I can't let that stop me from living my life. Yes, it would have been nice to have her in my life and feel the love from my mother that I do from my father but that didn't happen. She robbed me of a maternal relationship, but I still had you and you still denied me of truly knowing who I am. I can't just easily forgive that. I know it's not your fault that she left, maybe it's mine, I don't know, but I do know that all of my life you have kept that missing piece to the puzzle of who I was and instead of giving it to me, you chose to keep it locked away.