The Julia Foundation: 8

[admin]

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London, England
Off Camera
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The former Julia Braddock, now Chastity Noel, sits in her living room, deep in thought. She is wracked in nerves, anxious for the return of her adopted daughter, Serena Grace Noel, from now fully opened and operational Julia Foundation. Ordinarily a parent would be thrilled and joyous about the return of their child. Chastity, for her part, has grown attached to young Serena, formerly a runaway known only as Grace. Chastity saw a lot of herself in Grace; Grace was on drugs, so was Chastity when she was known as Julia. Chastity wanted to help her, so she took her in and adopted her, got her clean from her drug habit. That’s when even more similarities began to form; Chastity forced Grace to change her name to Serena Grace Noel, just as Aphrodite at one time forced Julia to adopt the Noel name. Serena then rebelled and tried to run away. Chastity, as well, tried to rebel against Aphrodite early on in their relationship. But eventually Chastity grew to embrace Aphrodite. She grew to love her as a mother. She had hoped Serena would do the same. But that hasn’t happened. Since the last attempt to run away, Chastity caught Serena with a bag of drugs. The Kensington Knockout decided to squash the rebellion once and for all. She sent her to The Julia Foundation to sped an entire two weeks there as part of an intense camp intended to educate her, rehabilitate her, and most importantly break her from her bad habits. But there is a nagging part of her mind that isn’t sure if this was the right move. She hasn’t been a parent before. Is this the right move?

“Thanks again for letting me use the old home place, sis.” The voice belongs to her older sister, Glory Braddock, who enters the living room with two glasses of wine. She approaches the sofa and hands one to Chastity and keeps one to herself. She sits down. The sisters clink glasses together and then take a sip.

“Anytime, Lindsey.” In private just as Julia only goes by the name Chastity, Chastity also refuses to refer to her sister by anything other than Lindsey Noel. Glory understands and accepts this in order to maintain the peace between the two. “How did my niece handle meeting her father?”

“Considering she never met him before in her life, I think she handled it quite well.”

“That bad, huh?” Chastity takes a sip of her wine.

“Yes. I mean, she was happy but crying at the same time. Mixed emotions, you know?” Braddock chuckles. “I swear she’s probably going to end up as screwed up as we are.”

“Are we really screwed up, Lindsey?”

“It’s just a figure of speech, mate.”

“No, no, I’m asking seriously.” Chastity finishes off her wine in one big gulp and sets the glass down. She stares into her sister’s eyes. “How screwed up are we?”

“I’m not sure exactly I know what you mean but I think we had our own unique challenges growing up but everyone has their own unique challenges. No one is going to have a perfect, idealistic life. Would it have been great to have had mom and dad stay together? Would we have turned out differently had they stayed together? Yes, we probably would have turned out much different. But they split up and dad did the best he could. And I think he did a pretty good job of raising us. Look at how we turned out and where we are today. I run a successful company and you are in charge of a charitable foundation, we are both active and successful professional wrestlers.”

“How much of that is due to what dad did for us and what our Mother did for us?”

Glory pauses momentarily to think on the question for a moment. “Do you mean our biological mother or…”

“Mary perhaps was our biological mother but was not our real mother. I mean our real mother, Aphrodite Noel. You pointed out how you and I are both successful wrestlers, and yes we can credit most of that to our dad, but Mother taught us a thing or two as well. And how much of your corporate success can you attribute to Mother?”

Glory sighs and sips on her wine. “I lacked any real business skills when I first bought the company. I was in way over my head. Mother taught me everything I knew about business. I would have lost the company had it not been for her.”

“Dad gave you the best of what he knew about professional wrestling. And yes, Mother did teach you a thing or two about wrestling but she knew you didn’t need much more in ring knowledge. Mother taught me everything she knew. Another thing Mother gave me was self-confidence, something I lacked during my first two years as a wrestler. You see, Lindsey, I owe a great deal to Mother. We both do. She gave us both a great gift when she made us her daughters. I wanted to give that gift to someone else. That’s why I adopted a child.”

“Oh yes, Grace.” Glory sips on her wine. “You did mention her. I heard she has been a little rebellious.”

“That’s putting it mildly. She ran away from the orphanage that had been keeping her, she lived on the streets for god knows how long and got addicted to drugs. I took her in, cleaned her up, and gave her a home. But then she tried to run away. I gave her a second chance and then I caught her with drugs again.”

“What did you do?”

“I sent her to spend two weeks at the rehabilitation clinic at The Julia Foundation.”

“So what’s the problem? It sounds to me like you are doing what’s right by her.”

“What I’m doing is right. But I doubt my motivation. Am I doing this to keep her safe or am I doing this selfishly for myself? I think back and recall how rebellious I was. And I recall also how Mother treated me how I am treating Grace right now. Am I simply trying to break her spirit the same way Mother tried to break our spirit?”

“Only you can answer that.” Glory finishes off her wine and then sets the glass to the side. “She certainly does need all the help she can get in order to drop the drug habit. If that’s all you are doing then don’t let your conscience bother you. You are doing good by her and she will learn to appreciate her, just as we learned to appreciate what Mother did for us.” Glory stands up. “Anyway, I need to go catch a plane.”

“Really? You don’t want to stay a little longer?”

“I wish I could but I’m already running later than I wanted. I need to get a flight back to Miami. I have business to attend to.” Braddock chuckles as she embraces her sister in a hug. “You will learn what that’s like very quickly as your journey with this charity goes on.”

“I’m sure I will.”

Chastity waves her goodbye to Glory and watches as her sister walks off. The sisters are at peace now. There had always been a tension between the two, from the very beginning there had been tension, but now after so many feuds and battles the sisters are at peace. For the longest time it had been Chastity who had felt guilty, feeling as if she was the one responsible for the bitter rivalry. It was her jealousy, after all, that sparked many of the fights. But then her feeling of guilt was washed away when Glory committed the ultimate crime of trying to ruin her sister’s career and tried to drive her out of wrestling. But now they are at peace. Things are finally well and even. Things are fair; Julia Braddock is Glory Braddock’s younger sister but Chastity Noel is Lindsey Noel’s older sister. Glory was always the favorite Braddock child. Chastity is the favorite Noel child.

Another hour passes as Chastity continues to think upon this. She asks the burning question; are things really fair? She thinks so. More importantly, now that she has adopted a homeless teenage Grace into her life and gave her an identity, Serena Grace Noel, what does she do from here? And more importantly, what is her motivation? And does she have the right? Near the end of the hour Chastity’s thoughts are interrupted when she hears her doorbell ringing. She gets up and walks up to the door. She opens it and she sees her daughter, Serena Grace Noel, standing there in a gorgeous blue dress and matching heels. She is being accompanied by a large well-built limo driver.

“Bruce! I have been expecting you!”

“Apologies for being late, Ms. Noel.”

“Do not blame Bruce for my transgression, dearest Mother.” Serena says as she meekly bows. “I was undecided on what to wear on this glorious day of our reunion.”

Chastity pats her on the head. She turns to Bruce and nods. “Thank you, Bruce.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Noel.” Bruce turns and takes his leave. Chastity guides Serena back into the house and shuts the door behind her. Chastity leads Serena into the living room. Immediately Serena takes her mother’s hand and kisses it.

“I missed you greatly, Mother.”

“I missed you too, Serena. But tell me, uh, what was it like at the foundation? What did you learn?”

The first week was challenging. I wanted the drugs, I needed them…”

“I understand.” Chastity says, nodding her head. “Believe me.”

“But that second week…” Serena’s voice trails off.

“What about it?”

“They taught me about how lucky I was to have you; I was taught to appreciate you. The needs for drugs will still come, but I know that I can fight those urges, because of you.” Serena kneels before Chastity. It is then that a lightbulb goes off in Chastity’s head. Glory is right, she is doing right by this girl because she needs to be off drugs. But beyond that, she broke Serena. All traces of the rebellious runaway drug user is gone, completely wiped away. She is replaced by this picture of regal beauty, modeled after her adopted mother, Chastity Noel. Grace has completely become Serena. She broke her spirit much like Aphrodite once broke her own spirit. And Chastity is ok with it. She feels as if she is entitled to this.

“Arise, my daughter.” Chastity commands. Serena rises. Chastity embraces her in a tight hug. “You will not have to fight this alone. You will always have me.”