Letters to Adonis

Chapter:: Twenty

Dear Adonis,

It took me ten minutes to convince you to come meet my family before the wedding. I knew you were planning on it. But I forgot that you were already nervous enough about it when I told you the story of what they think and how they expressed it. It was stupid of me to tell you, and it wasn’t even the worst thing they’ve done.

I’ve heard some pretty gruesome stories of how my mom told my grandparents that she was pregnant with me. Apparently they were happy for some reason, although it’d be hard to find a good reason to be mad because she wasn’t too young and she was married to my dad first.

So obviously it wasn’t the stupidest thing they’ve said. It was one of those things that you could tell everybody was thinking, and usually nobody says something, but my family is the kind that says something. I try to twist the story around to you like this, make it seem like they are just a good honest bunch of people. It didn’t really work so well.

“They’ll absolutely love you, please, you have to go. You already promised me, remember?” I kindly reminded you. I’ve never begged for something so hard in my life. “All you have to do is eat dinner, and then you’re free to go.”

“I thought we were going apartment searching?” you question me, your eyebrows coming together cutely.

“Let’s just do that tomorrow, we don’t want to have too much excitement in one day.” I laugh a little to myself, knowing that you don’t have a good idea of what you just agreed to.

When we get to my house, nobody is in the living room. I get excited for a moment, thinking maybe we can have some alone time. Until I hear arguing through the open back door. I sigh loudly, closing the door behind you and pushing you in front of me towards the angry voices.

“You’re just wrong, and I’m older. Don’t you think you should be listening to me?” Alyssa, my thirteen year old cousin was arguing to my twelve year old cousin Andy.

“Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re right,” Andy stomps his foot before walking away dramatically. I decide to laugh it off; since my aunt, uncle, and grandparents were happily sitting at the patio set I hadn’t sat at since my mom got diagnosed. They probably had to dust off the table and chairs.

“Grandma, Grandpa, this is Adonis, my fiancée.” The word sounded funny coming from me, and I could feel a big smile make its way on my face as Adonis wraps his hand around mine and squeezes.

“Hello, Grandma Daisy? Grandpa Burt?” he removes his right hand from mine to step forward and shake each of their hands. My aunt and uncle decide to stick their hands out also, along with introducing themselves.

“You kids can pull up a seat if you’re like, we’re just enjoying a little happy hour before dinner.” My Grandpa Burt smiles up at us and motions to the two empty chairs. It’s like they were waiting for us. I look over to you and see that you’re already pulling out a chair. I do the same, and I try to read everyone’s expressions to predict if they will give you a hard time or not.

“So, Ariel,” my Aunt Julie starts off as she’s trying to keep her hands under the table. “I heard that you have Parkinson’s.” I could roll my eyes at the choice of subject. Leave it to them to bring it up on a nice day like this, a week before my wedding, when my symptoms have seemed to slow down.

I look down and try to calm down before I answer her, she doesn’t take sarcasm very well. “Yup, probably got it from mom or something. It’s no big deal or anything.” I try to brush it off, hoping my grandma will be so kind to change the subject.

The look on my aunt’s face is priceless. “Of course it’s a big deal! Usually the symptoms don’t show up so early, was your doctor surprised?” she leans forward and has the nerve to put her hands under her chin like she’s interested. As if my mind degenerative disease is last week’s episode of CSI.