Chapter forty-four: "60 People"
I was expecting to come home and just sit on the couch but no, I have to clean with my sisters and the Marshall brothers who are supposed to be visitors but now are people who are assisting us with the mess
My body is tired and I leaned on the wall for support because I might as well sleep on the floor if I wanted to "Damn you guys!" I groaned to my sisters and they gave me an apologetic look and some gave me a sheepish smile
All of them are sitting at the other side of the dinner table and I was the only one at the other, the brothers are now playing games with Wendy and Natalie who are the only two sisters that didn't do anything. All of them are in the living room
I felt like a mom and I'm not even the eldest so what the hell am I lecturing my older sisters and one youngest!?
"I assume that you guys understand my fury right now" I told them, they all nodded to me in unison feeling ashamed of what happened
"It was embarrassing enough that we have our visitors clean our house but you greeted them in such an original way that I am rendered speechless" I pinched the bridge of my nose
"Sorry Penelope" Adeline apologized first which created a domino effect on the other sisters who are now apologizing to me one by one
I replied "Thankfully it was me who saw it and not Mom and Dad or even Aunt Laborè who I would imagine might have fainted at the sight" my hand reached the glass of water and I drank it all
I stood up to go to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the boys as thanks and my sisters seemed to catch on and they followed me, Brie held the tray full of sandwiches as she put them down on the coffee table. The boys got hungry because their hands were fast at grabbing a sandwich
"Sorry about you guys cleaning with us in our home" Caramia apologized to them
Oliver grinned "Nah it's fine, you guys prepared us with a yummy sandwich so all's good"
His answer made all of us sisters sigh in relief loudly that made Cloud, Liam and Dustin chuckle
"Are you guys worried about getting in trouble?" Dustin asked Ella and she nodded
"Technically we are afraid of being lectured by Mom and Aunt Laborè" I answered
Wendy finished my sentence "2 hours each" she raised up two fingers
We heard a knock at the door and Caramia opened eat to reveal Mom and Dad holding a lot of groceries, holding that many groceries covered their line of sight so it made walking harder for them. All of us sisters quickly reacted to help them as we prepared the pantry
Aunt Laborè walked into the house also holding a lot of groceries
"Woah, do you guys eat a lot!?" Benjamin asked us wide-eyed as he counted every grocery bag that came in to the kitchen that is sitting on the island
"Yes" we all answered in unison, almost like robots
Our appetite is almost like a starved bear that hasn't eaten after hibernation, that is how much we eat. The 28 grocery bags that Mom, Dad and Aunt Laborè brought in would only last us a week and if there is a special occasion where my entire family clan gathers it would only last a day
I shivered at the thought of last year's Christmas reunion at my Uncle Krew's house, we have to set a long table outside in the backyard and even multiple tents because I don't think 60 people would fit in a townhouse dining room. The people are all my 7 aunts and 2 uncles from Mom's side of the family and 6 Uncles and 1 Aunt from Dad's
The rests are their children who were running around or even their grandchildren
Holy crap, my family breeds like rabbits
Yeah, and so if one of my sisters might even dare to like one of the Marshall brothers the number would increase more. My family tree might as well be half the population of the freakin country if this goes on until to our descendants
So you can imagine how many foods that we have to prepare because catering businesses won't beat the home-cooked food our family makes, just the thought of wrapping another Christmas present would hurt my back and wrist
Heck, I could even wrap a Christmas gift with my eyes closed now. Not only the reunion is the problem but the language preparation we have to remember before visiting because some family members can't speak a specific language and that they only know their birth language to the country they came from
My head hurts because I was switching from one language to another when I have to speak to my cousins, thankfully my Aunts and Uncles taught their kids several languages as our parents taught us so now it was not that difficult talking to them last year
Being bilingual is a great addition if you want to learn another new language because it means you can now know three languages, if I could compute to how many cousins I have from both sides of the family it would come out like 31 of them
The remaining 4 is the grandparents, I would faint if I would be in charge of the seating arrangement for this year's Thanksgiving reunion. I shake myself back to reality to help put the groceries in their places
My Mom freaked out when she saw the brothers, I just realized that my parents haven't seen the entire marshall siblings so they were startled seeing them in our home
I stepped out of the house to get some fresh air because it was becoming too stuffy in there, there was no moon today since it is a new moon. I sat on the grass and feeling the night breeze got my face
"Dear God, it's so fucking tight in there like I was in a sardine can" it was Cloud's voice who was coming nearer behind me
"Tell me about it when you see my family reunion" I retorted to him as I lean back my head to look up at him
"Nice one Angel" he sat beside me on the grass, I wasn't looking at him right now because my attention is now on the sky where the stars are not present
They're not there
I lay my back on the grass to continue looking up at the sky and to not break my neck because looking up at the sky can certainly strain your neck
"Your sisters are hectic"
"You think I don't know about that?"
"Well at least I said it already because we were always being nagged to be proper and well mannered all the time" he cringed
"That's gotta be hard"
"You know it, the entire world has their eyes set to not only you but to your entire family. It will be exhausting"
I side glanced Cloud who was watching a car pass our house
"Seeing my brothers become hectic and enjoying themselves is refreshing"
"What? Like honey lemon iced tea refreshing?" I asked
"Something like that"
I was still thinking about telling Cloud about the day where I will spend it with Aiden but before I opened my mouth there was a black car similar to Sophia's and what do you know? The woman herself stepped out of the car in casual clothes
She waved at us while hopping closer to my home, her hand-formed into a fist to knock on the door. So imagine my parent's confusion and Aunt Laborè's mentally screaming face that her boss came to her home