Me And My Family

Fee Fi Fo Fum
I did not hear my stepmom, this time. There was no whispering behind mom’s closed bedroom door. No one quietly spoke or told secrets they thought we couldn’t hear. Whenever someone says something, one of us knows it: Tracy or I. We hear what they say, but this time she managed to keep it from us until three days before it happened. We only found out when Jayden, our step-sister, told us.
“Your Grandparents are coming for Christmas,” she tells us, a bit uncomfortably. “Don’t tell anyone I told you. I wasn’t supposed to, and if you do I could get in really big trouble meaning mom won't ever tell me secrets again.”
Casey and Tracy’s Grandma is not mine, technically. I’m not related to her at all, but I love her like she is and I always will.
I felt anticipation mixed with dread building up in me and falling to the pit of my stomach, I felt as if I could throw up. I love my grandparents, but haven't seen them in years. Phone call conversations are awkward, and it feels like talking to a stranger. It’s the only communication we had, and it didn’t allow for much bonding. I didn’t know much about any of them anymore. I don’t know much about Mikey or April or Bobbie, my half siblings and my cousin. They still love me. I know that. And I know I love them. But I still had mixed feelings about seeing them again.
Jayden sat with us after she told us, talking about how she would feel when they came. She always gets anxious around random people because she has social anxiety. I nodded along, pretending to listen. I thought about the feelings in my head, and I could feel the space they were taking up. The thoughts that came with them could not be put into words. Sometimes when Jayden talks like that, I listen to her, but only if I take any interest in it.
The days before they come are spent talking about it with Tracy and Casey, my half-sister. We were all excited and we couldn’t wait. We sat at the kitchen table reading our books and doing our puzzles, letting old stories we read millions of times steady our nerves and letting puzzles claim our focus, our thoughts scurrying all the while.
Grandma and grandpa were supposed to come the day after Christmas, I think. They showed up on christmas eve.
That day, we sat at the table, doing our puzzles and reading our books, like normal. The day had faded to night, the light gradually draining until we had to turn on the lights. I had not expected them to come late in the night.
I thought they’d be here by now, I thought, a sinking feeling starting in the pit of my stomach. I frowned, and put my head on my folded arms. They weren’t coming. All that waiting, all that anticipation, all for nothing.
“Fe Fi Fo Fum.”
Grandpa came in, his boots thumping against the floor.
“Grandpa!” Tracy, Casey, and I shouted, as he came up the stairs.
“How’s my Batman?” He asked me. It had been awhile since I’d heard that. “And I think my nickname for you was . . .”
“Half-pipe,” Casey said automatically, though her cleft palate made it sound different, and I’d thought she said half-pint, which is what I thought her nickname was. She still stubbornly insists it was half-pipe.
It’s hard to believe he stood in our living room. Harder still to believe that mom had allowed it, even planned it. She never did anything for us that showed affection. There’s a not-so-secret that mom absolutely did not like me, much less love me. When she was feeling especially spiteful, she called me “princess” and I hated it. Most of the kids, especially Jayden, call me that when they want to piss me off. My dad’s oblivious of course, but all three of us “little ones” (Tracy, Casey, and I) know it. The older ones must’ve known it too, even if they never acknowledged it.
Grandma came in, too. And so did April and Mikey. A tall girl came in with them, and I could’ve sworn I recognized her. She wore a black baseball hat with a Baby Yoda meme on it and a hoodie with jeans.
Bobbie?
I decided to ask.
“Bobbie,” I hesitated, looking up at all six foot five of her. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” she responded, looking at Jayden as if wondering who she was.
I felt my face heat up, and I was embarrassed that I did not recognize my own cousin. Last time I saw her, she was around the same height as me, and she sounded way different. She wasn’t the same as I used to know her. I felt like I was looking up at a stranger.
Someone else stood with them, next to April. We didn’t recognize him. He was taller than me, but short for a man. The man had come in with April, so we assumed he was her boyfriend or something.
He was really her fiance. We learned that, like Casey, he also had a cleft palate when he was younger. We learned that our sister April worked at a nursing home. April was as thin as a stick.
“I wish I was that skinny,” Tracy whispered to me.
When Tracy went up to hug our sister, she mentioned how skinny she was.
Mikey commented, “I don’t think it’s healthy to be that skinny, April. You should eat more.”
He looked different, too. His hair is naturally a reddish orange color, but he
dyed it black. Our Grandma told us why.
“It’s because people kept calling him ginger.”
I shrugged. To each their own, I guess.
After we had re-acquainted with them, we opened up the presents they brought. They got us a wooden craft kit, with markers, colored pencils, paints and crayons in it. They got us a head scratcher (if you ask me it was funny). They got us a card with money in it, $30, I believe. It was from one of our uncles. David, I think. One of our other uncles got us jewelry. A necklace, A bracelet, and a photo album. We had a lot of the same things, but I didn’t mind. Some of the stuff they got us went missing, and we never saw it again. Mom or Aubree probably took it. Oh well.
They got a few presents to share with everyone. A board game called Sequence was one of those. The older ones never play it. Grandma had even got a few individual presents for them, I think, but none of our family knew what any of us or our step-siblings liked, so they got us what they thought we would.
Our Grandparents wanted to make sure everyone knew they weren’t spoiling us, and that they were here for everyone, so grandma said that Jayden and Jason and Aubree were part of our family, too.
That made Jayden uncomfortable, and her eyes flicked up to look at grandma when she said that. She didn’t get much of a chance to digest what grandma said.
“Let’s all take a picture in front of the tree,” she suggested.
At first, when we gathered, Mikey tried to avoid being in the picture. Jayden stayed on the chaise of the couch, unsure.
“Come on, you too. Jayden. Jason.”
Reluctantly, they came over to get in the picture.
We all went into the kitchen after the picture, with the exception of Jayden, Jason, Dad, and Mom. Aubree was downstairs already, and she did not come up.
The chaise of our couch was in front of the kitchen, so anyone who sat there could see into it. That’s why I was nervous about eating any of the food. Mom always called us greedy hogs, even if all we wanted was seconds, not thirds or fourths. She says we “gorge” ourselves.
I cautiously peeked into the living room, and when I concluded that mom couldn’t see me, I took a stack of pepperonis and put them in my mouth.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to eat pepperoni,” Bobbie said reproachfully. ”You’re supposed to eat them one at a time.”
I grinned at her.
“Hang on. Wait a minute. I eat pepperonis like that,” April countered, and to demonstrate her point, she took a stack and put them in her mouth. “Two against one,” she said teasingly.
The rest of the night went on with lots of silly conversion, and I felt like I was home. It had been a long time since I heard my old nickname, Batman, or Caseys, half-pint. Hearing it brought me home, to my safe place, and I felt like I truly belonged.
Fee Fi Fo Fum