Unsuspecting Sunday Afternoon

Chapter One:

Aislynn Lusinery smiled as her taxi stopped in front of the big, white house with forest green trim and a huge backyard. It had been nearly ten years since the last time she had been at this house. The house belonged to Denise Shepherd, who was Aislynn's mother's, Abigail, best friend. The Lusinery family seemed to always have a link to the Shepherd family. Aislynn's grandmother, Charlotte, had been friends with Denise's mother, Katherine. All the women in both families seemed to connect and stay friends for life.

"Miss, we are here. Would you like me to get your bags for you," asked the taxi driver. Aislynn nodded her head 'no' as her father, Edward, came rushing down the walkway to greet his daughter.

Edward hugged his daughter, "Oh Aislynn, your mother and I have missed you so much!"

"I missed you guys too! It's so good to see family again and not just hear your voices through a telephone!" Her father grabbed some of her bags and helped her up the walkway towards the house as she told him her stories from Europe. At the age of nineteen, Aislynn had spent the last year traveling. After graduating high school, she found herself confused about where she was supposed to be in life. She was not sure if she wanted to go back to school, or what exactly she wanted to do with the rest of her life, but what she did know was that she wanted to see the world, so off to Europe she went and now she was home sweet home for the summer.

The walk to the house seemed to fly by and she was overwhelmed by the women of her family as well as the ever expanding Shepherd clan. Every time she turned around, there was yet another addition to the Shepherd family.

There was Denise, who had five children; Nancy, Kathleen, Allison Derek and Stacey. Denise's husband, Daniel, had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm at the young age of forty-five.

Nancy, the oldest of the five Shepherds, an OB-GYN was married to Michael, an accountant. They had three children. Claire was twelve, she looked exactly like her mother, but had her father's laugh. Luke, ten, who looked like his grandfather and Sydney was eight and the most shy of all the Shepherd grandchildren.

Kathleen was also a doctor and married to a Union Laborer named Ted. They had four beautiful children; Clark, age eleven, Susan, age eight, Amy, age five, and Hannah, the youngest at four.

Allison was Aislynn's favorite Shepherd girl, who married an Italian bad boy as Aislynn called him named Anthony. Aislynn always used to babysit for the couple when they lived right down the block from the Lusinery's. Anthony Jr. had the same personality of his father and at the age of seven had a lot of spunk. Unlike his older brother, Justin, age six, was calm and quiet. And the princess of this American Italian family was Isabella, three, who was going to have a hard time dating when she got older with her two older brothers and over protective father looking out for her.

Derek, who Aislynn literally had not seen since she was in his wedding, was married to Addison Montgomery or used to married to Addison Montgomery. The last time she heard any gossip from her mother about the successful neurosurgeon, was that someone had an affair and got caught, he moved to Seattle and had relations with one of his interns. Apparently, he had yet to be present at any reunions or holidays since leaving for Seattle.

The youngest Shepherd was Stacey, who was closest to Aislynn age at twenty-nine. Stacey had four kids despite being very young. Her first born, Julia was ten. Julia was born nine months after Stacey graduated high school much to the disappointment of the Shepherd family. Stacey was the rebel, but grew out of that phase when she met her husband, Rich, who is thirty-nine. Together they have three kids; Dina, seven, David, four and baby Victoria, who just began to walk at one years old.

The gang that surrounded Aislynn at the front door had directed her into the family room to talk about her trip and her up and coming fall plans.

"Europe was amazing, but I really missed being home and seeing everybody. I just can't believe I missed the birth of this little cutie," Aislynn said tickling baby Victoria, who was sitting nicely on her lap.

"So much has been going on, Acey," Tina, Aislynn's sister, said extending her hand to show a square cut, pale pink diamond.

"I guess I missed a lot more than I thought," Aislynn said. 'It's about time,' thought Aislynn as her sister and the others gabbed excitedly about the new engagement and the fast approaching wedding day.

Tina was the middle child out of three girls for Edward and Abigail. The oldest was Stephanie who lived in New York state with her dead beat, good-for-nothing boyfriend, Sean, and their five children. Sean had some kind of power over Stephanie where she barely called or talked to her family or even her used-to-be best friends Nancey and Addison. Tina was the thirty-five pain-in-the-butt of the family. She was finally engaged after a fifteen year on and off relationship with Jonathon. The couple had met when Jonathon hired Tina to become the new first grade teacher at the school where he was currently the principal of. Jonathon was not a good guy to any standard, even the lowest one. Aislynn despised Jonathon with a fiery passion. He had constantly cheated on Tina with much younger women and was always eying up every girl in the room, including Aisylnn, every chance he got. Ever since she met him, he had given her the creeps and now he was going to become her brother-in-law. Yay.

Aislynn was catapulted out of her thoughts as some of the men shuffled into the family room, patting her roughly on the back and messing up her hair. She glared at the boys and thought that they must not have realized how much she had grown up since she was away.

"Boy, Mr. Lusinery, if I were you I would keep this one under lock and key. She's too pretty for her own good," Anthony said kissing Aislynn on the cheek. Aislynn smiled at him then looked at Allison, who was shaking her head.

"Hey, you married him and let him reproduce," she said giggling.

"Don't remind me." The room burst out laughing while Anthony held his heart pretending to be hurt.Aislynn had always loved Allison and Anthony. They were never uptight like normal adults towards younger kids and they always treated her as an equal.

Idle chit chat was passed back and forth, when the front door flew open revealing a two and a half year old girl with dark, curly brown hair and beautiful, vivid eyes.

"Grammy!" squealed the tiny little girl running to Denise. Denise squeezed the little girl tight and told her to say hello to everyone.

"Hi," She said before ducking behind Denise's rocking chair.

"Emma, I told you to wait for daddy at the door, not go in," said the only missing Shepherd as he emerged from the outside, closing the door and realizing everyone was all ready there. Everyone said hello and the children, including Emma, ran off to play in the back yard. Derek told of his head of neurosurgery in Seattle and his and Emma's life in Seattle.

"I didn't even know you and Addy had a kid," Aislynn said not realizing that Addison's name had not been mentioned once in the conversation. The entire room went silent.

"What? Did I say something something wrong?" She looked about the room and no one was making eye contact with her or Derek.

"Ace, Addison and I got divorced a while back and Emma's mother isn't in the picture." Aislynn blushed at her mistake and felt like an idiot.

"Ok, well," Denise started," I'm going to start dinner, which my girls, I expect you all in the kitchen. Eddy and Abby go ahead and make yourselves at home. Aislynn, dear, go on up to Nancy's old room and get ready for dinner.Derek, you go on up to your room and relax, traveling across country with a toddler is exhausting and the rest of you go tend to the children. One by one the family room emptied out and Aislynn was glad to finally have some time to think alone.