Life Ain't Always Beautiful

Chapter Three: Secrets

Sunday mornings consist of church time an' family get-togethers at lunch. Everybody always comes to my house since it's the biggest an' we all have a big potluck type dinner that keeps us full the rest of the day. The folks usually stay until about five in the evening before goin' on home. Daddy an' the other adults always hang out in the house, while we "kids" stay in the yard.

I wonder if all the grown-ups liked bein' around each other when they were kids. Like, if they actually enjoyed each other's company. 'Cause I get tired of bein' stuck as Lizzy an' Rachel's babysitter. Jesse's okay 'cause he can take care of himself . . .well, Rachel could too probably but she still needs someone's eye to watch on her.

"Lizzy, if ya tell me 'bout your new dress one more time, I'm gonna go screamin' off a cliff!" Rachel fumed as they sat in Bo's front yard making cornhusk dolls.

She'd probably do it too.

"Ya don't like it?" Lizzy frowned, her bottom lip poking out.

"You're not even wearin' it, how am I supposed to like it if I ain't seen it yet! Besides, I have a better story to tell."

Here we go...

"Yesterday in traffic, while Daddy was purposely lettin' people cut him off, I saw a stolen BMW drive by!"

Lizzy gasped. "Really? Did y'all arrest 'em?"

"No, Daddy said the stolen car was white, and that one was black. I say they painted it. I think I'm gonna question them if I see them again."

"I wanna help!" Lizzy exclaimed.

"No way, you'd probably screw it all up. An' ya don't know nothin' 'bout policin'."

"I wish my daddy was a cop," Lizzy frowned.

"I wish you'd both shut up," Chelsea finally said, tired of hearing the girls' banter.

I don't understand girls. They blabber on an' on meaninglessly without ever reachin' a point. Of course guys do the same thing, but not so much as these two.

"Kids, dinner's ready!" Daisy called from the front door. The announcement ended the arguing and the two girls ran up the stairs holding hands as if the best of friends. Jesse came running from around the corner, his hands filthy with dirt.

Watch, I bet he's got somethin' in his pocket that's gonna freak Aunt Ali out.

"Ya catch anything?" Daisy asked Jesse as he ran up the steps.

Jesse reached in his pocket and pulled out a small green lizard that he'd found. "I'm gonna keep 'im as a pet," he whispered before sticking it back inside his pocket and going inside. Daisy chuckled to herself when she followed him in.

Chelsea waited a minute before going inside. She heard Ali ask Jesse, "What do ya got in your pocket?"

Seconds later a scream was heard all over the house and all in the yard. Chelsea busted out laughing and she could hear Luke doing the same thing inside. Then she heard Ali fuss about how it was NOT funny and Luke had to take Jesse outside for a man-to-man talk about why it isn't a good idea to catch lizards and stick them in your pockets to show to Mom.

Chelsea gave her cousin a high-five as she passed him going into the house. She saw her aunt still clutching her chest from the shock of seeing her child shove a lizard in her face. She stifled a laugh, which was what she saw Bo doing as well.

Ali started coughing again like she had been doing earlier, only it sounded a bit worse. Daisy gave her a worried look.

"You okay, sugar?"

"I'm fine, Daisy, still in shock I guess," Ali told her, feeling that chest pain again. She was starting to feel a little shaky as well. "'Scuse me," she said, getting up out of the chair to head to the bathroom. Her coughing was getting worse and she shut the door to the restroom and grabbed some toilet paper to cough into in order to prevent germs from getting everywhere. Her eyes widened when she realized the paper had blood on it. She was coughing up blood. Holy Jesus. What was going on here?

She flushed the blood-stained paper down the toilet and rinsed her mouth out with tap water. She heard someone knock on the door, which spooked her a little bit. "Mom, you okay?" she heard Jesse ask. "I'm sorry I scared ya."

"I'm fine, sweetie," she told him, a little upset that she lied. Maybe she should go to a doctor.

Don't ya love holidays? Okay, so Labor Day isn't really a holiday per say, but we get out of school all the same. Which is ridiculous really. Shouldn't you be WORKING on LABOR day?

Chelsea was still asleep in the early hours of the morning that calm, peaceful Labor Day. The birds hadn't even started chirping yet. So in the dead quiet of the day, the early morning predator quietly tip-toed her way into the sleeping girls room and did a "RAAAAH!" before pouncing stealthily right in the middle of the bed.

"AAAUGHH!" Chelsea screamed as she was woken abruptly from her dreams. Her fear turned to laughter when the intruder decided to go for a tickle attack.

"Mwahaha, caught ya off guard, mwahaha!"

"I wasn't expectin' you!" Chelsea managed to yell in between laughing as she tried to push her Aunt Evie off her. "Uncle Rosco, help!" she called out, knowing that he couldn't be too far behind his wife.

"Kheekhee, I don't think she needs any help," he said from the doorway.

"Not her, me!" Chelsea argued, managing to somehow get around her aunt's arms and slip onto the floor, then trying to crawl away only to get grabbed by the foot and pulled backwards. "Mercy! Mercy! I call mercy!" she begged, laughing too hard to fight back now.

"Now that you're done monkeyin' around, you can gimme a hug," Eve joked with her, wrapping her arms around her niece once she was off the floor. "Surprised?"

Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?

"Yeah, I'm surprised," Chelsea told her, going to give Rosco a hug. "Y'all were the last people on earth I expected to see. Where's Daddy?"

"He left already for work," Eve told her. "Guess who got early retirement?"

"You did?"

"Yeah!"

"But you're not even old, why would you want to stay home all day?"

Rosco gave Chelsea a feigned hurt look. "Oh, I'm not important enough to stay home for, huh?"

"You know I didn't mean it that way," Chelsea told him, then noticing the brief look of sadness that washed over her aunt's face.

What's up with that? Don't tell me she's hidin' somethin' from me like Aunt Ali is . . .

Chelsea was getting some of her visiting relatives bags out of the trunk of their car when one that was not zipped all the way opened up and some stuff fell out. She rolled her eyes and proceeded to pick up the dropped items. One in particular caught her attention---a prescription bottle. Overloaded with curiosity, especially when it came to her family's health problems, she decided to look at the name of it.

Verelan. That was the brand name. Some kind of verapamil medicine. It had Rosco's name on it so she could only assume that it was for him.

What the heck is this stuff for? Is he bad sick or somethin'? Is that way Aunt Evie retired so early, so she could take care of him?

She heard someone open the front door so she shoved the bottle back in the bag so that no one would find out that she knew about whatever kind of health problems that her aunt and uncle obviously didn't want anyone to know about.