The Light in your Eyes

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX.

Sounds of plates rubbing against each other continue to resound in the kitchen filled with the women of the Shawn family and unlike other days the place meant for cooking activities was filled to the brim with everyone moving about to get things done. Well everyone was indeed moving about except for one person. Jade watched as everyone busied themselves with one chore or the other and although she tried as much as possible to help as much as she could, she realised chaos descended on whatever place she offered her help to. It was a Saturday morning and everyone was home. That day was the very first complete gathering of the entire seven members of the family since Jade moved in with them. Their mother decided she wanted the whole bunch of them at home together and have some family bonding. No one could say no to the queen when she got serious, not even their father could say no to her. Although they all knew the real reason she called everyone together.

"Jade, don't just sit there, find yourself something to do." A voice shouted from the kitchen. That should be Charlotte, the eldest daughter. This should be the fourth time she has told Jade to find something to do.

"Come on Charlotte, how many times are you going to keep repeating the same thing? She tried helping and the numerous times she offered to help we all sent her away. You can’t possibly want her to go help the guys with the boys stuff right?" the middle child Bertha also shouted from the kitchen.

In the family of seven including the parents, in total there are four women and three men. While the females busied themselves in the kitchen, the males were outside the house clearing the nearby bushes. In short it was a busy but happy morning for every one of them. It was not every day that they all got to gather as one big family like this. They are all busy working and trying to find a place for themselves in their various places of work and usually have no time to gather.

"Mom, what should I do with these plantains?" Bertha asked, holding a bunch of plantain in both hands looking like she had absolutely no idea what to do with them.

"Fry them. Your dad likes them fried." Their mother was busy with other things and did not want to bother with the young lady.

Bertha looked like she had nothing else to live for. Everyone knew she absolutely hated fried plantains. "But I don't like them fried." She mumbled underneath.

"I don't care about what you like."

The rest tried to stifle their laughter but failed. Very soon there were sounds of laughter from the kitchen alongside the sound of food being fried and spoons clanging against glasses. All of these seem foreign to Jade as she sat on the sofa taking in everything that was going on around. She badly wanted to join in the fun and her heart was beating in a frenzy. Her hands kept rubbing against the skirt she had on. Just when she was about to go into complete panic mode, she felt a rough hand on her right shoulder.

"If you want to join them, you can go ahead and do so. If you don't feel welcomed in the kitchen, you can join us boys and be our mascot for today. I am sure your presence can really brighten our morning further outside." The father of the house said with a false sense of ambience in his voice.

"Old man, mom should really stop you from watching Chinese movies. You sound so cringe worthy this early morning." Jade replied and playfully retched. He was the only one she actually got along with in the entire household.

"George! What nonsense are you telling my daughter?" Loveth shouted from the kitchen. It wasn't like she didn't know everyone else was avoiding Jade, they all just weren't saying anything in a pretentious calm. Turning a blind eye to the situation was the best she could do.

"I am just telling her that staying with the boys is more fun. You guys abandoned the poor girl here with no one accompanying her and you called this a family time. I could hear you guys laughing from the backyard much less Jade who is sitting close to the kitchen." The man replied with mock anger. There was a deafening silence everywhere and soon enough multiple footsteps were heard from the kitchen and the backyard. Jade felt awkward as no one said anything at first upon rushing in.

“It is not like staying with you guys will make the situation any lighter. Don't talk as if we are the only ones in the wrong.” Charlotte didn't agree with their father. Didn't they all tacitly agree to ignore the elephant in the room?

"Dad you shouldn’t say that, they actually tried to include me in the kitchen. I was just useless there so I thought I shouldn’t disturb them further. Moreover there is not much I could help with anywhere so I am actually helping by not helping." Jade tried to offer an explanation to clear up the tense atmosphere. She took a sneaky peek at their mother and found that the other was already staring at her. Honestly speaking, a bustling house wasn’t something she was used to apart from when her former family hosted parties. A family gathering like this rarely happens at the Thomas’s mansion.

"Do you feel left out?" Loveth their mother asked to which Jade shook her head in response to the question. She did feel left out but wasn’t going to answer in the affirmative. Unfortunately what she didn’t know was that while she thought she had answered negatively by shaking her head without saying anything, the rest of the family didn’t understand why she was shaking her head. So they all misunderstood that her silence meant acquiesce to the question asked by their mother.

"Awn! She is so cute. Look at her eyes, they are so round and beautiful." A sarcastic voice said. Jade knew who the voice belonged to. The only person in the entire family that didn’t really like her. Fine, none of her siblings liked her but the rest tried to not show their dislike. Only Bertha made her dislike obvious and plain. It seems like they all had various misgivings about the girl from nowhere.

"Bertha, don't talk about your younger sister like that." Loveth reprimanded her. Although her tone didn’t sound so reprimanding. Although she tried not to show it, she couldn’t help but also be displeased at how useless Jade was with house chores. It was like she wasn’t given any upbringing in that area.

"What! I was only trying to lighten up the tense situation." Bertha replied, arms folded with a spatula in one hand and a plate sponge in the other. She rolled her eyes as she walked back to the kitchen. Bertha didn’t understand why their mother made her leave home so early on a Saturday morning to cater to some rich brat. It was obvious even to the blind that Jade knew nothing about house chores. From what she gathered from their last born all the girl did since she moved to the house was sleep and eat nothing else.

"Good that she also realised how useless she is to have round." Bertha mumbled, although audible enough for others to hear. They all knew Scarlett and Bertha had the tightest sibling bond and so understood where she was coming from.

"I will just go back to my room and tidy up a bit." Jade said getting up to go to her room. "Just call me when breakfast is ready and served." She froze upon realising the implications of her words. She was used to saying that every morning to the maids at her former place. She looked back to see the reactions of the others. They all just stared at her, it gave a kind of spooky feeling to have so many eyes on you. She rushed to her room without hesitation.

George shook his head slowly with a hint of melancholy in his eyes. He knew they all did not like the girl and he has been trying all this to make her feel included but there has been no progress so far.

"You all should try to understand her situation, she had to leave a familiar environment and lifestyle to a totally different environment. Yet you are making her walk on thin ice. It is not fair to her and yourselves, she did nothing wrong and in fact Jade should be the one acting up and not the whole ungrateful bunch of you guys. Try envisioning yourselves leaving everything you have right now behind and having to start a new life afresh in a situation worse than the one you left behind. I repeat again, you guys are not being fair to her." He said angrily and left the living room.

“I will actually be glad to leave everything I have right now behind. It is not like there's anything nostalgia worthy in this house.” Bertha shouted from the kitchen.

The rest of them said nothing and all quietly left to finish their work. However it was plain to see that they did not take whatever happened just now to heart. That Saturday was bound to be a restless one for some people. Jade wasn’t a great thinker, in fact she had never been the type to think deep enough. To be more precise, she was a nonchalant person. Upon getting to her new comfort zone which is her small new room, the incident that took place in the living room was no longer on her mind. She took in a deep breath and revealed a genuinely happy smile. The room wasn’t anything big, it had no bathroom nor a walk-in closet unlike her old room. The paint on the wall looks old and at one corner of the room stood a little wardrobe which is a little rundown but still works. The first time she saw the wardrobe she had been glad to have had the insight to pack light while leaving her former home. The whole place wasn’t exactly to her liking but half bread is better than nothing. She lay on her equally little bed and heaved a heavy sigh again.

"Sleep, sleep come again, come and show your lovely face, pretty Jade wants to sleep." She sang to herself while slipping into a light slumber. For our pretty girl, all the uneasy feelings she got a while ago can finally be put to rest.

Some long minutes later her door was slightly opened and a head popped into her room. Steve roamed his eyes around the room before finally landing on the big budge on the bed. His eyes showed a hint of displeasure but he made no attempt to wake the sleeping beauty, as gently as possible he closed the door and made for the dining room. Unknown to him, the eyes of the one whom he thought was sleeping fluttered open and also as quietly as possible she tiptoed to the dining room.

"She is asleep, should I wake her or not." Steve asked their mom.

"Go and wake her up for breakfast before the food gets cold." Loveth replied while dishing their breakfast. "No need I am already here, good morning again everyone." With a calm smile and slightly dull eyes, Jade appeared next to Steve , the oldest sibling. It was as if nothing could faze her and looked determined to enjoy her breakfast against all odds. George looked at her with a kind smile on his face and thought she looked even more beautiful with the determined and innocent look on her face.

"Good morning once again to you too..." he replied in a calm manner too. The air eased up a bit and the distribution of food continued again. Jade took her seat beside Steve since he looked a bit more amiable compared to the others.

"My, my! Someone radiates happiness this early morning despite doing no…"

"It is no longer early morning since it is almost 11am. I suppose as someone older, you should be much more aware of this than me right?" Jade happily chipped in without letting Bertha finish her statement. She then faced everyone and said with a sincere voice.

"I don't expect you guys to accept as soon as possible or rather I have no expectation that you people will treat me as one of your own and I don't plan on doing a thankless job of trying to get you people to treat me as a member of this family since it is very obvious you all don't fancy me much but you all should not mistreat or try to mock me. I didn’t get the same upbringing you all got and neither did I get much attention from my former family. So please, whatever misunderstandings you all have against me, keep them to yourselves and let live in this house with cordiality. That is all and thank you all for listening." She finished with a very nonchalant and indifferent expression then proceeded to eat her food.

The rest of them looked at each other with a deep remorse written all over their faces and also started moving their spoons too but none of them could taste the food they were chewing. The breakfast that started with noise and chatter ended in silence. The sound of a chair being moved broke the silence spell and they looked at the perpetrator. Jade stood up from her chair and was moving towards the direction of her bedroom when she heard a question that seemed to be directed at her.

"Can you give us a chance?" she heard Steve ask and so turned to him. The latter was looking at her with a bitter smile and continued. "It is true that we avoided you the entire two weeks you have been at home but this is also something new and unexpected for all of us. Scarlett was the pride of this family and someone our last born looked up to. And then suddenly we are told she is not one of us but was switched with some average girl. We just cannot easily accept such a situation, we also need time to adapt. You need to understand us too." Towards the end of his explanation, Steve had his arms crossed over each other on his chest. Jade took another look round the table and then understood that they all felt the same way as the eldest son of the house and there is nothing she can say or do that will change their month and her face showed even more indifference and total alienation towards the family. She did not wait for anyone to say more before moving briskly to her room.

"Don't call me to any family meal or gatherings again. This average girl wants nothing to do with all of you." She said before disappearing down the corridor. That Saturday was bound to be a restless one for some people.

Scarlett had really been their pride and lucky charm. Right from little, their parents hardly had to pay her school fees since she had been given a scholarship by a large company since age ten that lasted till she finished law school. She also graduated as one of the best students in their set with a 4.9 GCPA. Compared to Jade that studied education and still graduated second class upper with 3.5, they really got the shorter end of the stick.

"Did we go too far? I mean we can't keep being prejudiced against her without giving her the opportunity to integrate into this family. Since she came back we have been avoiding her and giving her the stink eye and all sorts of bad attitude. Dad was right, we are being selfish. We shouldn't keep comparing her to Scarlett , they are two different persons." Jake, the last baby, said and also stood up from his chair. He looked at the others with special attention to Bertha since her attitude was actually the worst of them all before also going to his room.