Chapter 2

2: 2

Afterward, my mother actually warned me not to go making trouble for my sister and brother.

But even though we'd never gotten along since we were kids, I never went out of my way to start anything.

In her eyes, though, everything was my fault.

Since she'd only just recovered from being so sick, I let it go with a sigh and said nothing.

I never expected that the next day, school let out for summer break, and my sister and brother showed up with all eight kids.

The genes in our family run strong. My sister had two sets of twins, and my brother had two sets of twins too.

My brother and I are twins ourselves, actually, but he's always been closer to my sister.

My sister looked at our mother, all pained:

"Summer break finally comes, and my husband says the company's doing a team retreat, family required. He's about to get promoted, and he needs to show the boss a happy home."

I gave a cold laugh off to the side. If you want to show off a happy home, you could just bring the kids along.

Let the boss see how sweet the whole family is.

As if she'd read my mind, my sister went on:

"Bringing the kids on a retreat is too much of a headache. There's no one but Mom to take care of them, I'm afraid."

The whole time she said it, her eyes kept drifting my way.

Mom hadn't been long out of surgery. She had no energy to look after children at all.

She said Mom would take the trouble, but the one taking the trouble would be me.

Before I could get a word out, my brother, wearing his most pitiful face, shoved two thousand dollars at me:

"I promise, one week and I'll come get the kids. My father-in-law was in a car accident, and my wife's an only child. I can't not be there."

His own mother is gravely ill and he won't look after her, but he'll rush off to take care of someone else's father.

Before the sarcastic words could leave my mouth,

Mom was already pushing the two thousand back into his hand:

"We're family, why bring money into it? Your father-in-law's side is bound to be short on cash, so you take all of it. I'll take care of your kids."

All eight of my sister and brother's children, my mother agreed to it, every last one.

As if afraid she'd change her mind, my sister and brother made their excuses and left right away.

The cramped two-bedroom apartment was packed with eight kids.

Every one of them under ten, the youngest barely three and not even weaned.

My mother mixed two bottles of formula, then clutched her lower back and said she wasn't feeling well.

I couldn't just stand there and watch her run herself into the ground, so I took the load off her and looked after all eight.

If it had just been the looking after, that would've been fine, but my mother had to keep pointing and correcting:

"That's not how you do it! You can't mix formula with warm water, you have to use scalding hot water!"

I said the kids would faint from hunger waiting for it to cool, and she told me to feed them baby cereal instead, said that's what I ate when I was little.

When I didn't do things her way, she'd sulk and refuse to eat.

Left with no choice, I fed my little nephew a couple of spoonfuls of baby cereal.

I'd barely gotten the spoon out when my sister's shriek came through the phone:

"Ursula! What are you feeding my son! He's not weaned yet, he can't eat solid food."

"Why did you put my little girl's dress on backwards? Go change it for her right now!"

My mother held up the phone: "Well, I wouldn't know. It was your sister who insisted on the baby cereal, and I'm not the one who dressed the child either."

My chest was heaving with anger when my brother's son knocked over a cup and cut his finger.

My sister-in-law came storming through the door and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking:

"That's your own nephew! You're a grown adult, and you can't even watch a child?"

They took him to the ER later. It was just a scrape on the skin, already healed over and scabbed.

But my brother wouldn't let it go, insisting the kid could've been a child model and now that his face was ruined, I had to pay up.

When I refused, my mother started crying and pulled out her burial savings: "Never mind, Mom will pay it for you."

Left with no choice, I paid the twenty thousand, and swore I'd never watch their kids again.

But the next summer, all eight children stood lined up at my door, neat as anything:

"Auntie!"

"Auntie!"