Family Is Forever

42

Dinner was...awkward. The girls quietly stared between Hunter and Stephanie as they ate. Sasha looked around before elbowing Becky in the side as the girl drank water causing the girl to mouthed a confused "what?" Sasha looked between her and their parents, trying to signal for the Irish native to speak to them. Becky understood this and shook her head no. Sasha rolled her eyes and looked to Bayley who was pushing around her food on her plate. Sasha carefully cleared her throat to get her younger sister's attention. Once Bayley looked at her Sasha nodded her head towards their parents causing Bayley's eyes to widen before she looked at the two adults and then shook her head.

Sasha rolled her eyes once more while Becky mouth for Sasha to talk to them, but Sasha shook her head too causing Becky to smirk and call her a chicken before taking another bite of chicken. Sasha glared at her before stepping down hard on the redhead's foot causing Becky to let out a small noise attracting their mother's attention, "Are you alright Rebecca?"

"Peachy", Becky bent forward and grabbed her foot in pain as she glared at Sasha who just smiled at her, feigning innocence as she motioned for her to keep talking. Becky rolled her eyes before saying, "So...mom, you're leaving?"

"Nice" Sasha muttered causing Becky to glare at her once again

Stephanie looked over at Hunter carefully before saying, "I'm just going to help out my father and mother. You all know about your grandfather's Parkinson's, he's already starting to have trouble walking so I'm going to go help him."

"So this has nothing to do with the yelling we heard earlier?" Becky asked suspiciously

"Becky!" Sasha snapped

"What you wanted me to talk" Becky responded causing Stephanie to hold her hand out and stop the girls

"Your father and I had a little argument, but it's fine. I have to go and help my father, just for a week or so"

"But you'll miss Christmas" Bayley said with a frown

"I will be here for Christmas. I'm bringing my parents here so we'll all have Christmas dinner and everything together" Stephanie said with a tight lipped smile

"Well why can't Uncle Shane help grandpa?" Sasha asked causing Stephanie to look at Hunter who simply ate his food quietly

"Your Uncle...is not the best person to handle my father" Stephanie said before taking a sip of water, "But, he will be here to help out your father with things while I'm gone"

"Okay" Becky said nodding at this information while Sasha looked skeptical and Bayley still frowned at the idea

"Are you sure you have to leave?"

"It's not permanent" Stephanie said before looking to Hunter as if to check and see if this was true, but he didn't even look back at her, "It's only for a little while. I'll be back before you know it"

The family nodded at this before falling into silence for the rest of dinner, only breaking this for light conversation about Sasha's twins, Becky's volunteer work which would start on Monday and Bayley's talk with Alexa.

The next day Stephanie packed up her things and kissed all the girls goodbye. She also briefly had a sharp conversation with Hunter that the girls couldn't hear before leaving. While Shane came over and stayed at the house. He moved into the guest room and agreed to watch Sasha and Becky while Hunter and Bayley left out. Hunter took Bayley over to Alexa's house so the girl could talk to her before she left as Hunter had said that it would be better if Bayley talked to Alexa and worked things out before then. Bayley had flat out refused at first, saying that seeing Alexa again would just hurt, but Hunter managed to convince her, so he drove her over and was waiting in the car while Bayley slowly...very slowly walked to the door. There were boxes all over the yard, a moving van parked in the driveway and furniture to be discarded lined the sidewalks, causing each step Bayley took to remind her more and more of the fact that Alexa was really leaving.