Rancorous

Chapter 29

PRESENT

Herlina

Last night, even with the amount of hands helping out, my grandmother's house wasn't impeccably clean until 1:30 in the morning. Between the mess in the kitchen and the mess that the children left lying around it was almost an impossible feat, but we accomplished it.

Everyone had completely left at around 2 am and I was ready to sleep. Before I could even set a foot on the stairs, my mom approached me.

She pulled me into a hug. "Herlina, I want to ask you something."

"What is it?" We pulled away but she held me in place by my arms. Her smiling green eyes that I inherited danced between my own. She was grinning, like she'd been holding a secret for so long and was impatient to get the words out. "I would like you to attend an event that I organized. I've been wanting you to see my work for quite a while now."

I raised my eyebrows, not expecting her words at all. When I was a little girl, I remembered there being several times where I had asked my mother if I could go with her to an event she'd worked on perfecting. A look of understanding flashed across her eyes, like she was reading my mind.

She rememebered what I desired so much when I was younger and was proud to finally fulfill that little dream of mine.

"Really?" My cheeks ached at the large grin I plastered on my face.

"Really." She nodded with equal happiness.

"Okay, I'd love to mom. When is it?" I couldn't contain the excitement coursing through my veins even if I wanted to. I wanted to ask so much more, but I bit my tongue not wanting to ruin the moment.

My mother reciprocated my grin. "Tomorrow, at around 7 pm. We can go together. It's a formal event, so we can go shopping to buy you a dress if you'd like."

I was about to reluctantly agree, when I suddenly had an idea. "You have tons of gorgeous dresses. Can't I just borrow one of yours?"

Love and happiness glimmered in my mother's eyes like the reflections in snow from the sunlight. "Of course Herlina." Her eyes began to water, so I embraced my mother in a hug to avoid looking at her eyes and having my eyes mirror the same reaction.

The next day, a little past noon, my mother arrived with my dad bringing a dozen dresses along with some jewelery and fancy heels. My mother and I had almost identical body shapes and the same size shoe. The only difference was I got my dad's dark ebony hair while hers was a dark shade of brown.

As my mom and dad dropped the dresses on the bed, my grandmother sat on the window cushion admiring the elegant dresses with doe eyes.

"Alright, I'll leave you ladies to it." My dad pulled me in a hug and kissed the crown of my head and then kissed my mother on the cheek. Then he turned to my grandma and said, "I'll be downstairs Mrs. Pontes."

"Alright Abel. We might be here a while, so go eat, watch t.v. or take a nap." She smiled and my father laughed.

My grandmother and mom spent the next hour and a half helping me try on different dresses in combination with different jewelry. In the end, I had hesitantly and partially agreed to a white floral dress.

"I don't know mom." Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I didn't find the colorful flowers scattered throughout the white fabric of the dress appealing. "I was hoping for a dress of a single color," I admitted. All of my mother's dresses had at least two different colors to them.

My mom began lifting dress after dress. "I do have one dress that's a neon pink. It should be here somewhere, I thought I brought it." I shuttered at the mention of a bright pink dress, I wasn't particularly fond of flourescent clothing. I had tried all the dresses she brought, and I gladly didn't recall seeing the one she described.