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#18

   As soon as everyone said 'amén', Abuela picked up the big dish of cilantro lime rice and dished a little into Abuelo's plate, pushing the plate of chicken fajitas and some vegetable salad to him while she dished some rice into her own plate.

   This was always the routine at my grandparents house, the dish is passed around the table from oldest to youngest except for the little ones who couldn't dish their own food.

   The aroma of the food was making my stomach grumble, I took a little of the rice and added little chicken fajitas, if I was going to walk for mom, I didn't need to gain extra fat, I'm already big enough.

    Sometime between when Pierre and I were outside, Abuela's housekeeper came back from town and we all pitched in any way we could while they cooked. The colorful food tasted as delicious as it looked and the table was quiet while everyone ate, one of Abuela's rules at the table was that we should all involve ourselves in some discussion or the other.

  "Why's the table so quiet, it's a party not a funeral," Abuela said looking around the table with narrowed eyes.

  Her expression made me smile and a few chuckles were heard from around the table and my smile got bigger. It didn't take me long after Viki came for me to realize that the 'party' Abuela threw was just a family gathering and no one else outside family was going to be attending. I knew it was just an excuse for Abuela to get everyone together since it has been a while we all saw each other but I'm not complaining.

  "Viki!" Abuela called to her housekeeper who was in the kitchen cleaning up, "Bring the wine, let the celebration begin," she said.

     I sat beside Pierre much to everyone's surprise, I always sat beside Abuela or Abuelo since Leo's death, I was avoiding any long conversation with anyone else. I saw the raised eyebrows and delight in everyone's gaze when Pierre and I ran into the house but no one said anything to us.

   Abuela instructed Viki to pour wine into everyone's glass, except Uncle Carlos's kids who Abuela considered too young to have alcohol. I was only seventeen, and according to the law too young to have alcohol but according to Abuela's laws, once you were sixteen, you could have a glass of wine, that was another one of her weird rules we still didn't get till today.

   She once asked, why her grandchildren would have to hide to taste alcohol when they had a winery in the family, according to her it was better she let's us know how alcohol taste like through fine wine and tell us about the dangers of drinking than letting us learn through our peers. In a way her theory worked because I wasn't a fan of Alcohol and Leo waited patiently till he could taste the wine at our grandparents house before he ever started drinking.

   "Abuela, we are going out tonight," Nicole said putting down her glass which she just sipped from.

   Everyone at the table were talking about something with people beside them but they stopped to listen to Nicole, I was still quiet, it wasn't easy to go back to the simple relationship I had with Pierre.

  "We? Who's we and where are the we going?" Abuela asked.

  "Shawn, Pierre, Lola and I, we are going into town."

  "Not fair, you guys get to do everything together and leave us out, you get to taste the wine and now go into town," Xavier said.

   He looked upset but that didn't stop Aunt Rose from giving him a glare, I heard dad chuckle along with Uncle Alejandro.

  "Calm down, chiquito," Uncle Alejandro said still chuckling.

"Don't interrupt when your elders are talking, Xavi," Abuela said narrowing her eyes at him.