Under the stars

Chapter 12

Surprisingly true to my word I descended down the stairs with him right by my side. Thinking about it in detail this is probably going to be my new life as the perfect trophy wife for everyone to look at and disregard as waste with no real meaning. I never ever wanted this or myself no matter what anybody said but I suppose I really did not have a choice. Because of the height of the stars it took a few minutes before I could actually differentiate faces and Esmeralda was a woman of her word. I will give her that. She was right the whole family was here in fact anyone you possibly existed in their lineage was here. 

Most beautiful stared at me. The reactions were so different it was kind of funny. Most of the young kids in the room looked at me with awe and love and I could not help but cast a smile their way however the adults has a different expression guarding their face. One of disdain and pure unhappiness for most only in the corner of my eye there was a girl who looked to be quite close in age to me who appeared to look at me with sympathy leaving me to believe just like me she was probably forced to marry in and had to go through the same ordeal which only calmed my nerves by a fraction but nonetheless helped knowing or at least assuming I has someone in the room rooting for me.

Once everyone stopped gawking at me I took my respective sweat which seemed to be next to the head of the table Santiago. It was a pretty standard seating plan with two heads of the table on either side and people seated along both sides so to say the least it was pretty ordinary. When Santiago reached his seat everyone stood up in solidarity as it looked like with him and as soon as he took his seat everyone else commenced to do the same. On the other head of the table was Santiago's father who I have seen at the dinner but am yet to talk to. They both had this scary and intimidating aura around them and it seemed to run in the family.

I stared around in confusion as everyone sat down looking down at their plates waiting to be served. Eventually a short minute or so later the maids came rushing out to serve everybody and as they moved around I appeared to be the only one to thank them everyone one else took their meal with my much entitlement it actually disgusted me but if I said confused then I was on a whole nother level of confusion now. We all had our meal and where sitting quietly but nobody dared to pick up a utensil and star eating not even the little kids who looked like they were trained for family dinners if I was honest because if it was me sitting at the table next to the kids I would have already half devoured the meal already not caring about anybody else. After a short and annoying intermission Santiago picked up his utensil of choice and daintly scooped a piece of food up and placed it to his sealed lips and finally they opened and he swallowed. 

Then he progressed to take a sip out of his wine glass and only when he had finished a sip of the drink did everyone start digging it. I said in a state of confusion when it finally dawned on me that everyone waited for Santiago to sit down then progressed to wait for him to start. This horrified me like what type of family is that they treat each other like mortal strangers. I honestly hate to think about what their family bonding time is like. Throughout the meal I noticed in my side vision that a few adults took their time to observe me from their seat while eating and everytime I noticed a pair of eyes on me I gulped. 

Everyone looked relatively done beside one little girl on the edge and other side of the table who was quickly trying to shovel the food in her mouth. Everyone started gawking at her and I emphasised the tried to shovel the food in her mouth as the moment everyone started to look at her and even Satiago looked at her meanly her mother snatched the mood away from the poor 5 year old and slapped her quite hard. I was taken aback and filled with rage whilst most of the older people on the table looked appeased at the small poor little girl bawling her eyes out as her mother slapped her again and told her to keep quiet. I watched in disdain and both the edge of her sleeve to stifle the sound and the red hand prints on her face started to pop up. The worst thing is she is so tiny and looks like she has not even eaten all day and her plate looked relatively full and she seemed to have barely taken more than 10 bites of it.

Everybody waited in anticipation as Santiago observed the child and waited for her to stop making noise to commence his speech. "Thank you dear family for joining us on this auspicious day to welcome in our newest member my fiance Evelyn soon to be Gonzalez. Thank you everyone for today Evelyn please meet me on the patio as for everyone else you're dismissed please enjoy your night." It was dead silent, not even a peek of chatter as everyone left to what seemed to be their respective room. I believe it or not I did what I was to once in my life and headed out to the patio. As I reached I noticed the same girl who was crying outside proceeding to bawl her eyes out alone in the corner. As soon as I spotted her I moved down to console her but speak of the devil Santiago appeared. "Wendy fix your face".