"To the worst summer we ever had and the best punch ever thrown!"
"Oh, stop it, Jenny... You're making me blush!"
~~~
George Marshall, owner of Lila's Seafood Restaurant since it first opened and for over forty years, tries his best to save it from...
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The biggest surprise of that entire year was seeing my mom and dad walk into Lila's. Like, wow. They remembered they actually had kids?
"What are you doing here?" I asked immediately, cracking a smile. I'd missed them. They might not have been around much, but they were still my parents.
"We came to see you and Mary- and check up on my dad." my father hugged me.
"Okay, seriously though... What's the occasion?" I chuckled awkwardly. I hadn't seen them in two years, why the sudden visit?
"We can talk about this over lunch, how about that? Lila's is holding up well..." my mom glanced around.
"Of course it is." Gramps walked out of the kitchen with a tray of food. After dropping it off at a table, he joined the family reunion by hugging my parents.
Mary barely recognised them when she saw them. At first she titled her head in confusion, trying to remember where she knew them from.
"Mommy?" she called. Our mom nodded excitedly. "Daddy?" she turned to our dad, who did the same thing his wife had.
They didn't even realise that their kid didn't know who they were.
Logan and Dennis joined us for lunch and so did George. They were family too, after all. Everything was great, until we all turned our attention back to the reason why Jim and Alyssa Barnes had visited so out of the blue.
"Well... Should I do the honours or should you?" my mom laughed nervously. My father took her hand in his and my eyes widened.
"Where are your rings?" I asked them.
"We decided we'd take a month of a break from each other, and we did. I guess we forgot to put them back on." Jim waved it off.
"Why are you acting like this is nothing? You took a break and only decided to tell us now? This is big. You've been married for twenty years--"
"Yes, and we're forty now. It was a little late, but we wanted to see how we could do without each other. That only made us realise that we can't." Alyssa smiled.
"What are you saying?" Gramps asked them.
"We're taking a ten year trip to explore the Amazon jungle. We won't be able to communicate with you for that time, so we came here to see you goodbye. We're leaving tomorrow." dad explained.
Gramps' eyes widened and he appeared to want to say something, but only shook his head and left the table. "I'll go check on him." announced George and left he gave Dennis and Logan a meaningful glance and they got put of the table too, leaving me and my sister alone with our parents.
"Hey, kiddo, don't get upset. We're going to be back in a few years. It will be as if we were never gone." my father tried to reassure us.
"Yeah, but you have been gone. Stop treating me like I'm five years old, I'm leaving for college soon! Mary couldn't even recognise you when you got here!" I told them.
