Re-Arranged

Chapter Eighteen

Wren returned alone to the other city where the main branch of his office was, leaving his wife and four kids in the care of his brother-in-law and the said brother-in-law's wife.

"It's wrong, isn't it, how normal this feels?" Evelyn remarked over breakfast. She buttered her toast and took a bite out of the crunchy crust. "It should normally be the opposite way, right? Ideally speaking."

"Ideally speaking," her brother said, applying jam across his own toast, "this is your ideal situation, your normal way of life. So what's the point comparing?"

"Let your sister complain when she wants to complain, okay?" Evelyn said in an exasperated tone and put the bread down. "I don't like it and I want to talk about it, so just shut up and listen."

"Fine, go ahead then. I'm just pointing out the obvious thing, for the record."

"Men and their pursuit of logical reasoning," his sister mumbled under her breath. "Couldn't have gotten a sister, could I?" Aloud, she asked, "Why are you so edgy today anyway?"

"Don't know. Woke up feeling grumpy, but I'm pretty sure I slept just fine last night." He shrugged his shoulders and helped himself to another toast.

"Grumpy? You sound more like you are harbouring some foreboding."

"Actually," Darian began and paused, considering her statement while chewing. "Actually, you might be right. It's like that feeling that something is about to happen. But nothing has happened so far."

"It's only eight in the morning." She paused and asked, "Where's Kel?"

"It's her day off, I let her sleep in. She stayed up late to check in on Ma and Papa, that they had boarded their connecting flight to here."

"Ah, they're finally coming back. How long has it been since the funeral? A month?"

"Five weeks. They stayed back to help Aunt Sarah sort through everything and give her moral support too. They always travel on a sixty day visa there anyway, so extending their holiday is hardly any trouble for them except with the airline tickets."

"After so many years of travelling back and forth, even those would be easily handled I suppose."

"Yeah. They would land in two hours or so. I'm counting on their call to be Kelly's wake-up call this morning."

The supposed wake-up call did come, but did not quite serve the purpose Darian had imagined. Kelly talked on the phone, confirmed her parents were safely in a taxi heading home, cut the call, turned over and drifted off to sleep yet again.

It was well past noon by the time she finally woke up, brushed her teeth and headed downstairs in her pyjamas. Yawning and stretching out her arms, Kelly greeted a lazy good morning to the room at large. She did not open her eyes until she heard nothing in reply.

Three major information collided into her brain soon as her eyes registered the scene in the living room.

Sawyer and Aunt Katherine seated at the sofa. The other occupants of the house sort of faded and blurred into the background in comparison to them.

Sawyer smiling.

The call with her parents that vaguely contained the words 'surprise', 'university here', 'with you'.

"Sawyer's joining the local university and staying here?" Kelly blurted out before her brain could signal her mouth to shut up.

"Just woken up and still so updated on information! Aren't you great, cousin?"

She looked at the speaker in an uncertain daze. He was not speaking with any hint of sarcasm. He said it in a frank, matter-of-fact tone. He said it in simple admiration. He was Sawyer.