The Silent Girl (Chapter 7)
*Disclaimer*: This is a work of fiction. Some events may be based on real life, but some events are made up. For translations of the Chinese, see the Translation section at the very end.
"What do you want?", the lady asked.
"I am Emily Lee. We all came here to help you.", my aunt said.
"Oh. Don't forget I have a rule. Always follow everything I say. I hope that you will stay longer than my last helper.", she said.
We all followed her inside. The building didn't look very friendly. It was dark and gloomy. Not to mention dirty.
The first day was bad. She kept saying stuff like: "that is not how you do it" and "have you ever baked in your life". We went to the cottage tired and discouraged.
We soon became lonely and homesick. We decided to go home. Home was wonderful. I was even glad to milk the cow!
I soon went back to my old routine. It was nice to hear everybody laughing around the table. I even considered gradually talking.
Then one day, while Clara's dad was saying grace, he started coughing and just couldn't stop. The next day, his skin turned very yellow.
"I think you should go to the doctor.", Ye Ye¹ said.
It turned out, he had cancer. A lot of people died from this.
He soon died. Nobody laughed anymore or even smiled. Well actually, they did but they were small and sad.
Meanwhile, Ava had come back and she kept shrieking hysterically.
Clara just stared into space. She was getting thinner than ever. I could barely get her to eat one meal.
Ye Ye and Nai Nai² did what they had done when my father had died. One day, they even cried. They then worked harder than ever to keep their minds busy.
Ma Ma sat in her room crying, since all the males in her generation of the family were dead.
My aunt cried into her pillow. She did it so much that her pillow was covered with lots of tears.
Malachi slept and slept and slept. It seemed that all he did was sleep. He did sometimes wake up to fart though.
I was very calm for some odd reason. I think it was because I had already shed my tears when Ellie and my dad died.
Austin tried to wake Malachi up, but he just woke up farted and went back to sleep. He also kept calling us babies. By now, none of us really cared that much. Clara sometimes smiled really sad smiles and I felt like shedding tears I didn't have.
Hayden did everything normal except he didn't laugh and smile. He kept telling jokes to get people to smile, but it never worked.
We were all a sad family. What could happen next?
That's sad that they went all the way to Boise to help out with the bakery, but it didn't work out. I heard Clara is a very good baker and has lots of experience making all kinds of bakery goods at home!
ReplyDeleteEven sadder to see that the Lees has another death in the family and to see how each person has their own way of dealing with their grief. The Lees have been through so much! Do you think Clara will stop talking as well? It sounds like she is losing a lot of weight... it might not be very healthy for a growing girl. On the positive front, it doesn't sound like Malachi is sleep deprived anymore....
Maybe Malachi just naturally sleeps a lot... But sorry, I shouldn't say much more. (Otherwise the surprise will be ruined.)
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