Sonata of The Shattered | Book I

The Whole Family

5 July 2022

It was finally the nerve-wrecking day where Fransesca and Christine would be introduced to the family for the first time. Even in the past, Clayton never introduced her properly to his family or if that's what he thought. Fransesca never met them and so did the opposite, so the expectation was pretty high today especially to the parents.

With Claudius being close behind the public's eyes with the woman as their children were in the same class and Henry was actually a colleague of hers in NAFA, it turns out that she actually met everyone already. Even Vincent himself.

Talk about coincidence, or was it actually fated? All the meetings that she had with each of them but not the parents.

Christine was excited, but Fransesca was clearly nervous. It's only been days since they moved into his house and Fransesca would say that it's the same kind of nervousness for her, but this one was bigger than what she thought it would be. She never thought that meeting the whole family at the same place would be this big.

Dressed in white knee-length dress and heels, she looked refined and beautiful. Her daughter, Christine, wore the same. The mother and daughter really shook him with the similarities that both had; they were each other's splitting image for sure.

Standing in front of the main door to the mansion, Clayton smiled and held his daughter's hand tight while Fransesca again, stood behind him. Today's main attention should be Christine as the granddaughter to the family and not her. She knew that meeting his parents would be a disaster, at least that's what she had in mind at this point.

Though Clayton told her that his parents were very welcoming and will understand what happened between them in the past, her guts said the opposite. She knew something was yet to come and she knew how this would end up. This dinner would end up. But instead of saying what she had in mind, she kept it in silence just for herself.

"Ready?" asked Clayton to Christine, which the little girl nodded. He turned his head back to Fransesca only to see the woman looking pale from the nervousness. He could see it that the woman was literally shaking from being nervous. Clayton couldn't understand the real reason why she was shaking so badly right now.

"Fransesca?" he called her softly as he then held her hands and looked into her eyes. He saw her fears there. The kind of fear he never saw from her. He never saw her like that before and he knew that something happened inside her mind. Something that is troubling her mind and heart.

"Everything will be okay."

He tried to calm her down though he felt like he failed to do so. Fransesca was seen troubled and uncomfortable, though she knew she needed to go through this thing. "What if it's not?" she asked him in which the man quickly shook his head and hugged her for some seconds. "Everything will be okay. I promise you, Fransesca. I promise you one thing and this should be it."

Fransesca nodded her head and walked behind the man as they then entered the mansion, straight to the dining room where everyone was already there. She could see Claudius, Henry, his parents, and even Vincent there— sitting quietly beside his father as Christine and him greeted each other with a smile on their faces.

"Ma, Pa, everyone, this is Catharina Christine Clementine. Christine, my daughter. My biological daughter," he proudly introduced his daughter to everyone in the room. Christine then bowed to everyone and smiled as she now took her chance to introduce herself to everyone in the room; his uncles, friend slash cousin, and then her grandparents.

David welcomed her with a warm smile while Gertrude welcomed her own granddaughter with a slight smile she forced herself to. "Hello everyone, my name is Christine." she introduced herself politely before she sat on a chair where Clayton pointed at. Then, Fransesca was left to be introduced. Clayton gestured to the woman to take some steps forward when he noticed that the woman was shaking again.