It has been over a year since the murder of his wife, Lily, and James Potter wishes every day that it is simply a nightmare that he will wake up from. Unfortunately, it isn't and in the wake of her death, James finds himself as a single parent to th...
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Perhaps it was all in Renata's mind or maybe the Earth could sense that something was about to go awry, but it was suddenly chillier in the anticipated arrival of Alcina Abate. Of course, as James had stated previously, Adelmo came to warn her about their mother's visit, but Renata already knew since James had confided in her. However, Adelmo had a lot more of the details, such as their mother arriving in the early morning hours, where she would be visiting Adelmo first for breakfast. Their father would not be making the trip this time and the two Abate siblings could agree that it was probably a good thing because they were already reaching peak levels of stress with just the thought of one parent visiting.
Adelmo was troubled because Sirius was making it difficult for him to suppress his true feelings, especially when he came over that very same night, grabbed him by the shirt, and pulled him into a strong kiss right on the front steps of Adelmo's home. But while Sirius was free to make all the decisions he wanted to, Adelmo didn't feel as though he had that same freedom, especially if he wanted to remain in the good graces of his parents.
Sirius questioned why Adelmo wished to remain in their good graces if they weren't going to support him for the person he truly was and Adelmo couldn't come up with a proper response. The only thing he could say was that it meant a lot to him to be perfect in the eyes of his parents, it was really all he had ever known. Perfection wasn't just a goal, it was supposed to be maintained and it was expected of both of them. But at least, professionally, Adelmo was way ahead of the game in comparison to his sister. At least he had a job that his parents respected, Renata was not going to be so lucky.
That was leaving her to fret, to the point where she was practically chewing her nails down to the skin. Then she began fretting about the imperfect appearance of her nail bed, knowing her mother was probably going to scold her for that since nail-biting was a nasty habit. However, the most unfortunate aspect of it all was that Renata and Adelmo didn't see it as wrong that their mother had placed them in such a state. They didn't seem to understand that their parents should have never made them feel such fear of being imperfect in their eyes.
How they couldn't see it as wrong, James and Sirius didn't understand. Instead, they had to stand witness to both Renata and Adelmo telling them that it was just a form of tough love. That it was just the way they had grown up and they couldn't expect anyone else to really understand unless they had grown up in a similar household. But Sirius knew all about abusive households after coming from one, especially with his bat-shit crazy mother, Walburga and he knew that it wasn't just a tough love household that Renata and Adelmo were coming from.
"They're afraid, James," Sirius said with a shake of his head, " you can see it written all over their faces. They are actually terrified of their mother visiting because they think she's going to be disappointed in them. I mean, I can understand not wanting to disappoint your parents, but the amount of fear they are holding, right now as adults, it's not healthy. It just makes me wonder what was done to them when they didn't meet their parents' expectations, you know?"
