ghost of you // interracial

008. Familial Blues

Conflicted; Camron felt conflicted and confused and completely unsure of everything happening around him. Why didn't he feel overwhelming sadness like his sister, who was sitting across the crowded and cramped living room while bawling into a distant cousin's shoulder, or anger like his younger brother who'd punched a hole into the wall of their mother's kitchen the night before; why was it so easy for him to feel absolutely nothing for his father?

Scanning his mother's living room, eyes glossing over the countless family members he hadn't seen in years as they mourned for a man they didn't know, he felt numb.

Would these people be so heartbroken if they'd known what he knew? What if they had saw what he'd saw growing up? The drunken, violent man coming home in the early hours of the morning; belligerent fist fights at the dinner table and the horrifying screaming matches in the middle of night. Would it be as crowded as it was? He doubted it.

"Daddy," Adelina's small voice woke him from his thoughts. "I don't want this."

Looking down, his daughter stood in front of him with her plate of Hangi held out for him to take from her. She was a picky eater and that was his fault; since the day she was born, he'd been bending over to cater to her every whim.

"Did you even try it?" He knew she didn't have to; just looking at it would've made her not want to eat it. The expression on her face only confirmed that.

"It smells," she whined, jerking the plate in his direction. "Please, Daddy, I don't want it."

Camron didn't have the energy to fight with her. It wasn't the time and it wasn't the place, so with a heavy sigh, he took the plate from his daughter and set it on the coffee table in front of him. It wasn't like he could be angry with her; she had never met any of Camron's family and now she was surrounded by all of these strangers, so he expected her to act a little uncomfortable.

"Why don't you go play with your cousins? They wanna get to know you," he nodded towards the group of kids playing loudly outside. Adelina watched them apprehensively through the open window. They were a little rougher around the edges compared to his daughter; dirty clothes and untamed hair, wild expressions on their Kool-Aid stained faces.

"I don't wanna get my dress dirty," she quipped quickly after witnessing one of the larger kids body-slam another. "Can I just sit with you?"

"Yeah," he sighed, patting the empty cushion next to him. She climbed onto the couch, scooting closer to her father's side before smoothing out the fabric of her black dress. The big bow in her hair matched her dress perfectly.

"How come we never seen these people before?" She was a little loud with her question, causing a few family members to glance over at the two of them. Camron glared back, silently daring one of them to say anything negative to—or about-- her.

"Well," he started, turning his attention back to his daughter. Her big brown eyes full of curiosity stared back up at him, waiting for his answer. "Daddy doesn't normally like to come around this side of the family too often. Sometimes your family can be not so good, you know?"

"No," her reply was simple, and he was grateful for that. In her world, her family consisted of just Rebecca and Camron; mommy and daddy. And they had tried their hardest to be for her what their parents had failed at being for them. "I like my family."

Camron's momentary feeling of pride vanished at the sound of his sister's scoffing. Glancing upward toward where his sister sat across the room, surrounded by unfamiliar faces of familial ties, her glare cut right through. His expression mirrored hers; they had never been close, none of them had that strong sibling bond he'd heard so much about, but Camron and Mali were more like enemies than rivaling siblings. It'd been that way since he could remember.