Dreaming of Cheers (Standing Up to Life Book 3)

Chapter 16:

MY PARENTS AND I left the house without saying anything else. My grandparents had disappeared somewhere when we were leaving, so I couldn't even say goodnight to them. Aunt Linda and Bill had also made a silent escape apparently; at least I didn't see them as we were leaving either. It was about twenty minutes to the hotel, and for the first fifteen I didn't feel comfortable saying anything at all. I finally decided I wasn't going to play the stupid kid on this trip. "What happened?" I asked quietly.

My parents both shared another one of their silent looks between each other, at some point Mom decided to speak, "Tiffany... Your Uncle just got a little... umm..."

"Upset about us 'indulging' you..." My Dad offered.

This really wasn't a surprise to me - I'd guessed as much. "What else got said?" I asked them.

"Well, it wasn't really as bad as it could have been... but it happened after your grandparents went to bed, so he felt like he could unload a bit more."

"What did he say?" I asked again quietly.

Dad looked at my Mom who I could see shake her head just a little bit. He hesitated, then said, "Look Tiffany, we'll talk about it in the hotel room, okay?"

"You'll tell me though, right?" I asked.

"Yes Tiffany, we'll tell you," Mom said with a sigh. Whatever it was must have been pretty bad, because they didn't want to say anything about it. I didn't really feel like they could afford to coddle me... honestly after everything I'd heard at school it couldn't be any worse.

As we drove up to the hotel, I was surprised to see how few people seemed to be staying there. 'I would have thought the hotels would be filling up for the holiday,' I thought aimlessly as we walked in through the doors. Once upstairs Dad decided to go for ice, and Mom suggested, "Tiffany why don't you go ahead and put your pajamas on?"

"You're not going to get away from telling me..." I started.

"We're going to tell you, just please go put your pajamas on first?" She paused and then added, "I'm going to be waking you up a bit early so you can get ready to go over there for lunch, so I want you to be able to go to bed soon."

I wondered if she was hoping that I would fall asleep before I could find out, but I knew I wouldn't. I went ahead and grudgingly put my pajamas on, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and returned out to the room. Mom was sitting on the bed I was going to be sleeping on watching the TV. I went over to my bag, grabbed Emily, and then cuddled her while leaning against Mom. She silently stroked through my hair for a few minutes until Dad finally returned from getting ice.

"Sorry, I had to go down to the first floor before I could find an ice machine that was working!" he said.

I decided to just be patient and wait for them. Finally, when I was out of patience Dad finally spoke. "Tiffany, I know you want to know what was said, but are you really sure you want to know?" He asked me with concern on his face.

"Daddy, I doubt it can be any worse than the million things that I've been told already at school and elsewhere."

I watched him grimace, but nod. "We were talking earlier about a lot of things earlier before your grandparents went to bed. You weren't really brought up a whole lot – and we didn't see that rocking the boat was going to do a lot of good, so we didn't say much. We did talk a little bit about the trip to New York, the fact that you were a co-captain on the dance squad, and a couple other things in passing, but not like we were talking about the other grandkids."

"Eventually your grandparents went to bed around nine, and your Uncle began drinking some whiskey. From there he became mean to just about everyone, but when he came to talking about you and me, he just became livid. He said some things about you that I won't repeat, no matter how much you ask, but basically, he called us bad parents for letting you be yourself Tiffany. He seems to think that maybe we shouldn't even be claimed in the family tree anymore – stuff like that."