643 Family Dinner - Part 1

Friday

As they had arranged with Amanda and Yao Tan, Anna and Hou YI arrived at their apartment just on 6pm. Anna was excited to see James and Alecia for the first time since their return, as she had missed her baby brother. Yes ,she loved all her siblings, but James was always the one that she was the closest to, and having him here with her, while being a cultural shock for him, would be great.

Walking into the apartment they were shown into lounge where James and Alecia where sitting, oblivious to anyone else. Hou Yi cleared his throat to disturb them, and as they jumped apart Alecia called out "Uncle Yi" and the same time James said "Sister".

Hou Yi and Anna sat down, on a couch across from James and Alecia, before Anna asked, "Where is everyone?"

"Dad has not arrived home yet, and Mum arrived about five minutes before you, so she is changing. Junior, Ton and Sally are in the boys suite finishing off some study," came Alecia's response.

"So how does it feel to be back."

James and Alecia turned to each other, and with a smile on his face James responded "Somewhat unusual. The last time I arrived here I never thought that my next return would be permanent. Who knows what the time brings."Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.novelhall.com for visiting.

"And you do not regret anything?"

James gently picked up Alecia's hand and kissed it before turning to Anna "Anna you know I do not regret anything. But for what happened to you, Alecia and I would never have met…"

"And that would have been a shame for both of us." Finished Alecia. "Do not worry, Anna, Uncle Yi, we know it was the right decision for both of us."

"How was your graduation James?"

"Interesting, you know about mother?"

"That Alecia ended up with an Intervention Order against her. I remember you two telling me about that. What exactly happened?"

"Anna, it is a long story, and let us be realistic it goes back to when you and Yi came out to tell the family about your marriage."

"That long?" responded a curious Hou YI. "What exactly is her issue?"

"Yi, I figured you had already guessed some of it, or have at least been told about Mum's upbringing?"

"I have, it was described as being cult like."

"That puts it mildly. While Dad is religiously conservative, Susan being close in age to Ben and Adam was lucky when she was young to escape most of mum's edicts. Ben and Adam's maternal grandparents had her stay with them when Ben and Adam went to visit, and Susan was treated as their granddaughter."

"As Anna and I are younger than them they did not seem to take as well to us as Susan. Her father, as Anna likely told you ingrained into his children roles for women and men. Women were designated to be subservient to men, who were the head of the house and controlled what their women did. She left that environment as her first husband, Susan's father died early."

"Susan's father was someone handpicked for her by her father and belonged to the same religious group. When she met our father while he did not belong to their religious group, our grandfather deemed him suitable, given his religious conservatism. Cutting a long story short, in their marriage, our mother started to find her voice and controlled what happened in the home, bringing up Anna and I differently."

"Anna was from an early age, despite her intellect trained to be a homemaker, I was expected to learn to go and earn an income to support my family. Our maternal grandfather tried when Anna was about 21 or 22 for force her into an arranged marriage.  Despite what I think of Lu Jinhu, and calling him a b*stard is mild, at least she was with him."

"He convinced mother that he would treat her right which in the end convinced her father. We all know how that turned out. She was never happy with my career choice, but I stood up to her enough that allowed me to pursue being a nurse. When Alecia and I visited Mum and Dad on our return, saying that she was annoyed would be calling Mount Everest a hill."

"She immediately demanded that I kick, and this is her words 'the sl*t' out of my life, as she would ruin it. That set the scene for what happened while we were there. Every chance she got, she was trying to undermine our relationship, being verbally abusive and physically aggressive, trying to pull Alecia out of our home. Alecia, despite everything mum threw at her was calm and polite, being respectful and putting up with it."