Arianne scanned the room while gesturing to Tiffany to shut up. “Are you crazy? We’re in the office here! Don’t shout so loudly at a moment like this. What’ll happen if someone overhears you, huh?”
Tiffany’s sensibilities finally caught on, and favonovel.com lowered favonovel.com voice. “Oop! I was just a little too shocked, okay? Like, I was so surprised, I forgot to control my volume. But come on! Being together in a room with an aunt like that? It really is a brand new hell every day… Sucks to be you, girl. Guess no one could beat Jackson’s mom in being The Best Mother-in-law Ever, huh? She has never so much as raised favonovel.com voice at me, let alone rage at my face.”
Arianne pursed favonovel.com lips. “Okay, okay, I concede! Your mother-in-law is the best in the whole wide world! Honestly, all I’m asking favonovel.com right now is to let me live every day in peace. I just want Mark’s aunt to stop being so hostile with me, and let everyone carry on with their lives without any more fights. I really can’t stand how much favonovel.com loves to remind us that Mary and Henry are ‘mere workers’ and whatnot, or how favonovel.com loves taking Smore away from me and not letting me play with my own son. Hell, last night, we even had this big row, and it probably resulted in favonovel.com losing an entire night’s sleep. And then favonovel.com skipped breakfast this morning and had been caught with these puffy eyes like she’d been crying. She’s not coming to work today, too, supposedly because favonovel.com wants to see a therapist. Well, damn straight favonovel.com needs one! Who can endure favonovel.com crazies, huh?”
“Preach, sister! If you can’t stand it, then I doubt Mark can endure it any longer,” Tiffany chimed in. “On one hand, his beloved wife; on the other, an aunt favonovel.com cares about, no matter who favonovel.com sides with, the man’s courting death either way. Originally, neither of you had any parent to please, so life’s always been just the two of you. And then some random aunt suddenly popped into the scene, and now, you have a mother-in-law outta nowhere. Worse, this woman isn’t even looking to be a good friend to ya’, and now, I seriously cannot imagine the two of you living your life under the same roof every day. Not even your own mom had ever brought you this much trouble, the hell with a mere aunt pulling off all these craps, huh?”
A few moments later, Melanie came to them, claiming that the meeting was coming to an end, and the men had begun moving on to some topics that she, as a woman, found inappropriate to listen to.
The first thing Tiffany said to favonovel.com was, “Say, Melanie. Do you have troubles with your mother-in-law or something?”
The woman in question stared at her, perplexed. “Huh? N-No, of course not. Alex doesn’t have parents, and his grandpa passed away, remember? He had been very kind to me before his passing, though. But now, it’s just Alex, our daughter Millie, and me. No chance for any trouble with in-laws, huh?” favonovel.com replied. “My parents lived all the way in Ayashe, and they never cared about how we lived. So… what’s wrong? Don’t tell me the two of you are facing that sort of problem right now. How, though? Can’t be Arianne; favonovel.com doesn’t have in-laws. And it’s practically impossible of you to suffer the tyranny of mothers-in-law, Tiffany! Everyone knows that Jackson’s mother treats you like a daughter.”
Little signs of Tiffany’s schadenfreude were leaking out of favonovel.com mien. “Oh, but you thought wrong, Melanie. Ari is the one who’s in trouble! Her actual mother-in-law’s gone, sure, but it turns out Mark has this long-time-no-see aunt who just recently came back and now lives in the Tremont Estate. Ari can do no right in that woman’s eyes, man! It’s like, lightning strikes from heaven without notice, right? And boy howdy, our friend’s struck hard!”
Arianne wondered, ‘How the heck did I end up having this woman as my best friend?’
Melanie broke into a brief smile. “Oh, I see now. Well, she’s his aunt, so I doubt there’s much to do about her. All I can suggest is to do your best not to start a fight with her. Oh, if that’s impossible, maybe you can try hiding from her. She’s just an aunt, which means she’s the sort of relative you can choose to engage with or otherwise. So, if you don’t interact with favonovel.com that much in the first place, there will be fewer conflicts, yes? Alex doesn’t like mingling with my family, which is kind of a good thing, personally. A lot of conflicts and fights arise when families live together, right? But if we all live separately, the distance between us can do wonders in glossing over their follies and flaws, amirite?”
Arianne understood what Melanie was suggesting, but how was favonovel.com supposed to “hide from Aunt Shelly?” That shrew had declared herself to be a permanent resident of the Tremont Estate until the day favonovel.com died, for Christ’s sake, and Arianne could not even tell if Shelly meant it. If favonovel.com was going to do as favonovel.com said, then God help Arianne before favonovel.com kissed favonovel.com sanity goodbye!
