Telling The Family

I decided that I would tell them and discuss everything else. I came out to see my mom and sister talking about their day and gossiping about the people from their workplace. It was at moments like this that made me appreciate the family that I had. Even after all the distress and hell we had been through, we could still laugh at the little things and keep on living. I stood there and watched for a while until my nephew saw me and run to me to complain about the things that happened to him in school. I smiled at him and told him to go play with his toy that his aunt Veronica got for him. That was the first born name. He left to go play and I headed to the kitchen to talk to them about the plans I had made.

"Hey sis,ma" I greeted them and stood at the door because the kitchen was too small to contain us three at the same time. After deliberating on how to approach the issue, I just decided to get straight to it.

"I will be getting a big paycheck next week and I want us to move"

The kitchen got quiet and they stared at me for a while to see if I was serious or playing. I quietly stared back at them until my sis asked me how much we were talking. Actually I didn't know myself and I said, "I know it's big but let me check ". I logged onto the site and went to the payments status. My hand shook when I saw the amount and they also noticed my reaction. "Hey Sly, stop playing and tell me how much you're getting ". I looked up from the phone and passed it to my sister who immediately dropped the ladle upon seeing the figures. My mom immediately got upset because she was big on cleanliness which showed all around the house because despite how bad the apartment was,it was always spotless. After saying an earful and washing the ladle twice, she then asked the question of money again. My sister still being speechless showed her the screen of my phone. After my mom stared at the screen for five seconds to comprehend the numbers she was seeing, she immediately dropped the ladle and covered her mouth. My sis rolled her eyes and picked it up and put it in sink. My mom took five minutes to compose herself and with a serious face asked me to explain how I got that kind of money because even after everything the family had been through, none of them did took the easy route and did anything illegal. Instead of talking, I went back to my room and brought out the file with the contract and handed it over to my sister to read. My mom and I got quiet and waited for my sister to finish reading it and explain what was going on. After she was done reading, she took a deep breath and smiled with tears in her eyes. My mom could already tell that nothing was wrong but wanted things to be clear. Lydia then went on to explain to her that I had written a book and the company reached out to me to sign a contract with them which makes sure I get paid for my book and they get to keep it on their website alone without other websites claiming it. My mom understood about seventy percent of what was being said but that was enough to her realize that the money was really legit and it came through legal means. She also had tears in her eyes and started crying. Even I got teary eyed and decided to interrupt the moment before things got any further. "Sis, I know you meet a lot of people through your work so can you introduce a real estate agent to us to find apartments for us to look into". She nodded with a smile and shooed me out of the kitchen to finish cooking. I could hear them laughing all the way from my room and I smiled and looked down on the payment pending on my phone. '39,000 dollars huh?'

If I considered that I had a 10x discount card and a rare 100x discount card, then that money could become either become 390,000 or 3,900,000. It could even be more than that if used them both but I wasn't going to do that. After realising that life was now going to be better from here on out, I couldn't help but start having fantasies about the future. I heard my sis shout out my name telling me the food was ready and I should come out. During the meal, my sis passed me the number of the agent and I called her,since it was a she, after the meal and discussed what I needed. She asked a lot of questions which was getting stressful and I had to interrupt and tell her that all I needed was a three bedroom, fully furnished, relatively new and if not at least not too old place close to the city since my mom is not really fond of the fast city life and all the traffic. Also the price range should be between 20 to 30 thousand for six months since I wanted a very nice place for them. I asked her to keep the matter of price between us since I knew they wouldn't want all the money from the book payment to be used for an apartment since they didn't know about the system. That was a secret I was not going to tell a soul. After a week of running around with my sis looking at the options the agent gave us,we finally decided on a three bedroom luxury apartment in a nice neighbourhood since house prices in Philly were more affordable than busier states.