After Em’s mom had thanked us for taking care of her daughter, she took a sip from the tea Ria brewed for her.

“Say, Corelia, dear, do you still have that many issues with your parents?” She asked, the question seemingly came out of the blue, but she knew full well how Ria’s parents thought about me.

“Yes… I’m sorry that you had to lie to them for us.”

Em’s mom shook her head. “It’s not an issue, dear. Not at all.” She put down her cup of tea with a sigh. “I never really understood what your parents had against Aurora to begin with. I could tell from the beginning she had a heart of gold and that her loyalty lies with her friends… or girlfriends in this case.”

“My parents just really don’t like people who are…” She looked at me with terrible guilt in her eyes. “From humble origins.”

“Hey, hey. Don’t feel sorry for having to say that, Ria.” I put my arm around her and smiled. “I know you don’t think that about me.”

“It’s tragic.” Em’s mom continued. “How are you planning to keep this relationship secret from them? I know that right now that seems like the best course of action, and it probably is, knowing them. But they are going to start to suspect something after a while. We can only misdirect them for that long before they are going to start suspecting something. I don’t think we can fool them with the ‘your daughter is sick at my place’-trick for that many more times before the lie will fall through, either…”

“I don’t know…” Ria shook her head.

“Have you thought about that, Aurora?” Em’s mom asked me.

“Not really, there’s been a lot going on recently that requires my attention too.”

“Hmm… Like what exactly happened that Thursday? And then the sudden extracurricular activities?”

Em’s mom was terribly sharp, but then again, those things just were very suspicious. “Yeah…”

“Look, I won’t pry because I can tell this is making the three of you quite uncomfortable.” She smiled. “But if you ever want to tell someone, I’m here to listen.” She took the plate of cookies from on the table and lifted them up in front of us. Ria and I took one cookie each.

With our talk with Claire on the horizon, it appeared we had a lot more to discuss tomorrow as well. Alessia would hopefully give us some advice on the matter, but right now, staying quiet was for the best.

“Thank you for understanding.” I nodded and smiled weakly at the woman who had been the closest to a mother figure I’d had my entire life.

“Don’t force yourselves, alright?” She smiled once more. “But enough of all this serious talk for now. Who would like to see some childhood pictures of little Emma?”

Emma, who’d been terribly quiet up to now, suddenly perked up. “Mom! No! Please!”

“Awh, come on, Em. Your pictures are so cute, don’t you want your girlfriends to see them?”

“For the love of the Goddess, please, no.” Her face had become bright red.

“Awwwhhhh…” Ria awed. “Now I really want to see them too.”

Of course, I couldn’t do anything but to agree as well.

“Okay, I’ll let the baby pictures out, how about that?”

“Fine.” Em pouted. “But just because Ria wants to see them.”

Em’s mom giggled. “You are going to love the little sailor outfit she wore for her 10th birthday. That’s one of my favorite pictures.”

Em just didn’t say anything anymore and stood up to help her mom gather the photo albums.

They got together four albums before they joined us again. Em’s mom decided to sit in between Ria and me, while Em took up a spot next to me as we started going through all the different pictures.

“Waaaah!” Ria pointed at one of the pictures on the left page of the first book. “How old is she in this one?”

“Seven years old.” Em’s mom said with a big smile. “She had just finished a lecture in front of her class about airplanes, and she was so proud that the teacher praised her.” She pointed at the picture that smol Emma was holding. “Look at the cute airplane she drew.”

“Awh.” I smiled at Em. “I didn’t know you liked airplanes that much.”

“They are just cool, okay?” She pouted.

I chuckled and continued watching the photos as they came by.

“Ah! This is the sailor outfit you were talking about?” Ria pointed at yet another picture a couple of pages further in.

“Yes it is.”

Em then started talking. “We went to this harbor village to take pictures.”

“And afterwards we went to this little cozy restaurant, but our Emma hated all the food on the menu. Luckily, since then, she has learned to eat a little bit more.”

“I don’t have any memory of ‘that’ happening.” Em shook her head quite violently, which made Ria and I chuckle a bit.

Then we went through quite a few pictures with both Emma and Karin in them, which showed how close they had been from a very young age. It was in the second book when I first saw a picture that I could vividly remember myself.

“Oh, I know this one.” I pointed at the picture I meant. It had smol Emma at the age of 14 standing with her sister next to a school building. “That’s the day we first met, right?”

“I think it is.” Em’s mom nodded happily. “When she came back home that day, she was telling us about this new friend she made at school. It was so cute.”

“Mhmm.” Em nodded with a blush on her cheeks.

A couple of pictures later had Emma in a light yellow summer dress. “And this one… She was so nervous to wear it to school, but when she returned, she said it was her favorite dress.”

“Because you complimented me with it…” She looked at me, her blush grew even bigger.

“Right! Didn’t you have a yellow ribbon in your ponytail too?”

“She did!” Em’s mom smiled.

“What are you doing?” Karin peaked her head through the double door leading to the living room.

“We are looking at some photos of you and your sister.” Her mom replied softly.

“Oh.” Karin walked in, she was holding a book in her hand and joined Em at her side.

“Were you feeling lonely?” Em asked.

“A little.”

“Here, do you remember this picture?” Em pointed at a photo in the top right of the page where both Emma and Karin were sitting on a swing set.

Karin nodded. “It was a trip to grandpa.”

The five of us continued looking through pictures for another hour or so before Em’s mom closed the picture book.

“You must be starving right now.”

“Well, Ria ate half of the sweets, so I’m not that sure about that.” I joked around.

“I still have room for more!” Ria commented with a big smile.

“How? Do you have a singularity in your stomach?”

She nodded enthusiastically. Her enthusiasm made me chuckle.

Karin had also been eating a couple of the éclairs we had brought along, but she nodded together with her friend.

“Let’s head to the dinner room then, so we can get some food. I’m pretty sure Paul will come home from work any time soon as well.”

We followed Em’s mom through the living room and into the dining room on the opposite side. At about the same moment, the door from the main entrance hall opened as well.

“Ah, welcome home, dear.” Em’s mom went over to the door that just opened and greeted her husband.

“Hey Ilse.” He kissed his wife. “I see you were just going to let the food be brought in.” Em’s father’s eyes went to me and Ria. “Hello to you two ladies and to my beautiful daughters as well of course.”

“Hey dad.” Em waved, while Ria and I waved along with her. Karin just went over to give her dad a hug, which he gladly returned.

We then moved along and got seated at the dining room table. Ria, Em and I were seated opposite to Karin, and Em’s mom and father. They had already alerted the chef to come and bring the food out when it was ready.

“You both know I’m a man of few words.” Paul said, clearly directed to Ria and me. “So I’ll just say that I wish the three of you a lot of happiness.”

“Thank you.” I replied, while Ria just nodded along with it. And that was practically everything that was said before the food was brought in. It was obvious to see where Karin had gotten her lack of verbosity from.

However, the silence didn’t really take long anyway as the house cook came out with a trolley where all the plates were neatly displayed.

“I hope chicken breast with potato croquettes and an assortment of veggies is to your liking.” Em’s mom smiled. She knew, as we’d eaten here multiple times before.

“And for lady Corelia we also made the mayonnaise she likes so much.” The cheff smiled, putting the small dish with mayo in front of my little singularity.

“Thank you so much!” Ria replied, knife and fork already in hand.

“Have a nice meal.” The cook smiled and then disappeared through the doors again.

We all wished each other a nice meal before we started our dinner.

It was such a shame I couldn’t really feel hunger anymore. -Well, at least it will taste as grandiose as it always had.-