It was quite the feat to carry a cute outfit in cold Washington DC to go to Christmas dinner, but Lita was adamant on wearing her high heels and skirt. Alice, who was not going to be at all behind from her Mama, also made sure to wear a cute outfit, with white tights and patent leather mary janes. Lita made sure her baby was dressed to the nines just as she wanted. She looked at Alice and smiled with warmth. Aidan would have loved this picture with Alice. It would have been their second Christmas together.
Even with that melancholic twinge inside of her chest, she made sure to make herself ready and to go meet Elizabeth and the kids at home. They were going to do gift exchanges, although Lita made sure to bring a little gift for everyone. She also brought down to the car garage the pumpkin pie and Puerto Rican flan she had cooked for the get together.
Usually she would join her family in New Orleans or her sister in Connecticut. This year she decided to keep still during Christmas and invite her sister over for New Years. Which meant she was free to invent for Christmas. She had immediately checked in with Elizabeth to see if she was in favor of sharing a holiday together. The Auras had already become a constant in their everyday lives, play dates and dinners, shopping sprees and movie afternoons. Chance and Sedgewick getting used to each other as doggie playmates too.
The food was placed and balanced well in the back, Chance went to his spot on the back seat and Alice strapped into the passenger seat. Lita with her impossible high heels readying herself to drive. The radio was turned to Christmas music and with a giggle they began to join the chorus of a sing along, since Alice had just participated in the school’s Christmas caroling. “It’s the most wonderful time of the yeeeaaaar!”
The distance to the Aura’s home was driven, Lita excited to see all three girls play together. Eliza and Elissa already feeling like an honorary aunt. Snuggling herself with at least a jacket and a scarf she pulled into the driveway and got out to help Alice and Chance out of the car all over again. The three walked over to Elizabeth’s front door, the gifts and food would wait to be unpacked from the trunk after everyone said hi. With a grin, Lita gave Alice’s hand a squeeze and rang Elizabeth’s bell. In her other hand Alice held Chance’s leash.
She had to smile when she saw the older Elizabeth. Looking over at the other woman, she clasped her hands in front of her. "Hello... Long time, no see. How’ve you been?”
@elizabethaura "Aiden, wait." Elizabeth ran up to her son, taking him by the arm and pulling him closer. "I'm right here," she said to him, as she scooped him up. The woman in front of her looked almost identical. "I... I don't believe we've met. I'm sorry, he must've thought you were me."
Widow to James Bell for a year and a half. James death taking place in 1944, and his remains buried on that same year. Frances inheriting the Bell manor in Louisiana.
Frances is a pretty woman of modest character. The most vivacious thing that happened in her lifetime was her pre-marital intimacy with James in 1934 when she was 20 years old. She had been a Nanny for Alice and Leon Bell, the children of his previous marriage. 1944 finds her a mother of three children, Alice, 18 and Leon, 16, and little Yesenia Bell, 9. In Louisiana times are getting a bit better, and Frances is thinking of the way to manage the money left from the inheritance, plus any new way to gain employment. In that small town of Louisiana she continues on, even with the heaviest of hearts.
1873:
Josefa De la Cruz:
Called Josie as an English nickname, the De la Cruz family settled in New Orleans, after fleeing Santo Domingo/Hispaniola during the Haitian revolution. It was grim times in the island, even in the Dominican side, and so the De la Cruz family settled in New Orleans, where the melting pot had already attracted many kind of people to settle in the territory. Considered mixed and even creole by some people in New Orleans, the De la Cruz family played in their lighter skin complexion to get higher wage work than most creole free people. Josefa was able to find work as a house keeper in the house of Lord and Lady Aura, two fine gentry folks known for not being too prejudice or keeping slaves. Since Josefa arrived to work from a more educated background and a worker from the city proper and not from the plantations, Lady Aura seemed to relegate most of the house management to her. She took it gladly, wanting to prove herself to the Lady. Josie does take much advantage of her position at the Aura’s household. For example, she is given prettier dresses during the Southern balls thrown by the couple, she is a celebrated beauty, and considered a flirty creole belle. Josie has wondered about her lady’s disposition as of late when she seems to be more distant from her husband, and even the rest of the family. She wonders if she can gather the lady’s hidden secrets.
Liliana Cruz stepped down of the bus in her usual fashion. Peach colored high heels of doom stepped lightly over the sidewalk, tight fitting jeans, form fitting sweater the same shade of her shoes, and her makeup was flawless.. She was in front of a hotel in Washington D.C.. A little hand, that had grown in size over the last two years went inside of hers. Even as a ten year old, Alice didn’t think anything of holding hands. It was a comfort between the two. She was all Alice had left in her life, any part of her old life was with Lita. Any part that was Uncle Aidan still lived in Lita’s history. And Lita was alive.
~Alice Bell~
Liliana straighten up, as the driver placed two pieces of luggage beside them, and a doorman was already making sure that said luggage was taken to the lobby. For whatever reason she remembered Elizabeth humming songs from Celtic woman, and their vivacious conversation over literature and coffee. How they had struck a friendship in Louisiana when the woman was a busy mother was beyond what Liliana could comprehend. Especially now that she was a mother. With her recent paranoia, she still felt like she had to keep Alice so close or else a flood, a strike of lightning, a wilderness she didn’t know about could take her away. Her arm came around Alice’s shoulder, under the blonde Bell locks of hair that she adored putting into pony tails, pig tails and braids.
“Mami, are we really moving here to be with my new Aunt Elizabeth?”
“I don’t know honey...I packed everything in Lakeview Dr., and I am ready to head anywhere...I just feel like, we should give being near Elizabeth a chance, and maybe your Titi Sara will follow.”
“Maybe even Titi Marina Sofia”
Lita grinned, pleasure and amusement in her face. “Yeah maybe…that would be something”
Elizabeth Aura. They had met by chance in Mariet and had begun such interesting conversations. Liliana being a watery sort of empathy, and the woman also having a remarkable intuition. They had been a few days to remember. For whatever strange reason the family did not mind Liliana tagging along, and even taking Elizabeth out one night. She had been real fortunate to have been given the time to get to know the woman.
The friendship had been so beautifully felt in those short days, that when she received word from her friend after mourning for Aidan, it had been like God sent. She had been ready to meet Elizabeth again. A woman she had hardly seen, but felt for those instances like she had known her whole life. Her messes and the passing of Aidan had been too much to confess to her friend over the phone or even in a letter. Now she had to face the music at some point, after she could get some privacy at the suite. She had actually splurged in a suite for the very purpose of having privacy when speaking to Elizabeth, away from Alice. She hated bringing the subject up in front of her delicate daughter. She checked the phone to make sure she had sent the right information right to Elizabeth, like maybe she had given the wrong address or time. Looking up from her phone, those earthy eyes roamed left and right over the street.
elizabethaura
Elizabeth watched Catelyn move to one of the chairs but remained standing, her hands knitted elegantly in front of he as she had often seen her mother do.
"No, I don’t have any siblings….." Elizabeth replied first before continuing, "I keep hoping that I will though….. It gets very boring sometimes…." she then smiled, "It must be really exciting….. Waiting for a little brother or sister…."
"I'm excited," Cat nodded, "But Lysa isn't. I think she likes being the baby...but I told her that being the big sister is fun as well" She continued to swing her legs and plait her hair as she looked at Elizabeth. "You can sit if you want. What do you do for fun if you don't have any sisters to play with? Do your friends stay with you a lot?"
