✨Chapter 4 : A little bit of Sunshine

                                    

                                          
~SUNSHINE~
Moving her head to the gospel music that was currently playing, Sunshine pulled out her phone to check her notifications, being in her own world. 
Today was Friday and also one of her grand-uncles' birthday, so the family reunited to celebrate him. 
The party officially started at 1 p.m, but in their old fashion way black folks couldn't be on time even if their lives depended on it. So she had to wait for her cousins to pull up to actually have some fun. 
Contrary to everybody else, her parents always made it a mission to be on time wherever they had to be, so it often resulted to her being bored until more people show up. She tried to entertain herself with the music, but the actual DJ, who was her big cousin Adrian, was nowhere to be found and she didn't know how to work her grandparents' very old radio or whatever it was. 
She wished Isis came with her, but she was back to work today, so she couldn't tag along for this two days trip. 
The birthday boy, uncle Will, actually lived in Memphis, but since her grandmother was hosting the party, everybody had to come to Dallas.
It was always like that though since her grandmother had a big house and backyard to fit their huge family. 
Her grandmother was the eldest of eleven children, while her grandfather had eight siblings and the two had seven kids together. 
Everybody, or almost, had their own kids too, who kept the lineage going, so they were always a lot at those family gatherings. Four generations mixed together, so it was also always entertaining. 
Puffing, Sunshine stood up from her seat in the dining room to wander around and actually find something to do. 
Unfortunately, she made the mistake of stepping into the kitchen, where her grandmother was slaving over the stove. She was always in charge when it came to the food. 
Her grandmother was an old lady stuck in the past when it came to gender roles. Her mindset didn't evolve with time at all. She was definitely a woman of another generation, who seemed to not be aware of the continuous mouvement of women's emancipation.
"Ah, you're here. I've been calling your mother, but she disappeared only God knows where. Come help me. You know how to make collard greens, right ?" her grandmother asked, looking at her as if she challenged her to say anything else but yes.
Her grandmother really disliked any woman that didn't master the skills to be a good wife. If you were older than twelve and couldn't cook a good meal, take care of kids or clean a house, you didn't deserve any kind of respect in her book. 
It was hard for Sunshine to have an actual relationship with her grandmother because it always felt like she had to defend herself whenever they tried to have a conversation. They were on two different planets and couldn't find a common ground. 
"Yes, I know. But there's already a lot of food, don't you think ? You made all of this by yourself ?" Sunshine asked with her natural soft voice. 
The woman might be crazy but she was a warrior. They were going to be more than fifty people and she made enough food for everybody to have at least two meals per day for the next three days.