-You’re not going home?
Jack blinked innocently, -Please, Aunt Yanis.
Jorge had agreed to let Jack spend some time with Yanis.
He had been quite happy with his daughter Rachel lately, although she still wasn’t treating him very well.
-Well, you can stay here as long as you want.
Yanis picked up Jack’s luggage bag and went upstairs.
Then he met a neighbor, who lived next door.
-Yanis, is that your friend’s son?
Yanis smiled, -Yes.
The older neighbor saw the small bag in Yanis’ hand.
-What is this?
Yanis hid the bag behind his back, -Nothing, by the way, your friend is still waiting for you downstairs.
Cristina went away muttering.
-Aunt Yanis, will she say something bad about you? -said Jack with some concern.
-No,” Yanis didn’t care what people thought, otherwise she wouldn’t have been friends with Alice when Alice was the target of everyone in the company.
-Aunt Yanis, I think I should go home,” Jack whispered.
Yanis paused and said, -No, stay with me, you don’t care what people say.
When he finished, Yanis handed a change of clothes to Jack.
He said, -Go take a shower, and after dinner you stay for TV, okay?
Jack didn’t want to watch TV or go to bed so early, but he couldn’t argue with that.
***
In a few days everyone in the old town knew that Yanis had brought a child home.
Yanis’ parents had been living here for a long time and knew many of the neighbors well, keeping up a polite back and forth.
Everyone here knew everyone else’s family situation and made it a daily conversation.
This time, however, according to the words of those elders, Yanis had been abandoned by a man after five years abroad and had returned home with an illegitimate child.
Yanis was surprised by this gossip.
Kennedy and George were also very angry.
Because Jack was slandered as an illegitimate son.
-Our neighbor wanted to introduce you to a man, but now?
Brisa didn’t know how Yanis felt and added fuel to the fire.
-Jack is not an illegitimate child, you know that!
-But not the others. Even I would think he was your son if he wasn’t so cute.
Yanis couldn’t speak out of aggravation.
-Daughter, they don’t care about the truth, and they won’t believe it. To console themselves, do you understand?
Yanis kept silent.
He hadn’t expected it to be so ridiculous.
-Are you going to let him go on living here?
-Jack is just a child and I can’t let him get upset.
-That’s right, that’s life,” Brisa agreed.
-And you don’t mind?
-Of course not, you don’t want to get married anyway and I can’t do anything about it.
In fact, the gossip could have saved Yanis a lot of trouble.
If everyone thought Jack was his son, they’d stop introducing him to men.
-Well,” Yanis shrugged.
-It looks like you’re not really getting married,” Brisa said helplessly.
-But I can support myself, and marriage won’t be my only option.