114 - Boxes

*I just saw what Oma spent on her new grandbabies. Please tell me it was money well spent. If they hated everything, lie. Lie like a fucking dog. – Trigg*

With a small hint of fear at what she would find in the garage, Camille had the kids mark their chosen bedrooms with their colored tape on the door. The brothers were directed to help empty the trailers. Four of the brothers emptied the trailers and sat everything in the front living room. The remaining brothers took everything up to the bedrooms on the second floor.

Boxes that did not match any of the three colors were left in the large living room. Except for Keisha’s wedding dress and jewelry boxes. Those were taken up to the master suite on the third floor that was formerly the attic.

As that was being taken care of, Camille went to the garage and found herself confronted by her mother’s shopping. She swore in Dutch and left the surprised looking kids in the mud room as she returned to the kitchen in search of Tylenol. Motrin. At this point, she would accept cyanide.

“What do you need, Cher?” Gator asked as she looked in the cabinets and boxes in the kitchen.

“Something for a headache,” she answered, rubbing her forehead again.

He murmured sympathetically and moved to a box on the counter. Digging through the bottles, he pulled one out and handed it to her.

“Red, green or blue?” Gator asked as he moved towards the refrigerator.

“Red, unless you have purple,” she said opening the bottle and tipping three pills into her palm.

“No, no purple,” he handed her a bottle of the sports drink and she chugged half of it down.

“Alright,” she said turning back towards the mud room and the disaster that was the aftereffects of Oma Johanson. “Fifty bucks to someone who buys me alcohol!”

“On it!” Peanut declared from somewhere in the house.

“Stand down!” Gator ordered and Camille groaned. “You don’t need alcohol if you have a bad headache.”

“I hate that you’re right,” she said as she headed into the garage. “A’ight. So, we need to figure out what belongs to who.”

“The boxes are labeled to each of us,” Mitch pointed at the box in front of him.

Camille took another drink and then looked down at the box, “Of course they are.”

Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to see Darkness handing her another sports drink, this one purple. “We need to figure out dinner and you need to eat. It will probably help with that headache.”

With a smile, she opened the second bottle and took a drink, “Pizza, burgers or Chinese?”

After sharing a quick look between each other, the three kids replied, “Pizza.”

“That works,” she nodded and handed over the empty bottle. “We’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow. Any of the brothers still here that can help carry these up?”

Darkness looked at the large collection of boxes that she had just jerked her thumb at. Nodding, he leaned in and kissed her lips, “You don’t shop like your mother, do you?”

“Hell, no,” Camille smirked. “No one shops like my mother.”

They were sorting the last of the boxes when the pizza was delivered. Most of the brothers were already gone and the others left shortly after. Camille, Darkness and their new family sat at the table in the dining room and ate pizza off paper plates.

Between the medicine and eating some salad and pizza, her headache was gone. They were all exhausted and even Tink was curled up on his nearby dog bed, not even the thought of a pizza crust pulling him out of his sleep. While they were eating, Darkness made a grocery list for what they would need for the next week.

Afterwards, they headed back upstairs to find the inflatable beds. Looking through the many boxes from Sid, they found flat pack dressers, collapsable bedside tables, lamps, shelves and inflatable furniture. Each kid had a full-size inflatable bed and some type of chair. Along with a battery-operated air pump for each kid.

In a style that matched each of them, they also found bedding sets. Vin found a full set of MIT Engineers football, Nicki had a Tim Burton set, and Mitch had a set of all white and another of nothing but black. Each set had everything that they would need for the bed, including extra shams and pillows. There were also curtains, rugs, and wall stickers.

In boxes marked Johnson – Bathroom, they found bath rugs, shower curtains, towels, rugs and bathroom accessories. They also found three new electric toothbrushes, toothpaste and mouthwash.

“Did your mom think of everything?” Vin asked in surprise.

“Probably,” Camille said dryly. “She had five kids while dad was still in the Marines, and nine all together. Plus, she has all the brothers of the club who are lacking enough brain cells to set up their own house. She also keeps all the rooms at the clubhouse stocked. The woman has checklists and to-do-lists and, trust me, she knows how to use them.”

“Your mom sounds like a character,” Mitch smiled at her.

Camille hugged him close to her and kissed his temple, “You have no idea. She is … yeah, she is her own person and my dad, God save him, loves her to the end of time and back.”

He sighed, “That sounds so romantic.”

“Yeah,” she agreed as she laid her cheek on his head. “Just keep that in mind when they are being disgustingly romantic in front of you.”

“They do that,” Darkness confirmed.

The electric air pump beeped letting them know that the mattress was complete. Darkness moved to remove the pump as Camille helped Mitch to put the bedding on the newly inflated mattress.

“Uncle Amos, will you inflate my chair?” Mitch asked as he handed over a new box.

He smiled as he accepted the box and started to open it to remove the chair. “Does this have lights inside it?”

“Yeah,” Mitch blushed. “Oma told me to pick one and this was the one that I really liked.”

“Of course, she did,” Camille muttered as she helped the boy straighten the black comforter over the white sheets.

Fear filled his young face, and he looked up at her, “Is that okay?”

“Why would it not be?” she asked, calmly putting the new pillow in the white pillowcase.

“Because it’s kinda girly,” he mumbled.

“Camille has been accused of being that too,” Darkness chuckled.

“Guilty,” Camille tossed the pillow onto the bed and grabbed the other one. “But only kinda girly.”

It was obvious that he was not sure how to respond to that.

“Do you need anything else?” Darkness asked as he watched his nephew and wife finish making the bed.

Shaking his head, Mitch assured them, “No, I’m good.”

Putting the last pillow on the bed, she walked around to where he was now nervously adjusting the pillows on the other side. Pulling him into another hug, she told him, “If you need anything, come get us.”

After checking in with the older two siblings, they headed up to the third floor and Camille saw her new room for the first time. The door closed behind Darkness, and he turned her to face him and pulled her into a tight embrace against his chest. A soft sob shook her body as the tears slid out of her eyes and into his shirt.

“Those babies don’t know how to be kids,” she complained softly. “They don’t know who they are.”

He kissed the top of her head, “They have you to help them find themselves.”

“I hate that they are so scared to be themselves.”