Chapter 319: Family dinner (5)
"I hope you are strong enough as you look to handle any child like this one," Celeste said, looking at Annalise. "The number of times I almost lost her. Thankfully she knew her way back home."
"What?" Celine questioned, hearing this for the first time.
"Don’t act all surprised. You once told me that you lost Annalise and asked me to hide it from Phillip. It ended up that Annalise was up in a tree trying to figure out how far she could climb. As I said, I hope you can handle it or maybe you made your parents worried too," said Celeste.
"I don’t remember causing my mother to worry other than the time she learned I wanted to be a knight like my father or when she thought I wouldn’t have friends. My mother was still getting used to taking care of a home without servants so I didn’t want to add to her stress," Rafael answered.
He had always liked to stay away from people unless he really enjoyed their company and because he was a little bit taller than the boys his age none of them tried to pick on him to his face so his mother never had to stop a fight or listen to complaints from parents.
There were things said behind his back by children repeating gossip they overheard from their parents, but that did not bother him. He ignored it to not have his mother worrying about him getting into fights.
"It would have been nice had Annalise been a quiet child. I don’t know how much you know about her ways. I would love for her to just sit down and not pick up weapons like her father. I hope you won’t find it odd that she has a habit of wearing pants since she hates dresses. I had a lot more pants and shirts made for her than dresses when she was a child," said Celine, remembering the state of the few dresses Annalise had.
After Annalise constantly returned home with her dress torn at the bottom because Annalise was running and her dress got stuck on something so she pulled on it, Celine switched to pants.
Celine had some knowledge about places like Lockwood and how the people dress thanks to listening to what was brought back to Phillip. Annalise would certainly toss out any dresses she had to wear pants and then she would bring attention to herself.