Vivien sighed heavily with the weariness of being cooler than everyone else in the room. “Aye, but how do you explain that? You try!”
“If Dad is Vivien’s grandfather,” Skye spoke up, “then how is Mum her aunt Arro?”
“Because I’m both,” Arro offered. “And I’m slightly worried that it’s taken you almost eighteen years to ask this. No offense, sweeties.”
I smothered a snort.
“Like, I’ve been calling you Aunt Robyn”—Skye directed her attention to Robyn—“but you’re actually like my sister?”
“Half sister.” Robyn frowned. “We’ve talked about this. Surely?” She placed more plates in front of folks and stood back, hands on her hips. “We cannot have gone eighteen years without addressing this.”
“Well, it is a bit incestuous,” Brodan joked.
Monroe shoved him and he gave a bark of laughter.
“It is?” Vivien and Skye asked in unison.
“Ha ha! You’re incestuous!” Brechin shouted comically from the living room, not even looking up from his Nintendo.
“If I am, you are too!” Vivien rolled her eyes drolly and gestured over her shoulder. “Worry less about my intelligence and more about the tool behind me.”
“I think it’s just so intertwined, no one ever talked about it,” Eredine said. “The relationship between you all, I mean.”
“Explain it from the start,” I inserted. “Maybe if we break it down, we can come up with a coherent explanation for your teacher.”
“Okay.” Vivien pointed to her mother. “Mum married Dad. Dad’s sister is Aunt Arro. Mum’s dad is Mac, and Mac married Aunt Arro. So … Mum is Skye’s half sister through her dad, butshe’s also Skye’s aunt through Lachlan’s sibling relationship to Aunt Arro.”
“Correct.” Robyn nodded.
“Aunt Arro is technically my aunt but also my grandmother because she’s married to my mum’s dad.”
“Also correct.”
Vivien made a face. “And you don’t think that’s confusing?”
“I have a vague memory of asking that exact question as a child.” Eilidh’s lips trembled with laughter.
“You forgot the part where Lachlan is Skye’s uncle via Arro but also her brother-in-law,” Arran added helpfully.
Arro shot her brother a killing look. He grinned unrepentantly.
“So what are me and Skye?” Vivien asked.
“Cousins via your dad and Aunt Arro,” Robyn provided. “And technically, Skye is your aunt via me and your pops.”
A smug grin curled the corners of Skye’s mouth. “Interesting.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
Especially when Vivien, who’d always considered herself the more authoritative of the two, contemplated that and said, “I think we should never speak of this weirdness again and go back to being just cousins.”
“That might be for the best,” Mac agreed with a grin.
“I don’t know what you’re laughing at. I blame you, Pops.”
“What did I do?”
“Married my sister,” Lachlan offered helpfully. “Robyn and I married first. You two”—he gestured between Arro and Mac—“are to blame for making it weird by marrying next.”
