Lisa was not sure how long she was there for but sometimes later, the door opened.
The first thing that came to her mind was how short this particular stay had been.
Although, she had no way of measuring time here. She still knew that compared to the other times, the door had been opened relatively earlier.
She knew that the door had been opened because she would hear it opening but she was so weak that she couldn't even open her eyes or look to the door to see who had come to get her.
Instead, she lay crouched up in the same position, unable to turn around or move like she wanted to because her body was totally numb with pain.
She could hear voices, the voices of her sister and her mother as they spoke.
"Eew…she smells terribly," her sister called loudly as she poked Lisa with something hard.
"Let's just get her out of here," her Mum answered and began to also poke Lisa with whatever it was that Esther had been using on her.
"Hey, you. Wake up!"
Lisa felt the thing poke her once more and she struggled to open her eyes.
As soon as they noticed that her eyes were open, they sighed in relief.
"Mother, good afternoon," Lisa croaked out as she tried to get on her feet.
Her mother frowned and immediately dismissed her greeting.
"Yeah, there's no need for that. Get up and come on out," she called as she and Esther immediately rushed out of basement.
Left alone, Lisa struggled on to her feet and eventually walked out of the basement, wondering why her mother and Esther suddenly seemed interested in her which was a rarity that hardly ever happened.
She stepped out into the hallway to join them but as soon as she met with them, they both hurriedly put their hands over their mouths to cover their noses.
"Geez! You reek!," Esther stated before she began to gag.
Lisa subconsciously shrunk into herself, wanting to hide herself or something of that category.
"Lisa, we came to speak to you about something," her mother started.
As soon as she started, Lisa raised her head to look at her mother, waiting patiently for whatever it was that she wanted to say.
"It's not a hard thing to do but I want you to think of it as an opportunity to help out your family especially when you've done nothing but the opposite of help us since you've been born," she started to explain.
As she began to explain, Lisa couldn't help recalling what her sister had mentioned yesterday about marrying a particular man.
"Are you talking about the marriage?," she asked innocently.
Esther clapped enthusiastically.
"Oh, look at you. You remembered," she said as she laughed when Lisa turned to her mother, hoping that she would explain further.
Her mother rolled her eyes at Esther's antics.
"Your father as the foolishly innocent man he was promised his childhood best friend that his first son would marry his first daughter, Esther. Of course, that makes no sense and I would have ended the engagement a long time ago but that family has been sending us a monthly allowance since your father died and they will continue to do so after the marriage which is why we can't cancel this union with their disabled child," she summarized to Lisa who blinked rapidly as she tried to take in the whole story.
"Wait, what does that have to do with me then? Esther is the first daughter," Lisa hurriedly protested.
"Are you out of your mind? Are you actually saying that I should get married to a crippled freak?," Esther yelled as she slapped Lisa across the face.
Their mother pretended not to see this and instead turned to face Lisa.
"That's why I said that you should make yourself useful to the family for once!," She yelled at Lisa who immediately got sinking feeling.
She went down on her knees.
"Mother, please don't send me off. I'll be better, I promise. I'll do everything you ask of me and make no mistakes. I'll clean every corner of the house and have breakfast ready before you wake up, I'll be as quiet as a mouse. I'll even get a job and chip into the house finances," Lisa cried out.
Her Mother and her sister laughed aloud.
"You'll get a job?!? What's that supposed to change. The Rogers send us two thousand five hundred dollars every month, what work could an uneducated rat like you possibly do that would even earn you a quarter of that?," Esther yelled as she kicked Lisa away from them.
"Just get into bathroom and wash up. You stink terribly and we wouldn't our in-laws to smell that stench on you, right?," Her mother asked as she joined Esther in pushing Lisa into the bathroom.
Lisa was in tears as she washed up her body and her hair.
She didn't want to go anywhere, she definitely didn't want to be married.
She couldn't spend a lot of time in the bathroom because her mother and her sister were outside the bathroom, knocking for her to come out.
As soon as Lisa was out, her sister threw a large, ugly gown at her.
"Wear that," she called as she turned around to leave.
"And put your hair in a decent style. Be in the living room in five minutes," she called as she also walked out with Esther.
As soon as they were gone, Lisa first exhaled softly before she began to wear the ugly dress that was three sizes too big.
As soon as she had it on, she threw her hair in a bun and put on her only pair of shoes, a set of hand downs from Esther.
Completely dressed, Esther headed out to the living room where she found her mother and siblings with another elderly couple that she didn't recognize.
The couple stared at her quietly.
"You must be Lisa. I'm Cherry Rogers and that's my husband, Stanley," the woman called as she ran forward and hugged her.
"You look so much like your father," the man called as his eyes moistened like he was going to cry.
Lisa immediately knew who they were, they were the parents of the crippled man she was to marry.
Why were they here already?
Did they just want to get to know her.
"We might as well get it done today. We couldn't afford a flamboyant affair if we wanted. Better to have just a simple ceremony and not waste time about it," her mother announced loudly.
The elderly woman and her husband exchanged a look that no one understood but Esther and her mother were in a hurry to discharge the couple and Lisa so they could dig into the gifts that the couple had brought along.
"How about this? She can leave with you two and you can go to the state's office to sign the wedding documents together," her mother decided on her own as she began to shoo the astounded trio away.
Cherry took a look at Lisa and immediately understood what was happening.
She shook her head and smiled brightly as she took Lisa's hands.
"We will do exactly that," she readily agreed as she took Lisa's hands and walked out while Lisa's mother and sister wondered what the woman was up to.
But, of course they didn't really care so they immediately let them go, bidding them farewell as they led them out.
"What was that about?," Stanley asked, obviously shocked.
His wife turned to Lisa and hugged her.
"Oh, poor baby. I'm so sorry about them. You don't have to worry about them anymore, I would be more than happy to have a beautiful daughter like you," she whispered as she hugged Lisa who immediately burst into tears.
If they were this nice to her, Lisa didn't care that their son was crippled, she was only excited to have people that cared about her.
Without a second look at the house that she had grown up in, she entered the car with the Rogers and headed off to the district office to make her marriage official.