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“...what... was your mother like?" Ghiaccio asked, looking over at Melone slowly.
“...stressed, to say the least," he responded, equally as hesitant. "I believe she was only 16 when she had my oldest brother. She married his father, and then he became the father of all of us. He worked hard, but never really made enough to support everyone comfortably. My mother stayed at home, and raised all of us mostly on her own."
"All of us? Like- you and a couple other kids?"
"Oh, goodness, no," Melone said with a slight chuckle, but his smile didn't carry any joy. "I'm one of fourteen children."
Ghiaccio was silent for a few moments, letting that fact sink in. How on earth had his mother managed to care for that many kids? And how did Melone's family even fit in their house? Was he raised on a farm or something? Before he realized it, he actually asked that question aloud. "Were you raised on a farm or something?"
"Yes, I was," Melone said with a nod. "We didn't grow anything or raise any animals... it was just the only property big enough for our family. We did all of our usual activities in the house-cooking and eating, doing laundry, showering, and such... but all of us siblings slept in the barn, because it was a big space."
He paused, moving his gaze to out of the passenger side window. "I was close with my siblings, because we were always together."
Ghiaccio let out a chuckle, but it was... awkward at best. "Must've been crazy." He was uncomfortable. He couldn't quite place why.
"It was. My mother kept what she could under control, but with that many children, everything can go haywire very quickly. Not to mention I don't have a memory of her where she isn't pregnant," he said, tapping his fingers against the glass of the window as he spoke. "The oldest sibling—my brother, Gianni—started to help with parenting as he got old enough. Things got hectic and chaotic at times... but I can't say it was ever truly a bad place to be. We were happy there, I think... or, at least, I was.”
He paused, looking down at the hand crank for the window. "...l left to go to college, and... that was that."
The tone of Melone's voice carried with it something bad that Ghiaccio couldn't quite place. "...leave on bad terms?"
"Quite the opposite, actually. I told them I was leaving, and it was a big event. A special dinner was cooked, and when I left the morning after, they all waited outside to see me off. And from there... I went through it. I did classes, I got my degrees, and I came back an educated man. But when I went to visit... it was gone. The barn where I had slept every night was gone. The house where we had all our dinners was gone. There was no trace of my family anywhere. Everything... just disappeared. It was like something out of a horror novel."
Ghiaccio was beginning to think Melone came out of a horror novel.