Casting your vote

You had expected a lot more opposition from Mom during this whole process but even she nodded her head to say she was fine with voting. Maybe she thought all of this was ridiculous and you didn’t have a chance of getting anything to pass or maybe her submission was making her less likely to disagree with you. You could actually come up with a surprising number of reasons why she’d be on your side which you hadn’t even considered before but you tried not to give anything away when you were so close to the finish line.

“Alright everybody close your eyes.” you said, waiting to make sure Lucy wouldn’t ruin everything and keep her eyes open. “Good, now raise your hand if you're in favour of rule one”

You waited and saw Sarah slowly raise her arm while keeping her head down in embarrassment. You double-checked to make sure nobody was cheating but you sadly also saw that the other two had kept their hands firmly on the table. You were hoping to save some of the **** that you had on Lucy until rules two or three but given the current situation, you felt like you needed to. With Lucy sat next to you, you gave her a quick jab with your elbow to get her attention.

“Don’t forget your promise earlier” you whispered, being incredibly careful not to be overheard in the already quiet room.

Lucy didn’t even open her eyes but she begrudgingly held up her hand as you tried to hold back a sigh of relief. You had had higher aims for this meeting but you now had at least one thing to prove you wouldn’t be walking away with nothing.

“Everyone can open their eyes now” you revealed, seeing a range of emotions from all of your three family members as they looked to see who did or didn't have a hand raised. Mom looked surprised to see that both of your sisters were in favour of your proposal while Sarah looked relieved to see that Lucy had joined her, just like you had promised. Lucy on the other hand, seemed to realise that if you had managed to get her to help you, you must have done the same with Sarah.

Are you two sure you're okay with this?” Mom asked, speaking for the first time in a long while.

“It’s better than us all sneaking around when we all clearly know what's happening” Lucy, replied, getting a nod from Sarah.

“It’s better for you as well Mom. I trust Max but you can keep him on his toes this way, right?” Sarah teased, joining in now that Lucy had given you her support.

“I guess so,” Mom reluctantly agreed.

With everyone on the same page and Mom not taking the chance to use her ‘parental privileges’ to veto the idea completely, you decided to move on before any ideas like that formed in her head.

“Now, if everyone can close their eyes again and we can start the next one… Good, so raise your hand in agreement for rule two” you announced, not expecting much now that you had used up Lucy’s vote change.

As you expected, Lucy kept her hand down and Sarah raised her hand once again. Sarah’s face showed that she was less embarrassed than before but she still tried to make herself look small. You gave a quick glance towards Mom but had to do a double-take when you realised her hand was up in the air. You stared for a little longer than you should have until you realised everyone was waiting for you to reveal the result.

“A-Alright you can open your eyes” you said, watching both Sarah and Lucy have the same reaction as you did.

Mom on the other hand seemed surprised that Lucy had kept her hand down and with everybody's eyes or her, she felt the need to try and explain.

“W-Well I expected both of you to vote yes and I didn’t want to be the one to tell you how you should be dressing in the house” she reasoned, sinking further into her chair now that she realised she had swayed the vote.

“Alright let's move on then.” you declared, not letting Mom awkwardly sit there any longer.

Everyone closed their eyes without you asking so you immediately asked for their vote.

“Now, raise your hand if you are voting for rule 3” you said, watching everyone's response now that you had your expectations lifted.

You saw Lucy raise her hand next to you unlike you had thought and went to call the vote when you realised Sarah still had her hand down. You assumed that Lucy not voting last time had lowered Sarah’s confidence but you knew you were so close to getting three for three rules passed. In an attempt to get her attention, you stretched out one of your legs to try and tap her when you felt your foot brush against something.

You looked to your side to see Mom slowly open her eyes at the contact you had made and inwardly swore at yourself for being clumsy enough for her to notice. Mom looked in your direction and saw that Lucy had her hand raised before turning to see how Sarah had voted.

Before she managed to look, you waved your hands in an attempt to draw her attention away and struggled to find a way to keep her occupied. You went to open your mouth in panic before stopping yourself and decided to use your hands to try and convey a message. Mom could see what you were trying to do which luckily gave you a couple of seconds to figure out what you were going to say.

You knew it was unlikely but the only thing you could think of was trying to convince her to change her vote and with very little time to consider anything else, that was the plan you decided to go with. You signalled to her the number 20 by opening and closing your hands twice. Mom took a second to realise that you were talking about the points system you had come up with and instantly shook her head to tell you no. You increased it to 25 and got the same response but 30 seemed to be where she slightly wavered.

Mom held up both of her hands showing a three and a one with her fingers. You wondered why 31 was specific to her and then realised that would be enough to finally push her to 50 total and give her enough to get rid of the **** you had hanging over her. You quickly nodded her head and got her to close her eyes as she raised her hand. You weren’t about to let her regret her decision but now you felt like you had the opposite problem of Sarah being the odd one out.

Being as careful as possible this time, you maneuvered your foot and managed to tap Sarah without hitting anything else. Sarah gave a strained expression and only decided to look at you after repeatedly mithering her. At first, she looked at you in annoyance before seeing the raised hands of both Lucy and Mom. If you had time you would have let her marvel at the scene but you were already dragging along the vote and the others were bound to get suspicious.

You shook your head and motioned for her to raise her arm and with only a little resistance, she slowly put her hand up alongside the others.

“Now everyone open their eyes” you said, giving Sarah very little time to shut and reopen her eyes before attempting to give a shocked reaction to fit in with everyone else.

“Why would you…” Lucy started to ask before you cut in and stopped her.

“Now I’m sure everyone had their reasons for voting and given the contents of the vote this time, I think it's perfectly fine if people want to keep it a secret. If you wanna ask about it later after the meeting then you're free to do so but for now let's move on” you interjected, getting opposite emotions from Mom and Lucy who were relieved and annoyed respectively.

“...What’s next then?” Mom asked, trying to give Lucy less time to come up with an excuse to ask her.

“Well, All my rules have been voted on but if anyone wants to suggest one of their own then I think now would be a good time” you said, hoping the others would consider adding something.

You didn’t expect anyone to speak up and you just wanted to plant the idea in their head in case anyone wanted to suggest something at a potential future meeting but your expectations were yet again challenged when someone came forward.