Saturdays like these were the kind I hated the most. Yeah, everybody hates Monday, but me, I hate Saturdays. It was when my entire, I mean entire, family converged to turn my house into Eurodisney.

Why such gatherings? You'd wonder. I have no freaking idea.

I lived in an old town in Sicily. A village, some would call it. I'd lived there ever since I first moved out of my parents house at age eighteen. The village ground was cobbled from end to end; the streets smelled like fresh tomatoes, cigar, fresh flowers, cocoa beans, and a jumble of other kinds of things. A patch of sky on the horizon always wore a mauve blanket even toward evening, evocative scenarios from the hill combined with the solemnity of my little village could have you imagining heroic things.

I wondered if the silence here was what drew my family to make such noises every Saturday. I was born into a large one - my family. And it was quite an easy commute from everyone else's house to mine, solely because nobody was allowed to relocate more than a mile from Grandpa Alejandro's home. Living in the same town or village was like a thing for us and had been since 1942. Go figure!

I groaned in exasperation as my bedroom door flung open and a bout of screams filled my ears. My nieces bolted in, giggling and shrieking whilst holding up cones of dripping ice cream. They ran in ad infinitum since they first arrived on Thursday, sparing me no privacy whatsoever.

I bolted upright, suddenly remembering that my room floor was covered in a rug. "Hey! Verona, Vittoria. Vos duo melius discere pulsate antequam currere in aliter youll 'exsisto dormientes in patio cum Pietro."

{translation - you two better learn to knock before you run in, otherwise you'll be sleeping on the patio with Pietro}

Vittoria halted instantly, triggered by fear of my sudden threat whereas her twin, Verona, gave zero fucks about sleeping outside with the dog, or my rug, or the fact that I was her mother's elder sister and she needed to obey me.

"Verona!" I spat. The little thing was ignoring me like I was air. "Stop running! Out, in fact! Downstairs, immediately."

She continued to giggle, which annoyed me even further and I made attempts to catch her, but she was two and a half feet tall and slipped out of my grip before I even made one. Sticking her tongue out at me, she disappeared through my door. Vittoria followed suit in a hasty stroll.

I sighed, frustrated by the constant interruptions and checked my rug for any stains. Luckily, there was only a drop. As I wiped it off, I picked up on my elder brother, Ludo, asking his kids to come get me for dinner.

"No, no, no!" I whispered fearfully and hurried for the door.

If Aria's kids were rowdy, Ludovico's were wild animals. He had eight children of which I remember only three of their names, and wherever one went, the rest followed. They weren't exactly octuplets or anything like that. Each child was born separately. Ludo had his first two kids when I was nine. As I turned the lock, the pounding of multiple running steps made the stairhead and my bedroom floor tremble.

"Aunt Elia." They called in infrequent yells.

I pressed my hands to my ears because despite my closed door, the noise was unbelievably penetrating.

"Aunt Elia. Papá says to come downstairs for dinner."

I snapped, in a growling voice that possibly wasn't my own. "I'm coming!" And a sudden hush fell over my nieces and nephews. In whispers, they traipsed away until the stairway was silent again.

Yet, I could hear my family raving mirthfully from the dining room below. I grunted and shut my eyes, wondering how much else I could take. The house was mine, yet I was treated like a welcome mat. My mom and dad, Alessia and Emmanuele, had arrived unannounced on my front porch on Wednesday. On Thursday, Aria showed up with her twins, and later that evening, Ludovico followed with his eight rogues. Friday saw Aunt Lolita, Uncle Marcello and Aunt Magdalene; my mother's siblings, and Luca, my younger brother who was only fifteen. Lolita had come with her dog, Pietro, Marcello with his new girlfriend, Octavia, whereas Magdalene came with her boys - the only quiet pair in the family - Adriano and Nicolo. I liked them the most.

I plopped gently into my bed, trying to recall whether I'd dropped off some kind of invitation without even realizing it. It was nobody's birthday, neither was it a holiday nor a family reunion. My home had been crowded for six days and my privacy stripped off me like duct tape on naked flesh. I grabbed my forehead and squeezed it, my frustration heightening. The problem that came with hosting a big family was that problems were endless; my rugs looked like what a bunch of raccoons chewed and spit out, my kitchen tapestry had become the magic carpet for Vittoria and Verona, my toilets clogged four times in a row, the backyard smelled like wildfire, my barbecue grill had three bars missing, the grass outside was covered in shoes and toys and loose teeth, the paint on my kitchen threshold was forcefully yanked off by Ludo's seventh kid; the chubby one with salt and pepper hair and nose freckles, and a grip like steel trap. The list was endless.

I had phoned the plumber so much that the poor guy had begun to grumble. The carpenter had come three times, the electrician about a hundred times as a result of Verona balancing my switches or throwing balls against my light bulbs. The mechanic came once because Octavia drove my Toyota Camry into a streetlight on her way back from the grocery store. According to her, she'd been trying to avoid a cow.

I glanced at the other end of my room where my guitar still stood. Mercury. It was the one thing that those little ravaging monsters had not yet touched. And for good reason. I would throw everyone out and get a restraining order from my family if Mercury as much as sustained a scratch.

I walked over and picked her up. She was satisfyingly heavy, painted red with six strings that looked like gold. I had learned to play since I was three and never stopped. I laid back on my bed and placed the guitar against my stomach, then heard my brother Luca calling my name as he came up the stairs. At that moment, I sorely wished to disappear. I didn't want to be around my family anymore. I wanted to go somewhere hidden, a place far away where I would not hear my name being yelled out for the hundredth time, or my achievements belittled by my dad, or how I stubbornly refused to give my mother grandkids or even introduce a guy to the family.

I struck my finger against the guitar string as soon as Luca reached the door, then a sudden loud silence enveloped my room.

I sat up in confusion and unlocked the door. Luca turned the knob, poked his head in then inched forward, peering from left to right.

"Elia?" He called.

"What is it?" I replied, but a frown immediately creased my eyebrows. I was standing right beside him, but he did not seem to have heard me.

"Elia? You in here?"

"Luca. I'm right here. Turn around." I said.

But my brother kept inching forward, probably freaked out by the fact that I had unlocked the door and then suddenly gone into hiding for some foolish or childish reason. He strolled into the bathroom, then came out moments later looking puzzled. He made for the balcony, checked under my bed, behind the curtains and even opened my wardrobe. I watched in awe as he did all of these whilst quietly telling me to quit it and come downstairs for dinner. I could tell he was not pretending to not see me as I stood with my guitar belt strung over my shoulder.

Sweat trickled down my spine when with a forsaken sigh, Luca made for the exit and walked right through me as if I were smoke. I gasped and touched myself. I still felt solid to my own hands. A sense of foreboding as well as a whit of relief settled in my stomach when I realized fully. . .

I had disappeared.

Or rather, I was invisible.

I rushed downstairs and halted halfway down, where I could see over the railing. The noisy group was still amassed around my little dining table, eating and drinking.

"Hey!" I yelled.

But nobody spared me a head tilt. I yelled again and again, stomped against the steps, banged my hands on the wall and shook the railing, yet obliviousness hung thick in the air.

With a huge breath of pure relief, I raced back upstairs. I plopped into my bed again with a satisfied grin, then stared down at Mercury. It was then I saw that the guitar had a seventh string. It was smushed right in between the rest, shimmering like fading light. I suddenly suspected that the string had been there all along, but I just couldn't see it.

Now, I could. It was a special string, and I'd realized it only after I'd realized that just like it, I was special despite overlooked and underappreciated.