CHAPTER 20

[Cecillia Collins Smith]

An hour had gone by as the table was cleaned up and everyone who had eaten had full bellies.  Heading into the drawing room to find Vladimir and Syerren speaking among themselves as well as Ange and Amy laughing at a letter they were looking at, Simon went over to the drink cabinet, pouring himself a glass of brandy as he looked at Syerren.  “Care to come and smash this glass before I get to enjoy it?” He smirked, moving then over to the two brothers and joining in on their conversation.  

Coming into the room then with Lauryn, Reginald sat down on the sofa as she sat down beside of him.  “What time is your mom bringing Michael back?” he questioned, kissing her forehead.  “Just whenever I call, no special time,” she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck as she started kissing him.

“Get a room,” Simon then interrupted, whacking Reginald on the head as he laughed, going over to the bookshelf and picking up a stack of large, old albums.  “How about we all sit around in a circle and pass around embarrassing old photographs of Reginald when he was a young boy?” Simon then questioned, just as Cecillia came in with a tray of coffee.

“No!  Not again!” Reginald complained, tossing a decorative couch pillow over his head towards Simon, but missing.

“What a great idea,” Cecillia smiled, sitting the coffee down and then pulling one of the arm chairs closer and sitting.

“Well it’s settled then mate; time to venture back to the seventies and eighties . . . oh yeah!”

Going to the center of the room and clearing off a space on the coffee table, Simon placed his glass and the extra books down, but kept one as he opened it up.  Laughing instantly at the first picture, he turned the book around, showing everyone.  “Reginald and Trevor’s first snow man,” he said, flipping a few more pages to a picture of Simon dragging Reginald and Trevor on a sleigh behind him in the snow.

“I bet we still have that old sleigh out in the shed!” Reginald exclaimed, sitting up in the couch and leaning his elbows on his knees, becoming surprisingly interested.

“Reginald’s seventh birthday party; look there at the look on his face when he didn’t get an Atari gaming system for his birthday.  Oh, look here when Trevor smashed Reginald’s birthday cake in his face.”

“You were such a cute kid, babe,” Lauryn smiled, wrapping her arm around his back.  “Good thing you didn’t change any,” she added, looking across at Amy, Vladimir, and Syerren, who appeared both happy and heartbroken at the photographs.

Finishing up the first album, Simon then turned to the next, laughing at the image.  “Look at Trevor and Reginald graduating primary school.  We tried to get a picture of all of us together as a family but I couldn’t get the damn timer function to work right,” he smirked, as a series of half blurry photos were stuck in the album.  “Look here at this one; Reginald and his first little girlfriend!” Simon laughed.

“She was not my girlfriend!  I didn’t even want to go to that stupid spring fling dance anyway; you guys made me go to make sure Trevor didn’t get into any trouble!”

“I don’t know Reg, looks like you liked her; you two are practically doing the dirty in this picture.”

“We’re sitting together on a bench!”

“Sure you are,” Simon winked, handing the remainder of the album over to Amy for them to flip through whilst he poured himself another brandy.

“So far you have showed a lot of pictures to try and embarrass me, but I don't’ see the first one that is here to embarrass you,” Reginald  said, standing up and grabbing a book from the bottom.

“That’s because their aren’t any of the such,” Simon said, gulping down two more glasses of brandy as he then went to sit down on the arm of the sofa.

“That’s where you’re wrong you old man, Reginald spoke, flipping open the album.  “I used to show my friends this one it’s so bad.”

“What friends?  Who you been showing?  What you been showing?  Let me see that!”

“Nope, can’t have it!” Reginald replied, jumping up and running around the group as Simon chased him but finally gave up.  

“See, here you are asleep out in the sun down by the beach.”

“Look at those legs!” Ange giggled.

“What’s wrong with my legs?  They look like normal legs!” Simon exclaimed.

“Or here, here’s the jackpot, this is you at halloween, dressed up as a mummy!”  Laughing, Reginald just about dropped the book in the floor.  “He wrapped toilet paper around him and walked around in boxers all night!”

“I remember helping out with that one!” Cecillia laughed, feeling guilty as she was the one that had taken most of the photos and put them in the book without Simon’s knowing.

Shaking his head at it all as Reginald continued to show funny photo after funny photo, Vladimir soon turned to Amy, offering her his hand.  “How about we go on a nice walk in the woods before it gets too late, my beautiful wife,” he spoke, as Amy agreed, standing up, and the two walked over getting their cloaks, and departed.

“I guess it is starting to get a little late,” Reginald said, looking at the clock, realizing they had been reminiscing about old memories for well over an hour now.  “We should probably get upstairs and get our things and tidy up so that we can get back home,” Reginald said, starting towards the stairs with Lauryn, but stopping beside of Simon.

“Never change, you old man,” Reginald spoke, smiling as he patted Simon on the shoulder, before heading upstairs.

Outside on their walk, Vladimir and Amy walked a ways in silence, before soon stopping just shy of Widows Hill.  “All those memories, all these years.  It hurts inside knowing that we missed so much of our sons life.  It is sad to see all those pictures of Reginald for the first time, and then to realize that they are from so long ago,” Vladimir spoke, looking past Amy into the distance.  “I don’t know if all of this was a mistake, staying gone for so long, but I hope that from now on, that any memories or life events that Reginald has, that we can be a part of it.”

“I want that too,” Amy agreed, smiling as she placed her hands in Vladimir’s.  “And I am sure we will.  We are lucky to have such an amazing, brilliant, understanding son who instead of fighting all of this, instead accepted it all.  I am so proud to be his mother, and you should be just as proud to be his father.  We don’t need a bunch of pictures in a photo album to make us important in his life.”

Smiling, then kissing Amy, Vladimir then turned, leading her up to Widows Hill, to sit and enjoy the quiet darkness together.