Seasons of Change

23

Rocco was eager to return to his "new Grandpa's" house, walking in the front door as though he owned the place. Douglas, once again in overpriced smoking slippers and a drink in his hand gave him a high-five, "Hey, my man!" he told him.

Rocco grinned, "Grandpa, can I watch the big TV again?"

"I've got one better for you, you can drive my golf cart," he told him.

The little boy looked up at Atira and Krist with a smile, his blue eyes twinkling, "I can drive?!"

Krist shrugged, "Go for it," he said as Rocco trotted off along with Douglas to the garage.

"Why don't you and that little guy come along too," Douglas said, "Better than just sitting in here."

"Sounds good to me," Krist said looking at Atira.

"You want a drink, Krist? Just restocked the bar."

Lifting Gabriel, Krist shook his head, "Naw, I'm good, bro."

Though Atira was happy to see how well her father took to Rocco, she couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness as he'd never been that way towards her and the only thing she could assume was that Douglas viewed girls differently than boys.

His extent of fatherhood towards her had been handing her and her mother the credit card before telling them to have fun and buy themselves something pretty. He seemed to genuinely enjoy Rocco's company, making jokes and showing off his own "toys".

She supposed that would mean he and Gabriel could have a nice relationship...while Audrey was left to "buy herself something pretty".

Atira lifted Audrey from her car seat, taking her down to her mother's bedroom, lying her on a blanket near where she was sorting through things in her mother's second walk-in closet. Yes, Alexandria had two closets the size of small bedrooms.

The second closet held a few pieces of clothing, her purses, and several banker's boxes with dates on them.

One by one, Atira sorted. The first few were just various work and financial documents so she placed them back on the shelves. One held trinkets collected from various vacations, a snow globe from Switzerland, sand in a small jar from Hawaii, seashells, and postcards from around the world with dates from her youth. She sat it in the take pile.

Audrey began to fuss so Atira strapped her into her little Moby wrap, telling her they could look at Grandma's things together. Being that Audrey wasn't even two months old, she simply cooed back, her eyes glued to Alexandria's beautiful Chinchilla fur coat.

Now Atira would never buy a fur coat and didn't necessarily support the making of them but she decided that if she kept her mother's as a sort of heirloom, then it would be perfectly acceptable for her to have. It was too pretty and soft not to keep.

The next box Atira opened was filled nearly to the brim with old photographs from her mother's youth. She sifted through them, admiring how elegant her mother looked competing in equestrian events as a girl. Even then, she'd been beautiful.

There were dozens of photos of Alexandria with her friends, smiling and happy. Atira had always thought her looks favored her father but as she looked at the old photographs, she realized she'd looked a lot like her mother.

Alexandria had a nice life...before she met Douglas anyway. The light in Alexandria's face had gradually begun to fade as the pictures progressed. The first few of her mother and father simply looked like happy, in-love teenagers.

And then she found something surprising...Atira had seen wedding photos of her parents in an elegant gown, a full-on ceremony. She realized that her parents had been married for significantly longer than that, however.