Half a Lifetime
by Mab
Blair settled back to accommodate a wriggling six year old.
“Okay, are we ready here? Are we comfy?”
“Yup,” declared as surely as only Mina could.
“I'm glad of that,” Blair said solemnly. “There's only one small problem. You have a bony butt, grand-daughter.”
Mina was also quite brazen. “Then you should of let me have the other piece of chocolate cake.”
“Should have, sweetness, should have.”
Grammar had little charm for Mina. “You said you'd show me your pictures, Poppy.”
“Yes, I did.” Blair groped for the mini-screen on the table. “Okay, hold that, both hands. Now finger...”
“Yes, I know Poppy, Mrs McLennan showed us at school.”
“But you don't know what you have to say, so listen up. We'll start with a trip I took a long time ago, when Nana Connie and I were just married. So you need to say, 'picture search, Peru 2003'. Nice clear voice."
Mina carefully chanted it all to the pc in her lap with sweet formality, then lifted her finger off the tab. A shot of Connie and Blair came up, the shadows thrown by bright sunlight standing out harshly against their skins.
“Nana was pretty.”
“Nana was pretty to the day she left us. Now put your finger on the tab when you're ready to see another and say 'next'.”
Mina worked her way through, exclaiming once or twice at the wonders to be seen, which weren't always the wonders that had taken the attention of Blair and his new wife.
“Hop off, sweetness. Poppy's got to go to the john.” He got up, wincing a little as his hips complained, but at least he had movement despite the twinges.
When he came back to the living room, Mina looked up with fascination. “Poppy, I went to the main folder.” Blair knew a brief moment's panic. There were a few very candid shots of him and Connie, but he had those pass-worded, didn't he? “You knew a man who drove a gas truck.” Mina pronounced this with all the wonder of a child who had discovered that her grandfather wrestled dinosaurs. Blair felt a falling jolt somewhere in his chest.
“Everybody drove gas cars back then, even your old Poppy.”
“Wow.”
“Come on, I'm sure that we can find another set of more interesting pictures for you.” He resettled the little girl on his lap, and they spent an interesting hour looking at pictures while Blair told the tallest of tall stories. Jas came later and picked her up, thanked her father for the baby-sitting and suggested that there might be something extra in his birthday parcel in return for all the favours.
“I don't need extras for looking after Mina.”
“Yes, you do,” his daughter retorted. “My darling is a holy terror.” Then the women in his life were gone in a swirl of good-byes and reminders that Blair was coming to dinner on Saturday.
Blair sat down and picked up the screen once more. “Picture search, James Ellison,” he said. And there it was. He remembered that day so clearly, despite it being so long ago. He remembered it far more clearly than the hazed misery that followed only a month later. The day of the picture – Megan had come over with her new camera, feeling even more recklessly mouthy given that she was heading back to Australia in a few days. She'd wanted a picture of them in front of Jim's old truck, which she claimed had as much if not more personality as Jim and Blair.
“Come on, Ellison,” she'd joked. “Rumour has it that you have quite a nice smile.” Jim had raised one eyebrow and remained determinedly and teasingly straight-faced, while Blair and Megan had exchanged ever more off-colour jokes and stories, until Jim had capped them all with a completely filthy story about his adventures as a young soldier on leave. Blair had thrown back his head and roared with laughter, and Jim had finally smiled in a 'gotcha' sort of way. That was the moment that Megan had caught.
She hadn't been able to come back for the funeral, but she'd gladly given permission for the picture to be used for the funeral programmes, appropriately cropped of course. Blair angrily dabbed a sleeve covered knuckle at the tear drops on the screen. His Connie wasn't even gone two years and he was crying for a man dead and buried more than a half a lifetime ago. Surely a sign that his mind was going as well as his body.
He shut down the screen, and let his head fall against the back of his chair. He'd had a good life, long and full; enjoyed a more than fair share of things worth having. His small living room was still vibrant with the lively auras of his daughter and her daughter. So why did he feel so goddamn cheated?
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