At the sunlit dining room was sitting a small group of people. There was middle aged man in a tweed jacket, who was sitting in a chair at the corner near fireplace; also an old woman at her cane-chair (it seemed that she had made it, as everything hand-made was created by hands of hers), she, as it was typical for older people, was knitting, what would be a scarf or mittens, or anything else, serving for wintertime in any case. A woman, same age as man in the soft chair at the corner, was sitting between two young people – blond girl to her left and a guy to her right. Girl wore simple denim and a red-blue-white checkered shirt, same wore a guy, but he had black-and-blue shirt and dark blue jeans. These three were viewing photobook. And when the woman carefully turned the page, she sighed and looked at her husband (the man in the chair at the corner).
“Richard, do you remember that?” she asked him, drawing attention, little pressing notes in her voice.
Richard looked up at his wife and the photobook, stopped to read the daily newspaper.
“What is that about?” he asked, moved closer, curiosity in his apples of green eyes. “Just show me. Lillie, I can’t see so far, you know.”
Lillie, his wife, brought photobook almost to Richard’s eyes. Man smiled, that was one those smiles, which appeared on people faces when enjoyable and sweet memories slightly touch your old mind, and you, leaned back in chair, descended into deeply hiding bijou memories.
“Yes, Lillie, I remember that,” was the answer of smiled Richard, while he closed his eyes, imagining picture, drown in front of his eyes, and then added still closed eyes, “I remember it as it has been just yesterday. Yes, it has been.” And he opened his eyes and he returned to reading his daily newspaper.
Woman put back the photobook on her knees and urged to turn one more page but she was cut by the guy to her right.
“‘Scuse me, Mrs. Anderson, but what’s photo about? Can you tell us, please?”
“Certainly, Gabriel!” Mrs. Anderson said, she smiled as she did waited just for that very question, which Gabriel had just interested in. “Do you want to listen to it, too, as well, Maria?” She turned to the girl to her left (who was obviously her daughter; Gabriel was her son-in-law).
“Yeap, mama, I would listen to it,” said Maria with a stoic sort of voice.
“Poor Gabriel, he’s only one, who didn’t hear that story for a thousand time. You tell it every guest, who dares to visit our house! My poor ears!” That was the old woman in a cane-chair, her voice hoarse and dry.
“Mommy, Gabriel wants to hear it, don’t you, Gabriel? By the way, you quite deaf, mommy, so it does not matter for you!” retorted Mrs. Anderson.
“’Course, Mrs. Anderson, I do like to listen to your story,” said Gabriel, who was the master in hiding his true feeling and emotions (but eagle blind eye of Mommy saw everything as she whispered Poor boy in a pit of snakes).
“All right, let me tell you the story of our meeting with you father, Maria, listen Gabriel, it rather interesting and unusual”
And she pointed on photo, which she obviously had shown her husband before.
It was a quite old picture, but still had its colors. There was a grass at the bottom line, and something looked like baseball field at the background, but the main part of the photo was at the very middle of the photo, where stood a grey sauce jar.
“Everything started from that sauce jar,” started Mrs. Anderson, “it was a quite sunny day. How old were we, do you remember, Richard?”
“Twenties,” answered Richard shortly without taking his eyes off the newspaper. “Golden years.”
“Aha, twenties. Yes. It was exactly college years; we were third year students, weren’t we?”
“Yes, we were,” same short answer from Richard.
“And it was one of those days when you woke up and laziness pushed you down, and you didn’t want really do nothing except of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. But I was called by my friends to join them in some picnic at park near college. My friend, Collin, she persuaded me to come with her, because there would be one boy, she was fall in love in him.” She looked at Gabriel, checking if he was listening, and made sure that he stared at her, continued, “So, I went with Collin at the park. We didn’t have time to get to the store for products, that to buy something, so, that was why, we took only one thing, which lay at out refrigerator – sauce jar. Park was quite gorgeous place, where students wasted their time, reading books or chattering.”
“When we had gotten there, Collin waved at once at the small group of people near baseball field. I knew a couple of them, of course, I recognized George as well (Collin’s boyfriend), and we rushed toward them. There were three guys, George’s friends, and two more girls, which I didn’t know. They were already eating sandwiches and drinking something from their cups, what looked and smelled like wine – alcoholic beverages were prohibited at the park zone. George introduces us and friends of his. Also, he said that one more his friend should come. He said he was a photographer, what was at our time strange, because photocamera wasn’t cheap.”
“As you guess, maybe, already, Gabriel, the friend, who should come, was father of your fiancée, my daughter, Maria. So, it was Richard. He came and dying chat rose as phoenix again. He took shots of everything that he found interesting. It was strange but we found a common ground and interests immediately. We were talking maybe till the sunset and more, weren’t we, Richard?”
“Aye, and more,” Richard answered, still not looked up of newspaper, but a tiny shadow of smile ran on his lips.
“Yes, and more,” continued Lillie, now she even didn’t look at anybody, telling the story to somebody invisible, or like to herself. “And Richard also looked at sauce jar, which was staying untouched at the ground, actually that was his first question, as he could try the sauce. I agreed, so, that how our conversation started. Then, he made couple photos of that, explaining it that he like how sunlight played on camera and on the jar. Yes, it was a very good picnic, by the way. But that is not the end of the story, obviously. What was next?”
“You met him at the corridor,” grumbled Mommy, still knitting.
“I am not asking you, Mommy,” said Mrs. Anderson, her stare at Mr. Anderson.
“I met you at corridor,” answered Mr. Anderson.
“Was it luck, a destiny!” said Lillie, “We just met at the corridor; I felt at once that it was not just simple meeting, that it meant something, so I was right.”
“Of course, we met.” Suddenly, said Richard, his daily newspaper aside, he was staring at his wife Lillie. “I was looking for you, checked the timetable, you know I never told you but since our first meeting I had been looking for reason to come you.” He cut himself, smiled and took the daily newspaper again; put it higher hiding his smiling face.
For a few minutes Lillie was sitting motionless, and then she said in a quiet voice, almost whispering, “Oh, Richard, you’ve never told me that!” And she couldn’t think of anything that to continue the story. “So, Richard said that he had photos from picnic and he wanted to share with me. So, we went into red room. But how we were surprised when we discovered the room opened. Somebody just left it open for unknown reason – all photos were dead. But except the only one, which Richard could have done before all others. That was exactly that photo that you see just right now in front of you. We were glad that we could keep at least one photo from that day when we met each other.”
“What a wonderful story, Mrs. Anderson!” said Gabriel.
“Yes, it is. But also there is one more interesting moment, because of which I knew that I was right. Richard didn’t want to come to picnic too, but he was persuaded by George, that how it happened – we both didn’t want to go, but came. Later we found more similarities between us and dots, which bound us though all our lives.”
“Wow! That’s really fantastic!” Gabriel stared at Mrs. Anderson.
“But not when you hear it in a thousand time!”
“Mommy!” Lillie cried reproachfully.
“And still, nevertheless, I like that story, Mrs. Anderson. It shows how interesting human destinies intertwine. Thank you for that. You know our story with you daughter, Marie.”
“Yes, Gabriel, in a few details, so I wish you a good life, as we are having it with Richard since our meeting.”
“Does somebody want tea?” raised her voice, Maria.
“Yes, do it, sweetie, and let’s move into veranda, for more interesting stories than that,” said Mommy, put away her knitting work. Everyone, after a tiny pause, burst in laugh (Mrs. Anderson was laughing louder than everyone else), and stood up, moving at veranda for more stories.
