Family Photos, chapter 1
Welcome to my Family
Picture #1: A dining room table, a juicy roast chicken centre stage. A family, faces turned towards the camera, smiling. Eyes bright, tummies hungry, as the photo flash eternalises peas, potatoes, pumpkin.
I remember...
Only an hour before, the summer holiday house we rented by the lake, was in chaos. I stood, surveying the mess. An hour. An hour was all it took for the place to look like a hurricane lived in it permanently. I bent down to pick up a pair of purple undies, and called for my daughter, Samantha.
‘Sammy!’ I called, walking towards the back garden. ‘Sammy!’
Samantha, 10, came running from the hall behind me.
‘Yeah?’ she asked.
I turned and holding up the purple culprit and said, ‘Missing something already?’
Sammy rolled her eyes and grabbed them from me. ‘Seriously Mum, do you have to wave them around like that?’ Then she turned on her heel and headed back to her room.
Footsteps thudded up the verandah steps and through the glass doors came the men in my life. David, my husband, in khaki shorts and a blue polo, carried three fishing poles through the door. Behind him came the twins, Toby and Jack, 7.
‘I’m taking the boys fishing for an hour,’ he said as he quickly kissed me in passing.
‘I’m gonna catch the biggest fish!’ exclaimed Toby, his face bright with excitement.
Jack added, ‘Mine will be bigger!’ before pushing past Toby and sauntering away, confidence in his little body. I ruffled Toby’s hair as he ran after them.
The front door slammed as the boys chattered about the worms about to be sacrificed for bait. I walked out the back door and waved to my oldest daughter and my younger sister in the backyard.
Lucinda, 13, was swinging on the tire swing, and my sister, Katie, 24, was sitting on the ground, picking grass.
‘Come in and help me finish dinner girls?’
Katie stood and called up, ‘Sure.’
Lucinda nodded, jumped off the swing and followed behind.
We sorted out dinner, and chatted in the kitchen. When Lucinda went to see Sammy, Katie dropped her voice. ‘Luci wants to walk to the video store after dinner and I said I’d go with her. You remember Zac, from last year?’
‘Mmm,’ I said tentatively, putting the peas down and looking at Katie.
‘She texted him on the way here, and he said he’s working there tonight… so, I said I’d walk with her to say hello.’
I turned back to the peas.
‘As long as it’s okay with you,’ she added quickly.
I transferred the peas to a serving bowl. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no real harm, as long as you’re with her at all times right? Katie? He’s a teenage boy, and my baby is only thirteen.’
Katie held my wrist, ‘ Elizabeth, she’s growing up, that’s all. I’ll be there, don’t worry, it’s harmless.’
Luci and Sammy walked into the kitchen.
‘Where’s Dad and the boys?’ asked Sammy, picking at a pea.
‘Home any minute, they went fishing for a bit,’ I said, taking the bowl away.
The front door slammed.
‘Muuuuuuuuuuuum!’ came two voices.
Toby and Jack came running into the kitchen, their shorts damp from the lake.
‘I caught a fish this ...’
‘…eyes were all big and googly…’
‘…worms were all squiggly..’
‘…slimy, on the hook…’
‘… and I pulled…’
‘Boys, boys! Stop, quick, go wash your hands, because dinner’s ready and you can tell us all about it at the table. Okay? Quick, go!’
They rushed off, still talking to each other about their adventure.
David came into the kitchen. ‘Mmm, chicken smells good.’ He walked towards me, and I caught a whiff of his fishy aftershave.
‘You receive the same instructions,’ I laughed, pulling away.
‘Ewww, Dad, you stink,’ said Sammy, holding her nose.
Katie and Luci both swatted near their faces. Luci said, ‘Dad, gross.’
David put his hands up in defeat and laughed as he headed to the bathroom.
With everyone around the table, we held hands (no longer smelling fishy) and David gave thanks. ‘Lord, we thank you for getting us here safely. We thank you for another year together. Thank you for this great feast. Amen.’
The chorus resounded, ‘Amen!’
‘Wait, wait!’ I cried, before everyone broke into the food. ‘Photo!’
Katie set the camera up with its timer and sat back down. Blink, blink, blink, flash!
…I smiled. There, forever on shiny, glossy paper, my family. That first night of our holiday, everyone ready for a break. If only I could capture the moment Lucinda grew up and let a boy into her heart, or the moment my little boys felt like men when they held their fish by hooks. That moment when Sammy felt like the world was right when she won Monopoly four times in a row. I smoothed the photo into the album. ‘Summer Holiday ‘09’ I wrote underneath. If only I could frame it with all the memories and emotions it had created.
I closed the cover.
Welcome to my family.
