As The Days Go By

"He went through some interesting phases when he was younger."

Arieus jumped and leaned away from the wall of pictures. Gladys was behind him cupping a mug of warm, milky tea. She smiled up at Arieus, who was fidgeting nervously.

"you know," she said as she searched for a particular picture. "Antanas was always a bit of a twerp when he was really little – I could never get him to behave, and he always came home with a teacher's note about him goofing off." She pointed to a photograph of a small boy, hands behind his back, standing on top of a broken sand castle.

"About 15 seconds after I took this, Antanas was helping Charlie rebuild his sandcastle." She chuckled to herself and Arieus smiled.

"How old was he?"

Please, Gladys answered, "He's nine there and fourteen in the next one." She pointed Antanas out among a group of about 20 teens, and Arieus tried not to laugh.

"Can't say I have ever seen that hairstyle on a man before." Arieus told her.

"Oh, spare me the hair, he had me making all his clothes –– what a nightmare! You should have seen the cuts of fabric he would bring to me. I'll have you know ––"

"Gladys! What are you telling him?!" Antanas interrupted from the top of the stairs.

"I believe things have improved quite a bit. Wouldn't you be inclined to say so, Mrs. Gnokkum?"

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Verra." she said teasingly.

Antanas came down the stairs in a two step pattern, landing gracefully – but loudly – in frni of Gladys, who had turned to face her son. Arieus' eyes looked over him now seeing the full spectrum of Antanas' aging.

The half-elf grinned and then froze. He pushed aside Arieus and saw the wall of photos.

"Gladys! You didn't! We talked about this!"

"You better take him now," Gladys said, gently tucking Antanas under Arius' arm and nudging them to the door. "Have fun boy!"

"Thank you, Gladys." Arieus said, heading out the door with a still flustered Antanas.

~Hammeh