Page 49 of Unwanted Vows

Charles and Richard study both of us for a moment, then seem to reach a mutual decision of their own.

“Very well,” Charles said. “Andrew did say that the house was your domain.”

“We’ve already discussed it,” I say firmly.

Richard burst out laughing, but did not explain the reason for his mirth. Andrew gave him an irritated look. “Still cutting up, I see,” he said.

“Of course,” Richard replied. “Life is too short to be dull and stodgy – something I could never seem to convince you of.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Charles said. He slipped out the door, and returned a few minutes later with the head mover. The mover nodded, and he and his crew quickly brought in our furniture and boxes of belongings.

Andrew caught the attention of the head mover, and spoke to him in a low voice. The mover looked at him, looked at me, then nodded. I was pleased to see that the result of the discussion was that the most commonly used kitchen items were stowed in the lower cabinets where I could easily reach them.

When I entered Paul’s room to see how things were going there, I was surprised to find the crew attaching frames with big sheets of tear-off paper.

Paul seemed just as confused as I, for he gaped at the proceedings, then sidled over to me and asked, “Do you know what they are doing, Mom?”

One of the movers climbed down from a ladder and said, “It’s a surprise birthday gift from Mr. Lane, Mr. Emory and Mrs. Moor. They said that Paul has a birthday coming up, and wasn’t going to get the celebration originally planned for him.”

Andrew stuck his head in and said, “Oh, good. My sister was able to get the stuff.”

I gave him a stern look. “When did you have a chance to speak to either of them?”

“Text message,” Andrew said. “Early this morning. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to surprise Paul, and you. But I don’t want to spoil it by saying anything more.”

Paul said, “I guess I’ll be able to attach my posters to these. And I won’t have to worry about holes in the walls.”

“That you won’t,” Andrew said. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but Rylie followed the last of the movers in. The fellow was carrying two large cases.

Rylie carried two large flat packages in her arms. “Let’s spread these out,” she said. “One goes on the floor, the other on the bed.”

The floor package turned out to be a large rug that had a pattern of paint pallets and paint spatter on it. The other package was a bedspread with similar design.

“It’s not a carousel or ferris wheel,” Andrew said. “But this is from the three of us. I hope it makes up for not spending the day at the fair.”

Paul looked at me.

“Go ahead,” I say. “Open it. I don’t know what it is, either. So it will be a surprise to both of us.”

I had planned to give Paul money for the fair as his birthday gift, as well as our tradition of new clothes. It wasn’t the only time I bought new things for him, but I tried to make his birthday clothing special to take the sting out of receiving such ordinary items.

The first box held a rather odd cabinet. Its top opened up to a storage area with compartments of various sizes. Beneath the compartment area was a series of wide, shallow drawers. Paul looked puzzled when he opened them to reveal a variety of papers.

Paul then opened the other box and let out a squeal of excitement. On the top of it was a wooden case. Inside the case was a paint pallet, trays of watercolor cake paint, tubes of watercolors, and tubes of acrylic paint. The pallet had sheets of peel off wax paper for easy clean up.

A long narrow case held an assortment of brushes, two more ordinary containers were filled to the brim with wax crayons, colored pencils, and double-ended art marking pens.

Beneath it all was a bulky box that, when opened, revealed a projector.

Rylie says, “I know you had your heart set on putting up your posters, but with this you can project them onto the big wall hanging easels and reproduce them. You can make changes, and paint them different colors. If you get tired of making stills, I’ll show you how to connect the projector to your computer and animate them to make your own movies.”

“Wow!” Paul exclaimed. “Thank you Aunt Rylie, Charles, Andrew!”

“Maybe with your favorite poster?” Rylie suggested. “There are plenty of sheets of paper on the wall easels, so you can make different versions of it, and even throw away the ones you don’t like.”

“I’ve got one more thing,” Charles said, moving out of the doorway. One of the movers wheeled in a large trash container. Stenciled on the front of the container was the legend, “Experiments that didn’t make the grade.”

I laugh. “Perfect. That should help make clean-up easy.”

---