Disclaimer: Same old same old.

This is the second story in what is looking like being a four part series. All sequels but all stories in their own right which is why I am posting them as separate pieces rather than chapters.

Each story looks at ‘life after…’ from a different person’s P.O.V.

My Family

Jason looked down at the title he had just written, underscored it three times and chewed his pen thoughtfully. Extra circular creative writing class. It was his Dad’s idea. Give him something to focus his expressive energies on besides his incessant playing of the bass.

‘My family…’ he ruminated. As a first assignment the course tutor had set them the seemingly simple task of writing about their family. Something autobiographical his tutor had said, just to get a feel for their writing style. Well he bet his tutor wasn’t prepared for *his* assignment.

Putting his pen to paper he began.

Jason paused, looked back over what he had written. Yep, that pretty much summed up the first seventeen years of his life. Of course a lot of what had gone on he had been oblivious to at the time and had only found out after the event.

Like what had occurred between Daniel and Darren.

That one had come out not long after they had moved, when he had gone into Daniel’s study to use his computer, his having crashed *again*.

There on the desk beside the P.C. was a neat wooden frame containing a photo of Daniel hugging another guy.

Jason had thought it a bit odd and never being one to be backwards in coming forward had asked about it. Gently Daniel had explained and despite himself Jason had found tears pricking at the back of his eyes.

A few days later he noticed another photo, this one in his Dad and Daniel’s bedroom. Darren and Daniel’s wedding day if the tuxs were anything to go by. He had always wondered where Dan went every year just before Christmas and that year he had asked Jason if he wanted to go with him.

It was then that Jason had met for the first time Darren’s parents.

Even though he was no relation to them they had welcomed him in and made a fuss of him as if he were their own flesh and blood.

In the afternoon Daniel had taken him to the graveyard where Darren was buried.

Jason had always gotten along with Daniel, maybe because he was a few years younger than his Dad, he had never treated him like a kid but after that trip he had looked at his step-father with a new found admiration. He wasn’t sure he could ever do something like that. He had found it hard enough when they had had to have Bessie put down.

He was just about to get back to his assignment when the door to his room opened and Gabrielle walked in, Doze lopping along dopily behind her.

Nate had taken his Mum to Paris for a month and so Gabby was staying with them. His mother may not have been overly pleased with her ex-husband’s choice of lifestyle but she was happy enough to tolerate it when it suited her.

Not that anyone minded having Gabby to stay.

At nine years old she idolised her step siblings. At nearly eleven Lucy loved having a little sister around to dress up and play with.

‘Watcha half-pint.’ Jason greeted her, ignoring the frown as his half-sister protested the pet name.

‘What you doing?’

‘Writing about you, and Daddy and Daniel and Lucy…’

‘And Tim too?’

‘Yep Tim too.’

‘Tim is mean to me.’

Jason laughed. ‘He’s only meant to you when you touch his DVD’s’

Gabrielle pouted. ‘He’s mean to me.’

‘So is this merely a social call?’

‘What?’

Jason smiled. ‘Did you want something half-pint?’

‘Don’t call me half-pint!’ Gabrielle slapped his arm. ‘Daniel is cooking dinner on the bar-be-que and wants you to give him a hand.’

‘Why can’t Tim?’

‘Tim is over at Matt’s, Lucy is seeing to the ponies and Daddy is not back from town yet.’ She recited as if she had learnt it by rote.

Knowing when he was beat. Jason abandoned his paper and hoisting Gabrielle onto his shoulders made his way downstairs.

‘Ok, go help Lucy with Sasha and Reuben.’ He set her down.

‘k.’ and off she went. Doze obediently following her like the faithful old mutt he was.

Snagging two beers from the cooler in the kitchen Jason went out into the back garden and across to the patio.

‘Hey.’ He knocked the top off of one of the beers and handed it over.

‘Oi!’

Jason quirked his head as he knocked the cap from the second and took a long skull.

‘Yeah yeah.’

Mark didn’t approve of his son drinking but Dan was usually cool about it. Just as he had been cool when he had caught Jason smoking pot.

‘So you and the guys playing this weekend?’ Daniel asked, flipping the sizzling steaks expertly.

‘Yeah, we’ve got a gig over in Boundstone. Wanna come check us out? We’ve got a couple of new songs we are going to try out.’

‘Maybe another time huh?’

Belatedly Jason remembered the date that Saturday. ‘He would have been forty wouldn’t he?’

Daniel took a swig of his beer. ‘Yep.’

‘You still miss him.’

‘I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.’

‘Auden.’

‘Darren’s brother read it at the funeral. I was going to but…well you know…’

‘But you love Dad as well?’

‘Did you have a year book when you left school?’

‘Yeah you know I did.’

Daniel left the bar-be-que to its own devices and came to perch on the wall beside Jason. ‘And did anyone sign it with that corny poem about making new friends but not forgetting the old?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well that’s how it is with your Dad and Darren. See.’ And he held out his hands.

Two rings – one silver, one gold.

‘I love your Dad but I will never forget Darren.’