Author's Note: While for full understanding it isn't necessary to read "Sophie Knows" you might want to… another one shot… please review!
Kirsten has always had a favorite picture of each person in her family, even her father, sister and for that one year, Julie. But now rather a single favorite she has a favorite set of pictures. There are four in the set. The first picture is of Sophie and Sandy, Sophie was maybe a month old and she fell asleep against Sandy's chest one afternoon as he fell asleep too. She has identical ones of Sophie with Seth and with Ryan, all taken before she was six months old. But this, she sees as she grabs her camera and walks back into the family room, this is the final piece to that set that is on the wall near Sophie's bedroom. Her three boys all fell asleep watching some sporting event none of them honestly cared about, and then Sophie, at age five, fell asleep across them, head in Sandy's lap feet on Ryan's and her middle on Seth. Kirsten's family together and peaceful, exactly what she always wanted.
Sandy's favorite picture is the first one of their entire family. Kirsten, Seth, Ryan, Sophie and himself in the backyard of the Berkley house. Sophie is only six months old, taken during Thanksgiving after the boys started college. He keeps copies of that picture everywhere, there's one on the wall downstairs, one in his and Kirsten's bedroom, one on his desk at the law firm, one in his office in the Berkley Law building. It was the picture that went in the Chrismakuah cards that year. He thinks the reason he loves that picture is because it's the first time that they were all together after Seth leaving that they were all together and this was their family. His family, his happiness and the perfection of them in one singular second. His perfect family.
Seth loves pictures period. He loves pictures of his family. He loves pictures of his fiancée. He loves pictures. His favorite group of pictures is the ones that he and Summer made into a collage. Chrismakuah pictures over time. Pictures before Ryan, pictures through high school with Ryan, pictures once Sophie was born. All of the pictures with his family, in all the different stages of that it has come in. All of the crazy Chrismakuahs that have happened he's happy to have them. His collage hangs in between his and Ryan's rooms in the Berkley house. Because that is where home is, and home is where Chrismakuah is, and his family too.
Ryan hates pictures. He hides in them. It's usually his face in the appropriate female's shoulder, or if he sees someone taking a candid he turns around. He hides or ducks or ties his shoe, anything not to be in the frame. At least that was until the summer before he went to college, also known as the summer Sophie arrived. All of a sudden if he was with her, pictures weren't so bad. He watched his sister grow up. Pictures of him in the pool with her, at the beach with her, with Seth, with Seth and Summer, with Taylor, with the girlfriend after Taylor, with Carrie, with Sandy and Kirsten. Any picture with him and Sophie was a good one. He smiled more and he finally had a favorite picture. A picture of him and Sophie in the water, her in a floaty him standing behind her turning the floaty to the camera so Kirsten could see it. The two of them smiling at each other, it was perfection. And the perfect picture.