Bonus - Week 15 - UDC 10

Dilly-dally

"What's going on out there?"

Helen glanced back at Alan with a very maternal smile. "Good things. Go sit down with the menfolk and the toddlers and Charlotte in the living room."

"Helen..."

"Go, Alan." She watched him go and then glanced at Sheryl. "Higher strung than usual."

"Well, it's been an interesting few days since Wednesday," Sheryl replied, then stepped outside. "Boys?"

"We're fine, Mom," Bart told her as the hug broke up. He nudged Pete in the shoulder. "You good?"

Pete nodded. "Getting there."

"Glad to hear it. No more blaming my getting grounded since November on yourself."

"Okay."

Sheryl stared at Pete, incredulous. "How long were you blaming yourself for Bart's behavioral adjustment grounding?"

"A month."

Creepy-crawly

Nick stayed back momentarily while Sheryl ushered both Pete and Bart into the house, Jaime watching him silently as he looked around the porch and then tested the steps leading up to it. "Looking for something?"

"At," Nick told him as he climbed up to the porch and then looked around the yard and the neighborhood. "Pete said he forgot there were steps when Bart got mad."

Jaime stared up at him. "Oh."

"Point of reference for what he meant, you know?" Nick glanced at him. "Come on."

With a last, suspicious look at the steps in question, Jaime followed him inside. He could imagine it, as he'd lived through the aftermath of it the following week. It was understandable, also, that Pete might have blamed himself in the middle of it all.

Hoity-toity

She'd been chatting with Mr. Finney and Miss Lowell with their daughter in her lap when two men entered the living room with another toddler and Mr. Finney laughed suddenly. "So I was right after all. It was the khakis that threw him off!"

Charlotte frowned at him as she watched the little boy smile back at them and then shifted her attention to the man holding him. Khakis? As in service khakis? "Right. Navy or Air Force?" At his responding frown, she shrugged. "My step-father is Air Force."

"Navy," the man answered, then looked at Mr. Finney. "You want your son back?"

Mr. Finney smiled good-naturedly. "Nicky, do you want to stay with Mike?"

"Yes!"

"All right, then." Mr. Finney glanced at her. "Looks like he needs a toddler in his arms right now, doesn't he?"

Charlotte allowed herself to chuckle. "It would seem so. Oh, and before I forget, because I was going to give something to Jaime or one of my sisters to give to Pete..." She pulled an envelope out of an inside pocket in her blazer and handed it to Miss Lowell. "My mother had these and I got her to make copies when I realized we knew the kid they were for."

Miss Lowell took it and opened the envelope to look through what was in it and then she stood and gestured for Nicky. "Come on, Nickster. Mike needs to look at something. These are from early July of '68, right Charlotte?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Charlotte smiled at Mr. Jenkins, who was looking at her funny. "The nurses on MedSurg arranged a small party because Mrs. Mitchell wanted to see her son on his birthday."

Mr. Jenkins nodded, watching with a slight smile while Miss Lowell traded envelope for toddler. "Thank you for getting your mother to make copies, then."