Reunion

OLeif’s half-sister, Scarlett Snapple, and her two boys, were in town for the first time in nearly seven years. It was the first time for OLeif to see his youngest nephew, Michael, who was five. And Gabriel was nine.
Collette was happy to finally meet her sister-in-law and nephews. It had always been strange knowing that she had another sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and nephews that she had never seen. And she enjoyed them visiting with them. Scarlett was very nice, and the boys were pleasant and curious about many things.
After Gloria, Scarlett, and the boys had returned for a run for tea, Gloria and Scarlett mixed up salsa and enchiladas while OLeif and Izzy gave instructions to Gabriel on how to master OLeif’s old diabolo. And Curly set up Puck’s plastic slide-house in the living room before helping Bluebell South move sound equipment.
Once Puck had acclimatized himself to his cousins, he played happily with Michael, and then called to him by name as Michael walked up and down the stairs:
“Michael down! Michael down!”
Meanwhile, Gabriel, an inquisitive boy, was busy following OLeif about the house, looking into OLeif’s old marble collections and rock collection. And his yo-yo’s. OLeif was digging things up out of old dusty boxes in the basement that he hadn’t seen in years. All of this, while Theodore continued working on the gutted basement, and Gloria showed Scarlett old madrigal dinner tapes, Barberini, voice recitals, dances, etc.
After Puck woke from his nap, everyone piled into two cars to drive down to Old St. Charles for ice cream and a walk along the river.
The boys circled the Lewis & Clark statue for awhile in the cool, early evening, semi-reluctantly posing for pictures while Theodore shared some of his bag of orange slice candies with his grandsons.