He said he would bring a picnic. I imagined smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches, which we would open up to sharpen with lemon quarters and fresh black pepper. I imagined chilled wine in real glasses. He brought Dairylea cheese triangles, a litre bottle of diluted blackcurrant squash and his son.
“You didn’t tell me you were a father,” I said. We watched the boy, aged about five, jump to grab a spindly branch from one of the specimen trees. He caught it and pulled hard until the branch started to tear away from the trunk.
“Don’t do that Sam,” Thomas called half-heartedly from beside me on the lawn. “Didn’t I?” he said to me.
“It doesn’t appear to be coming very naturally,” I said, wiping the top of the plastic bottle. I took a swig; it tasted of cream cheese.
“I’m still getting used to the idea. Give me another couple of months and I’ll have got the hang of it.” I passed him the squash.
“A slow learner?”
“Not exactly,” he said without looking at me. “I only found out about Sam’s existence three months ago.”

***

This story is from a new writing group for me – Trifecta. Each Monday writers are challenged to write a story between 33 and 333 words long using a specified word and its meaning. This week (seventy-nine) the word is appear and the meaning is to have an outward aspect: seem. Click here to read some other responses or to join in.

I’d love to hear what you think about this piece – good or bad. Let me know in the comment box below.

The photograph belongs to http://www.flickr.com/photos/y_ordan/