139 - Invitations

*Trust me, I’ve been to enough graduations to know that I’m going to see the same thing on the stage as what’s on the screen. What I won’t see on the screen is everything that happens after the ceremony. - Trigg*

The first Monday after, Darkness took Mitch to school on the big Harley. The large man hung out in his nephew’s homeroom class for about an hour or so. He came back and brought lunch with him. And then picked the eighth grader up on the custom bike with Tink on the back.

Each time Darkness made sure that people saw that his nails were painted.

He continued to drop off and pick up the youngest of the three kids for the next few weeks. By the end of the school year, no one even questioned the boy having his nails done.

When it was time for Vin to mail out his graduation invitations, he had to decide what six people he wanted at his graduation. He knew for certain that he wanted his brother and sister there. And Darkness and Camille. That left two tickets that he was uncertain about.

For the first time since fall, Keisha’s parents were reaching out on a regular basis. Camille and Darkness did not stop it. They did not say anything. But they did not need to. Vin could tell that they were only doing this so that they would be invited to graduation.

As it always seemed to happen, Vin knocked on the door to their bedroom one night after everyone had settled in for the night. Camille and Darkness both set their books aside as the oldest of their kids settled on the end of the bed.

Camille settled against her husband’s side. Darkness placed an arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he placed his chin on the top of her blonde head.

“What’s on your mind?” Darkness finally asked.

“Graduation.”

The single word had four syllables and easily carried a huge weight.

“What about it?” Camille urged.

“I don’t know who to give my last two tickets to graduation to. I really don’t want Grandmother Dominique and Grandfather William there. I would be okay with Poppa Zy being there. But then that leaves me with one more ticket that I don’t know what to do with.”

He sighed, “And Oma and Opa have already told me that they are coming down and that’s a long way to come and not see me graduate.”

“Wait,” Camille grinned at him. “Take a deep breath and calm down.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and then nodded at her.

“Yes, it is a long way to come for them. But they are coming to see you. You. And your brother and sister. If I’m lucky, they’ll remember that I’m here.”

“See? They’re going to drive all this way-“

She laughed, cutting him off mid rant, “And spoil your sorry ass so bad that you’re going to be looking forward to having a few hours without them around you.”

He sat there silently for a few minutes, trying to process what his adoptive mother told him.

Looking up at her, he finally asked, “They really will not be upset if they are not there?”

Moving away from her husband’s light embrace, she moved closer to the teenager. Reaching out, she took his hand in her much smaller one, “I’m going to tell you the absolute truth about *your* graduation.”

He looked at her and she knew that he was ready for her to drop some profound bullshit on him.

“It’s *your* graduation. Whoever you want at *your* graduation, that is *your* decision. Not mine. Not Darkness. Not your Oma. Not your Opa. Not even your Poppa Zy or your brother or sister. Certainly not your Grandfather William. Definitely not your Grandmother Dominique.”

His eyes widened so much that she thought for the briefest of moments that his eyes would pop out of his head.

“That…” he cleared his throat and shook his head. “That’s not at all what I was expecting you to say.”

“Did you expect me to tell you that you must have this person or that person?”

He looked at his uncle who simply smirked at him.

“Well, yeah. You know, optics and perception and all that.”

Camille rolled her eyes. “Look at me,” she moved her arms in a sweeping motion to encompass the pajama set that she wore, her messy bun, tattoos and piercings that were visible. “Does it look like I give a damn about optics or perception?”

“You have a PR business,” Vin pointed out and Darkness chuckled.

“He has a good point.”

Camille turned her head to look at her husband who was sitting behind her. Narrowing her eyes, she gave him a cold stare before turning her attention back to the younger version of him.

“I do have a PR business. But I also work the back end of it,” she pointed out to him. “I build and maintain the websites. I do the coding. I work with the pictures and do the specialty editing.”

“Have you given him the pictures from prom?” Darkness asked.

“I have not, they just got in from the framers today,” she moved to the edge of the large ultra-king bed and motioned for Vin to follow her.

She padded barefoot out of the bedroom and down the short hallway to her office. Flipping on the overhead light, Camille moved to the day bed that was currently covered with boxes from a custom framing company in New Orleans. Carefully, she looked at the tags that were taped to the ends of the boxes. Finding the one that she wanted, she handed it to Vin.

“Go ahead, look, but don’t tell your brother or sister what you see there.”

Nervously, he motioned to her desk, and she nodded. Vin sat down in her office chair and opened the black box. After undoing the slats, he lifted the lid and found a carefully and meticulously folded black tissue paper with the emblem of the company printed in silver on the top layer of paper.

With tenderness that was born of fear and nerves, he moved the black and silver tissue paper. Doing this caused him to see that there were five layers of tissue paper. The bottom four alternated between black and silver. The silver paper beneath the embossed paper made the emblem stand out even more.

He looked from the picture in the box to Camille and then back. Reaching out he ran a finger across the glass over where his father stood in the picture on one side of him and his date from the senior prom earlier in the year.

“Camille,” Vin whispered as he wiped a fresh tear off the glass that he was looking at. “It’s beautiful, Camille. *Moeder.”

She walked over and hugged him as he hugged her back and he let his tears fall freely.

“I’ll give them to your siblings this weekend. Then we’ll find a place to put them for everyone to see.”