“Thank you, baby.”
“Anytime, Mama,” Cyan answers, dodging my halfhearted attempt to swat him back.
“Asshole,” I mutter, partly because he’s annoying me, but mostly because he’s the biggest mama’s boy on the face of the planet.
“Grayson Lucas, you stop that or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.”
I roll my eyes, though I do it where I’m sure Mom can’t see me. The truth is, she says worse than us boys ever thought of—and that’s saying a lot. She however, can’t stand it for her kids to say the same words in front of her.
“Yes, Mama,” I answer, looking out over the yard in front of the large farmhouse I was raised in. It’s a large three-story home which has been completely updated, much to Mother’s dismay. The boys and I got together while Mom was on vacation and completely renovated the place, giving her all the latest appliances and conveniences. Most mothers would have loved it; ours complained we ruined the charm of the place, though I notice she doesn’t complain that the washroom is now downstairs with her bedroom and large master bath.
There’s a large wraparound porch that completely encircles the home—a fact my nephews, when they’re around love and make complete use of. It’s white with red trim and has a bright red tin roof. The yard is encased with matching red trim and it’s quite beautiful when you pull up and see it, but that’s not why I love this place and always will; it’s the memories. Even when we didn’t have two nickels to rub together, this place was the most magical place on Earth. No matter what has happened in my life, being home always had a way of healing me and making things better.
That is, until CC.
“Is Grayson still being moony-eyed over that woman?” Blackie asks.
“Seems so. I don’t get it. I haven’t seen a flitter worth that,” Maggie says.
“Magnolia Marie! You did not just say that!” Mama yells.
“Sorry, Mama. Terry has taken to using the word and it just slipped out.”
“You ruined that boy, naming him Terry. You should have kept the family tradition.”
“You mean naming him after where he was created? No, thank you. I don’t need a son named Subaru.”
“Yeah, cause we all know the story of how Maggie whoopty-do’ed in her Subaru and Nine months later…”
Maggie elbows Cyan with a huff. “That wasn’t funny the first five-thousand times and it’s even less funny now that Terry is three years old, dumbass.”
“Ouch! Stop, that hurts! Mama, Maggie called me a name.”
“That’s because you are being a dumbass. I don’t need no grandchild named Subaru. Though you could have named him Cross, dear.”
I smile. It’s an old argument. Maggie was caught in the back of an old Subaru with Bryant Matthews out on Old Cross Road.
“You really need to make an honest man of that boy,” Mama chides her.
“Like you have Janson?” Maggie comes back.
Janson is the foreman of the ranch and the unofficial boyfriend of my mother. Mom had her oldest child when she was barely seventeen, which means she will be turning fifty-four in just a week. All of us like Janson and would love to welcome him completely in the family, but he won’t even move into the house with Mom. For some reason, neither one of them want a traditional relationship of living under one roof. Weird, considering they’ve been together and exclusive for the last eight years.
“Pffft…” Mom waves her off. “At our age,” she says, like they’re eighty, “we’re just celebrating the miracle that we’re both still even interested.”
“There sure is a lot of celebrating going on around here, specifically in the kitchen,” Cyan says, and from the look on his face, I don’t even want to know what he saw.
“Praise Jesus,” Mom says.
I take a drink of my beer to keep from laughing out loud. I manage to hide my smile around the rim of the can; Mom doesn’t need any encouragement.
“Lovey, that damn cow got out again,” Janson growls, sliding onto the edge of the porch, sitting down, and letting his legs hang over the side. He spits out his tobacco and Cyan hands him a beer.
“He just wants his freedom, Jan,” Mom defends.
“If he don’t stop breaking my fence, I’ll give him his freedom. I’ll make sure he gets his ticket to the green pastures in the sky,” Jan grumbles. Mom ignores him, probably because she knows it’s the same empty threat he always gives. Instead, she focuses on the one thing about Janson that she absolutely does not like.
“I thought I told you that if you didn’t give up chewing, Janson Reed, there would be no more celebrating between us?” she grumbles, hitting his back with a fly swatter.
“You did, but I had a talk with the good Lord about it,” Janson says, looking over his shoulder at her. “He said He’d allow the vice, if I celebrated and praised Him harder. So we’re working it out.”
“I call bullshit,” she says, but she’s smiling.