Let It Go

  “I used to do the same thing with my mama. My legs,” Savannah clarifies. “Although no one told me what a chore it would be once the newness wore off.” She chuckles, thinking of the pesky every other day hygiene requirement.

  “I got another one,” Bill prefaces, fully divulging in Brody stories. “Mother and I,” he uses the habitual moniker for his wife, “used to take the RV on all sorts of sightseeing trips. Well, one summer we took Brody with us. He couldn’t have been more than ten. He was sitting in the passenger seat proud as a peacock after touring Mount Rushmore.” Bill mimes the young boy’s actions, his arm raised and crooked at the elbow as if it leans against the passenger door frame. “He said, ‘Paw-Paw, this RV is real nice. You think I could have it when you die?’” Bill releases another belly laugh with the memory.

  “And did he tell you he had a terrible time sleeping in his own bed as a little boy?” Lydia joins in, her eyes squinting into a smile. “He just had to be near me. Touching me somehow. Holding my hand. Nestling his back against mine. He was an affectionate little thing.”

  “He still is,” Savannah affirms with a chuckle, noting how efficient a cuddler he is, his skin in constant contact with hers if in the general vicinity.

  “I’m sure his daddy and my divorce had a lot to do with that. He was so young,” the guilt in Lydia’s voice present.

  “He’s very well-adjusted,” Savannah says, attempting to offer support. “Y’all did a good job with him. He’s such a good man,” she speaks from the heart.

  “Well, thank you,” Lydia dismisses. “I just figure he was born that way.”

  The two attractive blondes formerly sitting with Vance approach, introducing themselves as Brody’s sisters, Emma and Kate. Kate plays interception with Lydia and Bill while Emma boldly asks for some alone time with Savannah.

  “Savannah, I need some help in the kitchen, icing cupcakes. You wouldn’t mind, would you?” Emma inquires, pulling her away.

  “Where are you going with her?” Lydia peeks around Kate’s obtrusive frame.

  “Don’t worry Mama. You’ll get more time with Savannah later,” Emma playfully calls back to her.

  “Don’t know how good of a cupcake icer I am, but I’ll give it a try,” Savannah releases with a nervous chuckle. A fan of take-out, having lived alone for the past year and a half, she doubts her rusty culinary skills.

  “Just shellac it on there.” Emma, caretaker and mother of two, Liam Patrick and Sophie Grace, efficiently demonstrates a perfect icing swirl with a few twists of her wrist. “All goes to the same place anyway, right.” The two women now alone in the kitchen, Emma wastes no time getting to her point. “So what are your intentions with my brother?”

  Savannah continues looking down at the cupcake in her hand, her knife working the decadent icing around its top. “We’re just getting to know each other,” Savannah informs, unclear of her intentions at this point.

  “You know about his past? I assume he’s told you about his divorce,” Emma leads.

  “We’ve talked about it.” Savannah nods.

  “I get that her family had money. She was used to a certain lifestyle and maybe we didn’t fit in to that.” Savannah finally looks up, the reservation and hurt in Emma’s voice playing on her compassion. “She was fine, with all of us, at first. But then, it was like we had to beg for Brody’s time. For their time. It put a lot of strain on him. Trying to accommodate her and us. She was very controlling like that. Are you a family person?” Emma’s thoughts roll together.

  “Well yeah,” Savannah answers as if that should be a given. “I like getting together. Meeting his people. What’s not to like,” her question completely rhetorical and meant to soothe Emma’s apprehension.

  “That’s what I thought,” Emma says. “We were all very nice and accepting of her. It makes things better for everyone, when everybody gets along and enjoys each other.” She exchanges her iced cupcake for another in need of the same tending. “I don’t understand why someone would purposely drive a wedge between family members.” She looks to Savannah inspecting.

  Savannah shrugs. “Maybe she wanted him to herself. Jealousy makes people do some really strange things.”

  “That whole experience really did a number on him. It was hard to watch.” Emma’s eyes squint, recollecting the discomfort in watching her older, stronger brother work through his hurt. “It caused a lot of strain between him and his family, us. And after the divorce, he kept beating himself up over the fact that he let her do that. He’s like that, you know. Very loyal. A man should be loyal to his wife. I get that. But he shouldn’t have had to choose to begin with.” Emma continues spitting things out, her thoughts drifting back and forth.

  “I’m sorry that happened to y’all,” Savannah says, the conversation reminding her of Jack’s family and how she truly misses their presence in her newly divorced life. “I guess it’s true what they say, you’re not only marrying the man, you’re marrying his family.”

  Emma shrugs. “That’s what we hoped for. Guess it just doesn’t work out that way all the time, when you don’t meet your in-laws’ expectations.”

  “I’m sure it was more complicated than that,” Savannah intervenes. “It wasn’t anything y’all did or didn’t do. Some people are just hard to please.” She pauses momentarily, contemplating whether to carry on. “I’ve been married and divorced, too. Sometimes I think we get so wrapped up in the displeasure of our immediate relationship, we forget that there are others involved. Family members, on both sides. It hurts everyone,” she admits, disappointed.

  “That’s what I’m worried about. Brody’s been hurt enough. I don’t want to see him go through that again.” She looks to Savannah, expectant of a reply.

  “Emma, your brother and I are just getting our feet wet,” Savannah begins. “I don’t know where we’ll end up from here. But, I can assure you, it’s not my intention to hurt him.”

  “Good enough.” Emma dusts off her hands as they’ve made quick work of icing cupcakes. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just had to get it out.”

  “No harm done,” Savannah affirms. “You’re a good sister to look out for him.”

  Emma chuckles. “Lord knows he’s done his fair share of battling for me,” the young mother of two divulges.

  “What’s going on in here?” Brody interrupts, coming through the door accompanied by Liam and Sophie, both of them wrapped around each of his legs, enjoying a free ride, their bottoms firmly attached to the tops of his shoes. Brody’s cousin Gavin and Jac, just arriving, trail in behind him. “You bogarting the cupcakes, Sis?” Brody looks at Emma, his eyes inspecting, figuring she has been doing a little interrogating of her own.

  Emma scoops up the platter of cupcakes, quickly escorting them out the door. “Two-hand touch football in five minutes. With Savannah and Jac, we have enough for boys against girls,” Emma digs playfully.

  “Boys against girls? Yay!” Liam chants jumping off Brody’s leg, the six-year-old of the persuasion that girls do in fact have cooties.

  “Girls rule and boys drool,” Sophie challenges in her four-year-old tongue, her eyes keenly glancing up at the icing-laden butter knife Savannah holds in her hand.

  Savannah bends down to her tiny frame, offering up the icing. “I have a niece about your age,” Savannah says, quelling Sophie’s apprehension.

  The towheaded youngster, a spitting image of her mother, quickly pulls the icing from the knife with her finger, sticking it in her mouth before running off out the door behind Liam in preparation for the football fun.

  “Thank you for helping out,” Brody says, placing a kiss atop Savannah’s head.

  Jac playfully nudges in between them, helping Savannah clean up the kitchen as Brody and Gavin draw up football strategies on a napkin.

  “What was going on in here? A little grilling?” Jac asks of Savannah and Emma’s alone time.

  “Nothing you wouldn’t do.” Savannah grins at her overprotective sister.
“Still hanging out with that one?” Savannah pries, her eyes darting in Gavin’s direction.

  “Maybe.” Jac shrugs, a smitten smirk forming on her lips.

  “Once you go Mac, you never go back,” Gavin pipes up, a play on his and Brody’s last name, McAlister, proof that he’s eavesdropping on their sisterly conversation.

  “You go ahead and tell yourself that,” Jac spars playfully.

  “It’s true,” Brody says, circling the counter, coming up behind Savannah. “Hunters among men. We always get our prey.” His teeth frisky in their gnawing at her neck.

  Savannah giggles, shooing him away. “Yeah. You catch that wassa kitty and I’ll believe it,” she challenges through a giggle, pushing out the front door behind Jac and Gavin. Brody tracks her, hot on her heels.

  Outside, Bill Weatherford and his wife of fifty years, Maybelline, sit on the sidelines along with older members of the party, taking great pleasure in watching the battle of the football sexes. Brody and Savannah square off at the unofficial mid-field line. Brody’s sisters, Emma and Kate, flank Savannah on both sides, their respective mates across from them. Jac assumes quarterback position, rolling up the sleeves on her t-shirt, preparing for battle. Gavin settles in behind the front line of men, happy to play defensive secondary. Liam and Sophie hang on the outskirts, both exuberant in their hope for the ball. The Savannah sun, bright and beautiful, beats down.

  “Timeout,” Brody calls, the fingers of one hand mashing against the palm of the other, forming a T.

  “Timeout? We haven’t even started,” Emma argues.

  “It’s a ploy,” Kate says, clapping her hands encouraging her team’s momentum. “They can’t shake us.”

  Brody quickly pulls his t-shirt from his frame, causing the other men on the team to do the same. He clarifies, “Shirts and skins. Be easier to see your targets that way.” He winks at Savannah, flexing his pecs, the muscles jostling up and down intermittently. The line of hunky male flesh, the Savannah sun glistening off their frames, proves a bit of a distraction for their female adversaries.

  “Atta boy!” Bill cheers, his jovial laugh sounding through the air. “Work on their defenses. Break ’em down.”

  “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, ladies,” Maybelline counters. “Eat ’em up!” She claps her hands vibrantly. Bill taps her on the knee affectionately, taking great pride in watching the generations of his family come together.

  “Savannah,” Jac calls, pulling her attention away from Brody’s able-bodied enticement. Savannah briskly recoups, looking down at the ball in her hand, preparing to snap it back to Jac. “Statue of Liberty,” Jac whispers behind her, a football play they became quite accustomed to while playing in the side yard with their dad.

  Savannah snaps the ball to Jac. Emma and Kate hold the line while Jac pump fakes it down field successfully throwing off their shirtless defenders. Savannah escapes around behind Jac, stripping the ball from her hands and sprinting toward the side field. Handing the ball off to an ecstatic Sophie, Savannah encourages, “Run, Sophie, run!”

  The only skins member with the heart to run down the adorable four-year-old is her brother Liam, who just so happens to be on the far-off side of the grassy turf, too far away to get the job done. The other members of the shirts run after Sophie, celebrating her touchdown in the end zone, hoisting her up on their shoulders and chanting her name as their audience erupts on the sideline.

  “Aw…come on,” the skins huff in unison.

  “Playing dirty, are we?” Gavin jousts at Jac upon the ladies’ return to center field, his charming smile aglow in the sunlight.

  “You got your strategies,” Jac waves her hands in the formation of his and the rest of his teammates’ appealing naked torsos, “we’ve got ours.” She shrugs confidently, lining up to play defense.

  “Can we do that again?” Sophie asks in the shirts huddle, her smile uncontainable. “Sophie! Sophie!” she happily chants her name as they did.

  “Maybe baby,” Emma appeases her. “Right now we have to play defense. You find Brother and line up across from him. If he gets the ball, you tag him like this.” Emma counsels, her two hands gently touching off Sophie’s back.

  “You got it, Mama!” Sophie peels out in the grass in hot pursuit of Liam.

  The women break their huddle, headed for the line. “Did you hear that, Jac?” Savannah checks her overly aggressive sister. “Two-hand touch. No tackling,” she warns, knowing Jac is certainly not above getting physical.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” Jac dismisses, lining up alongside Savannah and the other shirts for some defensive play.

  Brody and Gavin conspire across the line. Jac watches them, her eyes trailing Gavin as he gets into position. “Wildcat,” Brody calls out to his offense, readying himself behind the snapper.

  Jac falls back, deep into secondary defense position. “They’re going to post. They’re going down field!” she calls out to the shirts.

  Savannah rushes at Brody. Too late in her arrival, the ball releases from his hand. She watches the perfect spiral catapulting down field toward a sprinting Gavin. Jac has him in her sights as she comes at him from a diagonal trajectory. Oh shit! Run Gavin! Savannah emits internally as she watches Jac coming at him like a freight train, her roller derby girl persona emerging. The football lands safely in Gavin’s hands, a few feet from the end zone.

  Savannah covers her eyes, knowing Jac is highly unlikely to let him stroll on in for the touchdown. Peeking through splayed fingers, something miraculous happens. Jac pulls up right before she gets to Gavin. Playfully hopping on his back, they fall gently to the ground inches in front of the goal line.

  The backyard erupts in cheers, both for the shirts and the skins, as Savannah falls into Brody’s sweaty embrace. Jac and Gavin roll around contentedly in the grass, Gavin ultimately stopping on his back with Jac astraddle his waist, proud of her counterplay. Savannah watches in adoration as her older sister falls into a very unfamiliar place of vulnerability and sweetness.

  As darkness falls, the party descends. “Thank you for having us,” Savannah says, hugging Lydia. “Jac and I had a great time with your family.”

  “If you had that good a time, then I assume you won’t be a stranger,” Lydia extends an open invite.

  “Happy Anniversary Paw-Paw and Mee-Maw.” Brody hugs the two of them as they depart. “Fifty years, that’s quite a feat,” Brody admires.

  “You can get there, too, Brody my boy.” Bill gives him an extra grip around the waist. “Maybe next time I see you, young lady,” Bill addresses Savannah, “you’ll have something sparkly to show me.” He winks, inspecting her left ring finger.

  Savannah and Brody look to one another, quickly diverting their eyes, neither in any hurry of a redo in that department.

  “Uncle Brody,” Sophie approaches, her face scared. “I think that wassa titty’s out there,” her four-year-old speech at odds with t’s and k’s. Everyone laughs except for her, her dire expression a clear representation of her belief in the make-believe creature.

  Brody picks her up securely in his arms. “Brother caught that wassa titty,” he mimics her pronunciation. “He wouldn’t let anything get you. You’re safe and snug as a bug.” He holds her tight, kissing and shimmying her around until she giggles, the intrusive wassa kitty now the furthest thing from her mind.

  “I wuv you, Uncle Brody,” she says, bear-hugging his neck, avoiding Emma’s arms for which Sophie knows beckon her for bed.

  “I love you, too, Sophie Grace,” Brody encourages, handing her off to Emma.

  “You and Miss Vannah are coming back, aren’t you?” Sophie calls from her mother’s arms. The similarity in her and Zoey’s vocabulary causes Savannah to smile.

  “You bet, baby girl,” Brody assures.

  “Thank you,” Emma says, stopping to hug Savannah.

  “For what?” Savannah exhausts, feeling as though she should be the one giving thanks.

  “For being here. Spending time wi
th us. For being good to my kids. It was nice,” Emma says, sincerity resonant in her eyes.

  “I enjoyed myself. I really did.” Savannah hugs Emma’s shoulders. “Brody’s a lucky man to have you all in his life. Y’all are great. You too, Sophie Grace.” She caresses her cherub-like cheeks.

  Sophie holds her arms out, to which Savannah affectionately gives her a hug. Brody watches, mindfully checking off another ‘must-have’ on his list (number four—good with kids).

  “You ready?” Brody asks.

  Savannah nods, gripping his extended hand. Walking out with Jac and Gavin, Savannah and Jac fall behind the men to say their goodbyes.

  “What was that, sister mine?” Savannah kids with a gentle elbow to Jac’s ribs, “letting Gavin off easy. I haven’t seen that since you had a crush on Mikey Heffernan in the fifth grade. You let him beat you at hoops. Remember?” Savannah giggles.

  “I still regret that,” Jac mumbles. “He traded me in for Becky Duhurst the next week. I should have taken it to him on the court.”

  “Look at us,” Savannah prefaces, “all happy and shuffling along.” She shakes her head, disbelieving, she and Jac having grown comfortable in their roles as the least unstable in her family of women as far as relationships go.

  “Feels weird,” Jac agrees. “You think we could get Mama and Vangie straightened out? Is that actually possible? For everyone to be settled and happy all at one time, in any family?” Jac contemplates, knowing the general ebb and flow of familial life is generally not that even of a keel.

  Savannah shrugs. “We certainly can give it a go. You coming to Mama’s? We’re dropping off her butcher block.”

  “Think I’m going to have to pass.” Jac smiles. “We’re going back to Gavin’s place.”

  “First time?” Savannah squeals through a whisper. Jac nods. Brody and Gavin wait, each one holding the passenger side door of their respective vehicles open. “Call me tomorrow. With details.” Savannah and Jac embrace, quickly relieving the men of their chivalrous positions.