being the only one to stay local, and have three crazy children to wrangle, it helps that she is so willing to lend a hand.
I wasn’t sure, after Travis was gone, whether his mom would stay around. Of course, we all live in Fawn Hill so she’d be here physically, but I hadn’t expected much from her. After losing Travis’ father ten years earlier, Marion had always been a shell of the person my late husband once knew. He even said as much, noting that his mother wasn’t the same person after his dad passed at a relatively young age from a battle with heart disease. I thought that losing her only child would wreck her … and it did for a while.
Losing Travis wrecked both of us, but it helps to have someone who knew him just as much as I did to lean on. It had taken almost a year and a half to finally get her to see the light again, and now she’s one of the boys favorite people. She can tell them stories about their father in a way I can’t and often finds old things of Travis’ to gift them.
“That boy is fast, Penny,” Marion says before leaning over to help Travis Jr. with his math homework.
She was our built-in study buddy, being a retired fourth grade teacher and all.
“How was work?” Mom asks, Ames still happily in her lap eating carrots.
I shrug, not wanting to tell her that I’d been annoyed the entire day in the aftermath of my run-in with Forrest. “It’s that time of year. Allergies, lingering winter colds, kids antsy for summer, and the end of the school year. And I found a case of herpes today in a fifteen-year-old. So that was fun.”
Marion sharply inhales. Unlike my family, I often forget that she cultivated a conservative household. Our crude, somewhat dark, and typically loud humor usually does offend her mild temperament.
“Sheesh, these kids get younger and younger. It’s a good thing I never had to broach that talk with you. I knew Travis was a good boy and would wait until you were married.” Mom wipes her brow in an exaggerated motion.
Okay, so I may have lied about when I lost my virginity. But I’m not about to disgrace my late husband’s memory now, especially in front of his holier-than-thou mother.
“Mama, what’s herpes?” Ames asks.
Why is it that just when you think they’re ignoring you, your kids ask something like that?
“It’s what happens if you don’t brush your teeth. So brush your teeth and you won’t find out,” My mom replies automatically, saving me from that explanation.
“Hey!” Lily says as she climbs the bleachers.
She kisses my cheek and then hugs both my mom and Marion, while giving Ames a little tickle and high-fiving Travis Jr., or as she calls him, TJ.
Just another beam in my support system, my best friend typically tries to join us twice a week for whatever outing we’re on, be it baseball, karate, pizza night in town, or another one of our chaotic adventures. Everything is hectic when you have three kids.
And even with everything Lily has been through herself, she always manages to help keep me sane. Even when Travis was alive, he was deployed five of the nine years after TJ was born. He didn’t meet his first son until Travis Jr. was six months old, was home for the first year of Matthew’s life only to be sent back to the Middle East for the second year and had hardly even known Ames. I hate knowing that my last baby barely remembers his father.
Lily has always been there for us. Acting as the fun aunt, the homework helper, the drinking buddy for mama and everything in between.
“Honey, have you made any wedding plans?” Mom asks Lily.
“We have some initial plans.” She nods, but by the way she’s smiling, I know there is more behind that answer.
“Hey, are we still going to Presley’s studio for girl’s night?” I ask, not wanting to talk weddings.
Naturally, it wasn’t a fun subject for me.
“Yep, this Thursday. She said she bought some pedicure baths and Keaton is setting us up with a TV to watch the first episode of the new Good Girls season.”
I pump my fist. “I can’t wait. Nothing better than that sexy gangster and a good whirlpool jet on my piggies.”
Travis screws his face up in disgust on the bleacher below us. “Ew, gross, Mom.”
I clamber down to invade his space and blow raspberry