4 July Fireworks – Part 4

As the United States of America celebrates two and a half centuries since its founding, one family grapples with its own issues…

I looked at my mom and felt a surge of pride. Winking away sudden tears I stood up and hugged her tight. She hugged back before looking at Daddy.
“You want your bag from the Ute?” he asked.
“Please hon.”
He ambled off at that folksy pace that looks slow but covers the ground pretty darned fast.
“Could do with a shower in a minute,” Mom murmured before turning her head to look at Cletus’ son Eli. “You got that horrible motorcycle with you, boy?”
He grinned. “Yes’m.”
“Do you think you could get to the service road that runs behind doctor thingy’s birthing centre?”
“Yes’m.”
Mom’s smile was just the acceptable side of vicious. Just.
“Me and Anthony, who seems to have suddenly remembered where his balls reside, think the good doctor needs to be inconvenienced. So he’s waiting outside the back door of his birthing centre to be brought here to pronounce Portia fit and well.”
Cletus looked at her and his grin matched hers for sheer spite.
“Eli’s Harley’s a bit too comfortable to be real justice. But his dirt bike’s still in my truck from the weekend.”
“His dirt bike?” I found myself chuckling. “That darned thing doesn’t hardly have a pillion.”
“He’ll have to hang on tight then,” Maybelle offered.
The battered beast that was Eli’s dirt bike having been lifted out of the bed of his daddy’s truck. Eli rammed a disreputable pisspot helmet on his head and shoved a full-face helmet with a very rude painted slogan on his left arm. He straddled the beast and leapt on the kickstart.
“Come on you smelly bitch.”
Three kicks and the engine growled into life. Eli dropped the clutch and blipped the throttle as he drove off at a truly injudicious pace.
I looked at Felix. “Surely nobody in their right mind, let alone a big shot doctor, is gonna climb on the back of that thing behind that lunatic.”
Felix laughed. “He almost has to. Or he’s going to look such a pussy.”
“Heads he loses. Tails he loses visibly,” that was Felix’s father whose smile put even Eli’s in the shade for pure unapologetic viciousness.
Daddy reappeared with the old carpet bag Mom kept a change of clothes in under his arm. He passed it to her and put one hand against her cheek.
“Proud of you hon.” Then he smiled at Felix’s pa. “Come on Seven, you and me better go check on the smoker, I don’t trust the modern generation with meat.”
Felix lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat and followed them like a small boy going to the game with his daddy.
Deciding that men were beyond the understanding of a mere female I put my arm through Mom’s.
“Lets get Portia into a nice clean bed, then we’ll find you a bathroom.”
Having admired the red wriggling infant (and before you get sniffy with me, my two were just as red and bore exactly the same expression of disappointment at the world outside momma’s belly), found baby clothes from my saved store (just in case I’m ever mad enough to do it again), provided Portia with a soft nightdress and a clean bed, and given Mom the run of my bathroom, I went back to the garden where the two dads seemed to have taken over the smoker and the grill leaving Felix to loll about on the grass with a beer. I sat beside him and he handed me the bottle.
“What are them two up to?”
“Male bonding.”
I grimaced. “So long as they don’t want matching tattoos.”
Felix laughed. “I can just see them. My daddy with Abe on his left buttock, and your daddy with Seven on his right.”
I sat bolt upright. “I knew there was a thing that was gonna bug me later. Why is your pa called Seven?”
“He isn’t. Not really. His given name is Septimus. But he doesn’t use it.”
“Why Septimus? He doesn’t have six brothers…”
“No. But he’s the oldest son of the seventh generation since his family settled in Louisiana.” That was Felix’s mom, who had arrived on her usual quiet feet. “They expected us to call our son Octavian. As I recall there was something of a nausea when we refused.”
“Was that why Felix’s grandpappy stopped speaking to us for a while when the twins were born?”
“Yes. He stopped talking to us too, expected us to ‘do the right thing’ and pressure you to call one of them Nonus.”
“Mark and Luke didn’t cut it then?”
Felix pulled me into a one-arm half hug.
“They and their mama cut it for me.”
“And me,” his mom smiled warm and gentle.
I understood that both of them were worried that the attitude of the grandparents might have upset me and I hastened to reassure them.
“At the risk of sounding hard boiled I don’t give a damn what them two think. Our sons are healthy and happy and full of shit. None of which is in the gift of that precious pair.”
Felix chuckled reminiscently. “I’ve just remembered what you said after the first time you had the inexpressible delight of meeting Sextus and Patience.”
I had to think for a minute then I remembered. “Oh that. I was just being accurate. American Gothic with more expensive tailoring.”
Momma laughed so hard I was afraid she’d do herself a mischief.
“I have to tell Papa.”
She went towards the smoker and blacktop, stopping every few steps to double over in mirth.
I lifted a shoulder.
“Didn’t think it was that funny.”
“It is funnier than you’ll ever know. Accurate, observant, funny, and from the mouth of a female family member who really couldn’t care less what those two think.” He went quiet for a minute and when he spoke again his voice was almost inexpressibly sad. “For a long time, Papa’s parents made Momma’s life as miserable as they could.”
“And your Pa let them do it?”
“No. They made sure to be sugar sweet when he was about. Which should have warned him, but he was fond of his mother. And he was away from home a lot on a lecture tour so Momma didn’t want to worry him.”
“How’d he find out?”
Felix sighed. “Classic storybook thing. He came home two days early caught them making her cry. By all accounts the row was biblical. Threw his parents out. Physically. Explained that if he never saw them again it’d be too soon.”
I hugged him.
“Seems to me as if Momma’s gotten over it.”
“She has. But Papa’s still haunted by it. Made me promise not to ever let anybody disrespect you.”
I chuckled.
“I hope you explained that disrespecting me is a dangerous hobby.”
“I did. But I think he worried that the family’s attitude might hurt you.”
“I bet that was before he met Cletus and Bubba and the rest.”
“It was. I think today has been an eye opener for a lot of folks.”
“On both sides of the big muddy divide. It’d have been okay anyway, or our moms would’ve known why. But Portia’s baby made them all think.”
“Yeah. New life does that. My family have had to understand that without your mom Portia and her baby would have been in danger.”
“Indeed they would. Natural birthing centre my arse. But my lot saw how yours absorbed the fact they needed mom and did so with grace and gratitude and that meant a lot.”

More of this tale by Jane Jago tomorrow…