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“Where’s my phone?” she asks, seeming drained of energy. “I need to send an SOS to my sisters, so they’ll help me rebound from this weakness.”
“How about you just be nice tonight? Then, if you still hate Alexis, you can be honest at the next dinner. That way, she’ll have a chance to enjoy a real homecooked meal by a loving mama.”
“Stop tricking me,” she hisses, but I sense her faltering.
My ma’s got a soft spot for black sheep, underdogs, and stray animals. Her friends in high school were nerds. When I was growing up, we had six cats because my ma couldn’t stop saving them.
“You’re a bad son.”
“No, I just want the woman I love to enjoy the safe space I had growing up with you. Alexis got nothing while I got everything. She never even had a loudmouthed yet loyal sister or a stupid yet funny brother.”
My ma sighs. “You were blessed with so many blessings. Almost too much, really. I blame myself. I wanted to defeat my sisters by showering blessings on my children. Someone should have stepped in and stopped me. You know, like how I’m currently trying to stop you from making your mistake.”
I imagine Alexis walking into the lion’s den tonight. My need to protect her demands solutions.
“OG Peepaw was right,” I say, and she gasps out of habit. “I was uppity. I looked down at the Toomey family. I thought they were weird.”
“They are.”
“So are we. The main difference is we have money, and they don’t.”
“There’s more than that,” Ma-Poppy insists.
“Well, yeah, they can’t tan.”
“They’re wild animals. Have you been somewhere when a bunch of them arrives? It’s like unleashing insane squirrels into a closed environment. I nearly died once.”
“But think back to before you were born.”
“How would I do that?”
“Use your imagination.”
Ma-Poppy drops the controller and closes her eyes. “Make it good, West.”
“Your grandparents were a moonshiner and his shrew wife. They lived in a creepy shack in the woods. Your uncle had a criminal record. Your mom married a criminal when she was barely legal. Our family was trash.”
“I feel like I should gasp, but I’m tired. Get to your point.”
“But then, Queen Meemaw ran off to the big city.”
“Yeah, Indianapolis is quite the metropolitan wonderland.”
“She got her veterinarian degree and returned to Tumbling Rock as a businesswoman. She had her house built on this land. Her other lesser daughters got respectable jobs.”
Ma-Poppy opens her eyes a crack. “Justice worked at a gas station.”
“As a manager,” I say in a wistful voice, really selling the image. “She also called the police when she was attacked by Court’s old girlfriend. Justice broke the rules. Did what no one else would. But had Christine stuck around, maybe our family would still be on the bottom of the success ladder.”
“And I might not exist since Christine wouldn't have met my dad and made my luscious ass.”
“Or you’d be Jared’s daughter and have a lovely lady mustache.”
Ma-Poppy smirks at how her sisters fear mustaches will show up as they reach their “sunset years.”
“Alexis is like Christine,” I tell my ma. “She is digging her way out of what is expected. She might not be in the position to go to school and become a vet. But she’s trying to build a business and be more than just another Toomey.”
“Is that why she wants you?”
