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“No, Mom. I don’t. I never did,” I answered sharply and moved away from her. “Where’s dad?”
She laughed but it sounded forced. “Where is he usually?”
“Watching the game?” I smirked.
“Of course,” she replied with a genuine smile this time. “It’s football season. He’s got all the channels now. College football, NFL, CFL, if there’s football to be seen, he is seeing it.”
“And what do you do when he’s watching football?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, you know… I putter,” she answered vaguely as she touched the tip of her nose to Brayleigh’s and moved toward the living room. “I putter, Brayleigh. Isn’t that a perfect word? Can you say ‘putter’?”
I followed them, the sound of my dad yelling at the tv an indication of both his joy and his frustration.
His eyes lit up as they always did when he saw me. “How’s my favorite girl?”
He stood, and Brayleigh launched herself into his arms. He swung her up in the air. “Ah, there’s my beauty!” he cooed, smiling up into her laughing face. “But your mommy will always be my favorite girl.”
My heart warmed at his words. Every girl needed a dad to love her like that. I winced, momentarily chagrined by my uncharitable thoughts toward my highly traditional parents.
My dad continued, “Your mommy will always be my favorite girl, but you’re my happiness, Duckie.”
What was it with the bird nicknames for this kid? I wondered what she’d think about ‘Tweetie’ and ‘Duckie’ when she was a teen. I wondered if she’d grow as frustrated with me as I was with my mother.
If I would be the source feeding her ‘not good enough’.
If there was a way to avoid it.
Brayleigh laughed in my dad’s arms. At two years old, she did not understand the meaning of his words but reveled in the emotion behind them. She tightened her arms around his neck when he drew her close, the tips of her tiny fingers digging into the back of his neck.
They say the neck shows age first, and I noted the wrinkles on my dad’s. Without thinking my eyes traced the curving lines of my mother’s upright posture before taking in the softening of her jawline and the loose skin beginning to gather at her throat. I forced my gaze and mind away.
Losing them was not something I wanted to consider anytime soon.
She wasn’t an easy woman to get along with. But there was a lot of good in her. Especially where Brayleigh was concerned. Giovanni’s wise words rang in my head. If I wanted her good, I had to take the bad that came with it.
“Maureen, get the girls something to eat,” my dad demanded. Turning to me he continued, “What do you want, peaches?”
I smiled wryly. At least Brayleigh wasn’t a fuzzy fruit currently serving a life sentence as a butt emoji.
“What do you have, Mom?” I asked softly, not loving the idea of jumping on my dad’s demand wagon.
She reached out her hand for mine and gently tugged me toward the kitchen. “Come and see what you want.” She looked at my dad over her shoulder. “Christopher, look after that baby. One eye on her, one on the tv.”
“Of course!” he exclaimed then muttered to Brayleigh. “Grammy thinks I don’t know how to look after a baby? Look after my duckie?”
My stomach took a dive as the door to the kitchen swung shut.
My mother turned her gleaming eyes onto me, ‘Girl Talk’ written all over her face.
Opening the fridge, she pulled out pink lemonade. “You want this? Or iced tea?”
“That,” I answered, smiling.
I watched as she filled a glass with ice then poured the taste of summer over the sparkling cubes.
“How’s work?” she asked, settling down across from me.
I brightened. Maybe we’d skip the ‘what about a man talk’ today. “Good, actually! I might be up for a promotion.”
