Let It Go (26 page)

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 with 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.

Chapter Eighteen

After a short drive across town, Brody and Savannah pull up in front of her childhood home. Savannah notices an unfamiliar car pulling out from her mother’s drive. Buffy stands on the front porch waving her company goodbye, simultaneously greeting Savannah and Brody. Savannah cranes her neck after the car attempting to identify its driver.

“Did we catch you coming back from a date?” Savannah asks playfully and hopefully so, considering it is Saturday evening.

“No.” Buffy chuckles. “Just having some tea with a new friend. Oh, let me help y’all.” She hurries down from the porch as Brody positions a very heavy and elaborate granite-top butcher block to the end of the tailgate.

“We got it Mama,” Savannah calls, assembling two-by-fours per Brody’s instruction, one on each side of the handmade rolling kitchen accessory.

“Change places with me, baby,” Brody directs, hopping down from the tailgate to maneuver and take the brunt of the weight of the butcher block as Savannah steadies it for him. She smiles at his coo,
baby
, something about the way it rolls naturally off his delectable tongue pleases her, causing butterflies to flit about in her abdomen.

“Oh my,” Buffy gasps, “that’s just beautiful. You made this?” She inspects the design beneath the pole lights lining the street.

“Yes Ma’am,” Brody answers modestly upon their first official meeting.

“Well Savannah, you sure didn’t exaggerate about the face on this one,” Buffy says in her sugary Southern drawl, scanning the handsome, ultra-built, six-foot-four Brody. The candid compliment throws Savannah for a loop, considering her mother’s usual reserved manner. “Come on inside. I’ll get my checkbook.”

“No Ma’am. Please. It’s a gift.” Brody follows along behind her, man-handling the three-hundred-pound butcher block. “It’s the least I can do for letting me enjoy the company of your daughter,” he continues, diligently employing his buttering-up skills.

“And a gentleman, too.” Buffy chuckles, further surprising Savannah with her uplifting mood and apparent acceptance of the new man in her life. “I was born and raised in the South and I tell you, it never gets old…hearing
Ma’am
come out of the mouth of a young beau.” Buffy holds the door open, pointing to the kitchen where Brody tends to setting up the butcher block.

“Mama, you feeling alright?” Savannah asks, stalling at the door with Buffy out of earshot of Brody. “You sure that wasn’t a man leaving your house?” Savannah pries with a crooked smile.

“You girls are always telling me to lighten up. I’m making a conscious effort here,” Buffy informs. “And no, that was not a man. It was Noah’s mother, Nadine Ainsworth.” Buffy picks up the welcome rug from the doorway. Taking it outside, she beats it against a pillar, shaking from it crumpled leaves from the butcher block wheels.

“Noah’s mother? Daddy’s mistress?” Savannah continues, sure she must have misheard.

“Jac told me it might give me some closure. Help me to start over.” Buffy acclimates the welcome rug back in its rightful place. Picking up a broom from the front porch, she proceeds to sweep it of any leftover excess. “And I’ll be jiggered if she wasn’t right.” Buffy stops sweeping, finally looking at Savannah, whose jaw gapes at her mother’s confession. “She’s a real nice lady, that Nadine. I think I’ll take her up on that bridge game.”

“Mama, that must have been difficult. I wish you would’ve let me know. I would’ve come. For support.”

“Thank you, honey. But I’d say Nadine and I did just fine on our own. It was long overdue.” Buffy continues tidying the porch, the cushions of her wicker rockers appreciating a nice fluff and stuff. “And that Noah, he’s the sweetest thing. Makes me feel guilty. All those years, and he never got to spend any time with your daddy.”

“He looks a lot like Daddy, huh?” Savannah joins in absentmindedly, a bit of a surreal feeling having this conversation with her mother.

“Yes, he does. He looks like his mama, too.” Buffy moves to Savannah, brushing her football-disheveled hair back off her shoulders, the way she used to when Savannah was a little girl. “I can’t imagine not knowing my own children. I love you, Savannah Georgia Bondurant. You know that, don’t you?”

“I love you, too, Mama,” Savannah affirms, her eyes searching her mother’s face, absent of the usual uneasiness and replaced with a quiet and contented confidence. “Are you sure you’re okay, Mama? You look great,” Savannah adds. “It’s just…I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you quite like this before.”

“Honey, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt quite like this before.” Buffy smiles, tapping Savannah’s cheeks tenderly.