Hank Humblecutt is big like me, but he now also has a giant tummy hanging over his belt. While he’s never been as fit as me, I don’t think I’ve seen him this heavy since my mother passed.
I was six years old when they told me her cancer had returned. A cancer I never knew she had the first time around. It was ovarian, and apparently the first bout was the reason they never had another baby after me.
I was young, but it felt like she went from a beautiful, vibrant woman to bedridden in a matter of days. I know it was over the course of a few months, but it felt quicker to me.
My father took a leave of absence from his job as a federal judge to care for her and me those last few months. He was always positive around me. Always had a smile and a joke. But when he thought I was asleep at night, I’d see him alone in the kitchen crying. My heart broke for him. I did my best to stay out of trouble, which happened with regularity prior to her getting sick. I wanted him to have one less thing to be sad about. One less thing to worry about.
Alone was how he remained for many years after she passed. It was him and me. The big Humblecut boys. The dynamic duo. He did everything for me. Of course I longed for my mother, but I never felt like I missed anything, thanks to my dad. He drove me to school and sports, came to every school function, read to me at night, practiced football with me, made me dinner, and even made cookies a few times for school bake sales.
He worked and was a father. That was it. He had no social life. I never once saw him date until one day when I was about fourteen. He brought home a sexy blonde in tight clothing who had just graduated from college. I swear I thought she was a hooker he bought me for my birthday. Never in a million years did I think she was for him.
Despite their quarter-of-a-century age gap, Ashleigh looked at him like he hung all the stars in the sky and laughed at everything that came out of his mouth. I’m not sure she understood half the jokes—she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed—but she was always smiling around him. More importantly, he was always smiling around her.
I wanted to hate her; I really did. But she made him so damn happy. The sparkle was back in his blue eyes, one I’m not sure I realized had been missing for so long until it returned.
She was always kind to me, even when my father wasn’t around. Within weeks, she moved in and was doing the stereotypical “mom things” like driving me to practices and cooking dinner. She happens to be a great cook. I think he paid for culinary school for her, among a few other dead-end career endeavors she had.
A year later, they were married. She got pregnant with Jagger about five minutes after that. I remember my father sitting me down and having a conversation with me saying I was the joy of his life, and he had always hoped to expand our family. This was his last chance to do so.
I was sixteen when my little sister was born, but I immediately loved her and felt protective of her. My friends complained about their bratty little sisters, but not me. Ever. I adore my sister. I’m thankful my dad found Ashleigh for both his happiness and for giving me my amazing sister.
Ashleigh always wanted me to call her mom, but I refused to do so. It’s not about the fact that she’s not my real mother. It’s more about how it’s a little embarrassing to call a woman mom when she’s younger than some of the women I’ve slept with. It’s weird, and I refuse, but she has never stopped trying, even though I’m thirty-two.
It's Thanksgiving, and we don’t have a game until Monday night. Sometimes we play on Thanksgiving but not this year. Vance came home with me, as he often does. His family runs a farm in Montana, and they travel infrequently. He tries to get them to visit, but they hate leaving their farm.
So he took the two-hour ride with me to my father’s house in suburban Maryland. It’s a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, even though all the houses look the exact same. It’s not the house we had when my mother was alive. My dad sold that pretty quickly after she died. He said it was too hard for him to live there without her.
Jagger mentioned a few weeks ago that her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Will, is coming by for dessert. Vance and Iscared the shit out of him this summer when we felt he was jerking her around. Apparently, he’s been very attentive since. I’ll be the judge of that little droopy-jeans punk who’s undeserving of my sister.
“That’s a good one, Dad,” I bellow as I calm down from his latest hilarious joke.
“Actually,” he responds, “your sister came up with that one.”
I turn to her. “You really did get the best of everyone, Jag.” I shake my head in disbelief. “I can’t believe we’re less than two years away from you going to college. Where does the time go? I feel like I was rocking you to sleep just yesterday.”
She used to fit right on my giant forearm. Sometimes neither Ashleigh nor my dad could get her to go to sleep. She wanted her big brother. I would rock her while I’d both sing and rap “Waterfalls” to her, the greatest song ever created.
“Any thoughts on where you want to go to college?” Vance asks her.
She tucks her blonde, curly hair behind her ear and nods nervously. “Um, yes. I was thinking I might like to go to a school in Philly.”
I jerk my head up. I didn’t know that. “You would?”
She gives me a small smile. “We only lived together for my first two years, and I don’t remember them. We haven’t lived in the same state since. I thought it would be cool to live near you. We can meet for dinners and stuff like that,” she says hopefully.
I can’t contain the huge grin on my face. “I wouldlovethat. Holy crap. This is the best news.”
BJ barks from her spot on the floor next to my chair. I add, “BJ is excited to have Aunt Jagger around too.”
Jagger smiles as she rubs behind BJ’s ear, and BJ sighs in contentment. “Cool. Maybe we’ll visit sometime soon, and I’ll look at a few of the schools. I was also thinking maybe this spring you could come to one of my softball games. I think I’mgetting pretty good. My coach thinks I might be able to play in college, but I’m not sure I’m good enough for that.”
My father nods enthusiastically. “She’s downplaying it. She’s a superstar, like you were. This will be a big year for her.” He smiles at Jagger. “I’ll bet you anything that you get a few college offers to play ball, if that’s what you want to do. The Humblecut athletic genes run strong in this one.” He winks at Ashleigh. “She certainly didn’t get them from hermama.” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “Speaking ofyo mama…”
I perk up immediately while Jagger moans in malcontent. “Noooooo. Don’t go there on Thanksgiving. Pleeeeaaase,” she begs.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but shortly after my mother passed, my father and I began tradingyo mamajokes as a way to cope with the pain. It was his way of making me smile and started off innocently, but it’s morphed throughout the years into something much dirtier and has become a bit of a contest between my father and me. We trade jokes back and forth until one of us breaks and laughs, which is almost always me. Vance gets a kick out of it, so Dad always goes out of his way to do it when Vance is around. Jagger hates it. Ashleigh giggles through most of it, as she does for just about everything else.
My father sets his fork down on his plate and looks at me with a bit of intensity. “Yo mama is so dumb, when she was driving to Disneyland, she saw a sign that readDisneyland Left, so she went home.”
