“Why couldn’t you have busted Jennings old, rotted shit?!” Her raspy voice raises up to the next octave, blonde hair most likely wildly whipping around during her screaming. “Imma ‘bout to spend more on a fuckin’ fence than I did at my own damn weddin’!”
“You married Gramps at the creek for free,” lovingly leaves me.
“You got the receipts?” It’s impossible not to snicker at her snipping. “No? Then mind your sassin’, Thayne, before your hide becomes tanner than his.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I instantly surrender with a smile on my face.
Bessy Groff is eighty-six years young as she likes to say.
And with her looks she could easily pass for seventy-six.
And with her mouth?
Fifty-six.
Sharp.
Witty.
Well informed.
And honest.
Always her most honest self.
It’s where I learned it from.
“I assume,” a small cough wedges itself into our conversation, “by now, he’s with you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“In your kitchen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tryin’ to justify his stupid…stupid…stupiddddddd…choice?”
Bronny plops his face into his own palm prompting me to reply, “Yes, ma’am.”
“You can’t fix stupid, Bronson!” Her hollering hardens his expression. “And breakin’ into some rich man’s backyard in hopes that some Daisey Duke shorts havin’ hussy is gonna throw you a piece of ass is jus’ plain stupid!”
“She’s not wrong,” Dubs confirms at the same time he twists the lid off his drink.
“Of course, I ain’t wrong. I was there when you two went joy ridin’ in Barre’s John Deere, hopin’ Lily Mae and Grace were gonna go skinny dippin’ with ya instead of bein’ at bible study.”
The memory causes my best friend to choke on his brewskie, and my little brother to slightly grin.
“Young boys do all sorts of stupid shit to get girls, jus’ like grown men do all sorts of dumb shit to try to impress women. It’s the circle of life, and the old rodeo clown’s honest truth,” she says prior to clearing her throat a second time, clearly struggling to catch her breath.
“You alright, Grams?”
“All the dust in the air jus’ gettin’ the better of me.” Another light cough is executed. “Lord knows I been runnin’ ‘round all over Dolly Parton’s green earth tryin’ get all this shit settled and doin’ everything possible to convince the world watchin’ that it won’t happen again, which is why I ain’t beenable to find a minute in a cornfield before now to call and let you know the situation.” Dubs and I immediately relocate our stare back to my brother. “And this shit won’t happen again, Bronson.”
“I swear, Grams,” croaks what some think of as my mini. “It won’t.”
“And itcan’tas long as you’re shacked up with your big brother for the summer.”
This time it’s me who folds closer to the phone. “Did you say for the summer?”
