Page 5 of The Triple Threat
“How the fu-hell do you know that?” Pop’s beard quivered as he glanced between his two sisters, looking a little afraid.
“They know everything, Pop.”
“He’s right, we do but if you don’t want us to know you’re servicing your lady friend like a bull serves a cow, then shut the damn barn door.”
“Reverend Roberts was here for afternoon tea,” Auntie J explained to me. “And when he heard her shouting for Jesus, the Lord Above and Mother Mary he asked us if we had someone who needed guidance in our midst.”
I bust out a laugh and leaned over to slap Pop’s back. “All three of the almighty’s, Pop, that’s some going.”
“Shit, you never told me the Reverend was here, I wouldn’t have taken the opportunity if I’d known.”
To be fair to him, Jefferson Maxwell Delaney did look a little upset, even if it proved him to be a damn stud. Pop was a legend and I hoped I was like him when I reached forty-eight.
“Didn’t think we needed to tell you. You were supposed to be watching the bulls sire the cows!” Auntie J replied. “Not siring your own heifer.”
I roared with laughter as Pop’s eyes went huge.
“Janice-Ann,” he scolded. “Watch that dirty little mouth of yours.”
“Well, you watch where you pull your Johnson out of your pants in future, Jefferson, and I’ll repeat, shut the damn barn door next time.”
“Yes,” Auntie L added. “Apart from anything else I do not want to see your little peach. When you were five years old was one thing, but not now it’s a little hairier, and a lot less pert. Now stand still so I can measure your girth.”
As she pulled the measure around Pop’s waist, the laughter built from deep within my gut and I started to shake.
“You stand still too,” Auntie J said with a wink. “I need to see if you’ve grown since last year.”
She had all our measurements from every year in the same notebook, so she didn’t really need to bother, unless I’d been working my muscles harder and eaten more. I knew I hadn’t because the last time my measurements had been any different, I’d been nineteen. It was the year I’d had a growth spurt and I was pretty much as tall and muscular as Pop through helping out with the cows. It had also been the year Mom had passed away. She’d only been gone a couple of months when it came time to measure us and by then the twins had moved in. All I’d wanted to do was go to my room and not come out until Thanksgiving and Christmas were done. That year, as Lynn-Ann measured Pop and Janice-Ann measured me, as was tradition, I watched Pop watch them. We both knew how excited they were and how hard they were trying to make things better for us, so I stood there and held in the tears and the anger that my mom wasn’t there. She wasn’t going to watch the usual fussing that went on and to bring us all hot chocolate when they’d finished, but I smiled at my aunts and told them I couldn’t wait for my surprise. When I went to bed that night, I heard Pop cry and beg for Mom to come back to him. It was then that I became determined to enjoy my life and cherish all those I loved—which was why, right now, when Janice-Ann dropped her knitting bag on the floor, I didn’t flinch or say a word when I spotted a picture of a sweater with two penguins having sex.
* * *
“You okay to check the herd,” Pop asked as he yawned and stretched his arms over his head, cracking his spine, after dinner.
I nodded, more than happy to oblige. He looked tired and I actually loved the stillness and quiet of the cooler night air when I did my last checks of the day. My aunts always went to bed fairly early as they liked to get up with us at five-thirty and make us breakfast, so last thing at night was pretty much my only quiet time. I was more than happy to do the last checks for Pop.
We didn’t have a huge herd – just ten sires and forty-five cows, but presently we also had twenty calves, a mixture of bulls and cows, which were almost ready to go to sale. Seeing as Beefmaster, our breed, were good for milk and beef they were pretty valuable. It wasn’t unknown for rustlers to decide they wanted a slice of the action. That was why we housed our herd every night. Our land wasn’t huge, but big enough that we needed horses to get around which meant plenty of places for rustlers to hide out and take our stock. Experience had also made Pop extra vigilant; when he was kid pretty much the whole of Grandpa’s herd had been taken one time.
“How come you’re so tired anyway?” I asked as I got up from the table.
Pop gave me a knowing look.
“Shit, Pop, do you really have to act like you’re sixteen and just discovered your dick?”
I grimaced and picked up the plates to take to the kitchen.
“Hey, I’m in my prime. I have needs. You’re mom and I—”
“Nope!” I exclaimed. “I do not want to know what you and Mom got up to.”
Pop’s eyes shone, and even though he still had a smile on his face I knew happiness was the last thing he felt. Emotion would be stuck like a huge, brittle ball of whicker in his throat. I knew this because it’s how I felt every time I thought of my beautiful momma who had a heart disease that was discovered just before her and Pop married. The doctors advised her not to have a baby, but Pop said she was stubborn and determined. Apparently, they both cried when I arrived, weighing just over 9 pounds and screaming like a banshee. That was also why I was an only child. The way my aunts tell it is that Pop put his foot down when Mom wanted another baby and refused to go near her until he’d been and had a vasectomy. Mom was so mad she didn’t speak to him for three weeks, but Pop eventually used his charm to bring her around and by the sounds of the stories I’d heard earlier, it must have been a come to Jesus and God moment for my mom.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Pop asked tentatively which roused me from my thoughts. “That I see women.”
“God no.” Why would he even think that? He’d mourned his wife for four years when he was still a fairly young man, now he deserved some happy times. I remained grateful I didn’t have to hear them too often.
“It’s just no one will ever come close to how I felt about her, you know that, right?”
As I passed by his chair, I slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, Pop, I do know.”