Page 15 of Sweatpants & Sweet Tea

I grabbed my jacket from the back of my desk chair, which faced the window. My eyes automatically zeroed in on the Moore farmhouse across the field. Miss Rhonda’s F150 wasn’t out in front. It was there before I got in the shower, so they must’ve already left to go to the gala.

An unfamiliar feeling settled in my stomach as I headed down the stairs, at the thought that I would once again see the angelic creature whose beauty was the definition of stunning. Her showing up on my front doorstep had caught me off guard, and I was still kicking myself that I hadn’t made the most of the encounter. I’d basically been tongue-tied the entire time she was there.

I should’ve invited her in for some lemonade or walked her back over to her aunt’s house. Something, anything to prolong her stay and our time together. Instead, I’d barely said five words to the woman. Grandad had spoken to her more than I had.

Speak of the devil. When I saw my grandad, I wondered if I might have some competition for Daphne’s attention. He hadn’t worn the suit I’d laid out for him. He’d pulled out the big guns. He was wearing his tux.

“About time,” Grandad grumbled as he pushed off the armrests of his recliner and stood. “Come on, I’ve been waitin’ on you.”

“What happened to you not gettin’ in a penguin suit?”

“I didn’t know they were gonna be honoring Estelle.”

Grandad’s earnest response took me off guard. He had a smart-ass comment for pretty much every situation. His sincerity told me just how serious his feelings must have been forhis neighbor. I wondered if Meemaw ever knew about Grandad’s feelings for their neighbor. I’m sure she did. Not much, if anything, got past that woman.

“When are you gonna settle down, start your own family?” Grandad asked as we headed out the door.

“What?” Never in my life had Grandad ever asked me about my personal life. I’d dated my fair share of women, some of whom he’d met. He’d never once spoken to me about them.

“I’m not gettin’ any younger. And you’re the last Mitchell man standing. If the Mitchell legacy is going to live on, it’s down to you.”

First, the farm had fallen on my shoulders, and now I was being tasked with carrying on the Mitchell legacy. As I imagined what that might look like, the blonde with huge blue eyes who appeared in my dreams and then on my porch popped into my head.

There was something so…different about her. I felt like I knew her, even though I didn’t.

“I don’t know how much longer I have, and I’d sure like to know that the Mitchell name will continue.”

“Sorry, I haven’t knocked anyone up. If memory served, not too long ago, you were the one telling me to keep it in my pants, and if I didn’t, to make sure I wore a raincoat, so no little puddles appeared.” His analogy didn’t make any sense, but I understood his point. He didn’t want me to knock anyone up.

“Well, that’s before you had the number three in front of your age. In my day, if you hadn’t settled down and started a family by thirty, well…”

Grandad didn’t finish his thought, and I was more than happy to not have to listen to what people said about single men who were unwed in their thirties in his day.

When I opened the door to my truck, I reached into the console and pulled out the lint brush. After several passes, I putit back and climbed into the driver’s seat. As we pulled out of the drive, the console lit up with a phone call from my godson, AJ.

Growing up, AJ’s dad, Austin, me, and our friend Dawson were inseparable. We were the Three Amigos, the Three Musketeers, and the Three Stooges, all wrapped into one. Austin and AJ’s mom, Zoe, started going out in middle school when she was twelve and he was fourteen. On Austin’s eighteenth birthday, Zoe, who was sixteen at the time, found out she was pregnant. The two got married, and Austin joined the Marines to support his family. Three years later, he was killed tragically in Afghanistan. Dawson and I had both stepped up to be there for AJ and Zoe, like we knew Austin would have done for both of us.

“Hey, man. You’re on speaker.” Everyone knew that the only person who would be in the truck with me was my grandad, and I liked to warn them before they said anything that they wouldn’t want him to hear. That was definitely a one-way street. He said things all the time that I wished he wouldn’t. He didn’t have a filter.

“Uncle H, what are you wearing tonight?”

“It’s black tie.”

“Yeah, I know, but does that mean Ihaveto wear a coat? Mom says I have to wear a coat.”

I remembered being twelve, the same age as AJ, when Meemaw insisted I wear a jacket and tie to my dad’s funeral, even though he’d never worn a tie in his life. Barrett Mitchell was a motorcycle-loving cowboy who enjoyed riding steel horses as much as he did real horses. His wardrobe consisted of overalls, plaid shirts, white Ts, jeans, and a leather jacket. He didn’t even wear a suit on his wedding day. He wore jeans, boots, and a white T-shirt when my mom walked down the aisle. Technically, I was there, too. She was four months pregnant with me.

“Yeah, I’m afraid you have to wear a coat.”

I could hear AJ’s disappointment as he sighed loudly. “Fine.”

“See ya there.” I hung up the call.

Grandad sighed, “He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah.” Austin would have been proud of him.

Zoe was doing a great job with AJ, but it killed me that my friend wasn’t around to witness his son growing up. As a person who lost both of his parents, I’d always looked at things from a kid’s point of view, knowing how hard it was to grow up without a mom and then without a dad. But Austin dying had given me a different perspective on things. Now I knew that I wasn’t the only one missing out; my parents had both missed out, too.

---