Page 55 of A Very Miller-Cooper Life

I put both hands in the air. “Of course. No big deals will be made. I promise.”

Carter took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I have a date on Friday.”

“That’s really cool. Who is it with?”

“Her name is Marcie Bishop. We’re in FBLA and Mock UN together.”

“She’s also a starter on the JV basketball team and super hot,” Olivia added. “You know, if you are into women.”

“Who’s super hot?” Reagan asked as she walked into the room.

Carter’s face turned even more red, but if Olivia noticed, she didn’t seem to care. She pointed her thumb at her sister. “Carter’s girlfriend.”

Carter shook her head. “She’s not my girlfriend. It’s just a date.”

“But she will be your girlfriend.” Olivia looked from Carter to me and Reagan. “Seriously, Marcie is obsessed, in a super cute way, of course.”

“Oh my god, will you stop?” Carter asked, but the smile on her face told me she actually didn’t mind her sister’s teasing in this case.

“What? I’m serious. This is the real deal, sis. I have a good feeling that it’s going to last. By senior year, you two will be a complete power couple. I would even go as far as to say that you would be named joint homecoming queens, but that title belongs to yours truly.”

*

It turned out Olivia was right about both of those things. Carter sat on the bleachers holding hands with Marcie while the two of them and the rest of our family watched Olivia get crowned homecoming queen. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t fill mewith pride to see my daughter crowned as homecoming queen the same way I had been many many years ago. What made me even more proud was the reason she was voted as queen. Sure, she was loud (and a little bit full of herself), but she also had a heart of gold. She ran fundraisers so people who couldn’t afford the athletics fee at the school would get it covered. She had tons of friends, but still made sure everyone felt included. She wasn’t just the school’s cheerleading captain, but also her brother and sister’s biggest cheerleader. Missing Ronan’s football games was never an option due to cheerleading, but she also never missed anything Carter was involved in. She cycled through boyfriends as if they were fashion trends, but the guys she broke up with all still had excellent things to say about her.

“I’m so happy for her,” Carter said, her voice cracking slightly. When I looked over at her, her eyes were tearing up just as I suspected.

“Aww, babe.” Marcie leaned in close to Carter. “It’s so sweet how happy you are for her.”

“I just know how much she wanted this. I might not understand the hype. No offense, Mama. But she’s been dreaming about this for years. It clearly meant a lot to her, so I’m glad she got it.”

“Is it really a surprise though?” Marcie asked with a laugh. “I haven’t heard one person say they voted for any of the other girls.”

Carter laughed along with her. “That’s very true.”

I stood from my seat when I saw it was time to get pictures. The rest of the family followed me, including both sets of grandparents who came even though it was getting harder for them to climb the bleachers. After getting pictures of Olivia and her escort who also happened to be her current boyfriend, we took family pictures. First Reagan and I stood with her, then each set of grandparents, followed by Carter and Marcie.After that, we took a picture of all of us. The only one missing was Ronan since the homecoming queen was announced during halftime of his football game. That was fine since we would be able to get plenty of pictures of the three of them together before the dance the next night.

As Olivia talked to the rest of the family at a mile a minute, I felt a hand slip into mine. I smiled over at Reagan, and she squeezed my hand. “Life has kind of come full circle. Hasn’t it, homecoming queen?”

“Nah.” I leaned into Reagan as I watched our two daughters laugh together, one with an arm around her boyfriend and the other holding the hand of her girlfriend, while we waited for our son to come out and play the second half of his football game. “This moment is so much better than anything I experienced when I was in high school.”

“This moment is perfect.” Reagan sighed contentedly. “Now we just have to hope they don’t decide to go too far away from us for college. I don’t know if my heart can handle that.”

I laughed at my wife who had become such a softie over the years. “It’s okay if they do, because at least we know in their case they are running toward something instead of away from us.”

“That’s true. They’ll always come back.”

“Especially when they need money.”

“And we should be good for that for at least the next four years.”

Now I sighed. Time really had gone by so fast. But every new adventure made me happy, because I knew our kids were becoming the people that they wanted to be. Not who they thought we wanted them to be. Just like Reagan though, I selfishly wished their dreams never took them too far away from us, but with this big decision coming up, I would never tell them that.

***

“Hey, you two, get over here.” Ronan waved his hand at Carter and Olivia from where he sat at a big table with a pen in his hand and a paper sitting in front of him.

He was wearing a Bellman University Football sweatshirt since that was the school he had decided on. Since it was Division II, he couldn’t get a full athletic scholarship, but he received the biggest one they could offer, plus an academic scholarship on top of it. Even though today was about him since he was signing his letter of intent to play football, he wanted to include his sisters, so he had asked them to come along and wear sweatshirts from their chosen schools.

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