Old Fashioned - Becker Brothers

“Yeah! And the rookies we drafted, the way the team worked together last season.” She looked back over her shoulder at me with her crooked smile. “I can feel it.”

I smiled back, tracing her features. I knew all mothers thought their child was the most beautiful kid in the world, but with my Paigey, it really was true. She had a full head of bouncy curls that would have made me and my sister both hate her and love her had she been our friend as kids. Her skin was a smooth tawny, her cheeks peppered with freckles that were like stars under her almond-brown eyes. She had a gap between her two front teeth that grew back in fully last year, and somehow it only made her cute factor go up.

She was only nine years old, and still, I knew I’d be in trouble once she started dating.

Another flare of anxiety over her having her heart broken seared through my chest, but I subdued it, draining the pasta noodles in the colander in the sink. “Well, if you believe it, then I do, too.”

I also knew that all mothers thought their child was the smartest kid to ever exist, and once again, I was no different. Of course, with Paige, it was only pertaining to one subject: football. She watched games and listened to podcasts and studied football terms like it was her full-time job. She learned words that most kids her age couldn’t pronounce, let alone understand, all in the name of being an expert in the sport she loved.

“You’ll see, we’re going all the way this season,” she said, turning her attention back to the television. Then, a long sigh left her chest, and she whispered so low I almost didn’t hear. “I can’t wait to play football.”

I furrowed my brows, torn as always with how I would explain to her that the likelihood of that happening was slim to none. She’d been watching football with her father every Saturday, every Sunday, and every Monday night since she was born. Somewhere around four years old, she started saying she wanted to play football. At the time, I thought it was cute, something she’d grow out of, but it turned out football would be one of the staples my daughter was built on.

She was hell-bent on playing football someday, and as a mother, that terrified me.

Again — normal.

Before I could decide if I wanted to respond encouragingly or realistically, my cell phone rang.

“Hello, sister,” I answered, putting her on speakerphone as I mixed the fake, processed, powdered “cheese” with the noodles and hamburger meat. “Paigey, come sit at the table for dinner.”

“But, Mom! Can’t I just eat it in here? Coach is still talking!”

“Yeah, Mom,” my older sister teased. “Coach is talking.”

“Hush,” I told her on a laugh, but when Paige hopped up and clasped her hands together, begging me with her signature pouty lip and big eyes, I was helpless.

I sighed.

“Fine,” I said, scooping a good helping into a bowl for her. Paige hopped up and down in victory. “Set up the TV tray though, and use your napkin, Paige Marie, not your jeans.” I gave her the mom look when she bopped into the kitchen, making sure she knew I was serious before I handed her the bowl. Once she was set up in the living room, I took my sister off speakerphone, pressing the device to my ear, instead. “Gray hairs, Gabby. I swear I’ll have them before the year is up.”

My sister chuckled. “Oh, come on. So your daughter is obsessed with football. It could be worse. She could be obsessed with boys like we were.”

“Don’t jinx it,” I said, smiling when Paige tossed the football up in her hands between bites, her eyes fixed on the press conference. “How are you?”

“Oh, same old same here. It was a long night at the hospital, we had a three-car accident that was pretty nasty. I was dead on my feet by the time I got home this morning.”

My sister, Gabriela, was older than me by five years. It was just a wide-enough gap to keep us from ever being in the same school together, but not too wide to where we couldn’t share clothes. She was my best friend — thanks to our life traveling around with a mom in the military. Where the few friends we did make were left in the dust each time we were re-stationed, our bond never died. It only got stronger throughout the years, and Gabby was the only person I ever felt comfortable talking to about anything deeper than the weather.

Besides Randall, but I’d learned my lesson the hard way that not even he could be trusted.

“If you still lived here, I’d make you a glass of my famous sangria.”