Church at Pops
*Who the hell do you think you are? You think that you can just come in here and demand that I call church? Tell me why the fuck I should do this. – Trigg*
**August 2020**
After the lines from *The Princess Bride* invaded every single aspect of their lives, Tammy banned the movie. After finding the kids acting out the movie, complete with Diane on Eliza’s shoulders for Fezzik, she gave it back to them. But it, and all other movies, were limited to being played only once a day.
With all the typical activities under restrictions or completely cancelled, all the kids were confined to the compound. They were lucky in that they had a whole farm to play on. Molly would take one of them with him for a few hours at a time. They learned to drive the tractors, how to take care of the different animals, crop rotation and stories that let them know about their family.
Stories about Becks.
Stories about Coon.
Stories about Patch.
Stories about himself.
And he listened to what they said.
He listened when Eliza said that she missed gymnastics and cheer. He ordered tumbling mats and gave her space in one of the barns so that she could practice.
When Trisha stated that she wanted to learn to play the drums, he called Chance. His cousin found the drum kit from when he was in a high school band. Patch and Jaye were happy to see the drums leave their storage shed. Being the good parents that they were, they also sent his snare and quad drums.
Everyone still laughed about Rye standing in the driveway as all the drums were unloaded from the back of Patch’s pickup. Micheal was excited about what his grandpa brought him. Alan was on his mother’s hip, as she pressed a hand to her lower back, her belly protruding with what they would soon learn were twin girls.
“Patch! I thought you liked me!”
Her father-in-law kissed her temple and took his youngest grandson. “I do love you,” he snuggled the little boy close. “Just like I love my son. But I am damn glad to get these out of my way.”
When classes started back up, Theodore Roosevelt High could make an entire drumline out of the younger generation of Lowerys. Over the next couple of decades, there was at least one Lowery on the drumline. And one year, there were four Lynch drummers.
Molly called Athos and Aramis when Amanda and Imogen both said that they wanted to play football. They both joined the local flag football league when it finally started again. By their senior years, they would earn football scholarships to a smaller state college.
Sheree told her dad that she wanted to go to New York and act on Broadway. The local theater club was shut down and she was missing the comradery of her fellow actors. After some research, performed by Camille down in Louisiana, Sheree was enrolled in an online acting group.
Ten-year-old Fatima, trapped in preteen hell of no longer being a little kid, not quite a teen nor accepted by the tweens, told him how she felt like she was just lost. She didn’t know what she wanted, or what she liked. He took her the most and let her go with him when he went to check in with the different farm-to-table restaurants.
Eventually under a recommendation from Evie, Fatima would attend Texas A&M University. After receiving a degree in agribusiness management and animal sciences, she would be the next in a long line of Grandy’s family to run the large farm.
Diane was seven going on twenty-eight. She had her life planned out. As they rode through the fields, she would tell her daddy that she was going to become a teacher like Miss Rye. And before she started teaching, she was going to marry Colton.
Or any one of the other dozen boys that were growing up in the club. She didn’t understand that she couldn’t marry half of them because they were related. And Colton was a good sport on the days that she had a crush on her older cousin.
Little Anne Marie didn’t have her life quite so planned out and put together. She was going to be an astronaut. Or a princess. Or a doctor. Or a mom. And if none of that worked out, she was going to be a fairy and live in a cottage on the beach.
Five-year-old Kadi was going to be a biker like her big sister. And because her and Georgia did everything together, that’s what she was going to do.
Four-year-old Tobias and three-year-old Geoffrey were going to cause hell no matter what they did. Both boys were enrolled for pee-wee skating and hockey lessons. Pagan’s youngest daughter was on the local 10U team and showed serious potential.
After seeing videos of the toddler skate lessons and hockey drills, Molly would only describe them as herding cats. On ice.
The scene with Bambi on ice times twenty.
Kim? With the way that the three-year-old tries to rule the house, dictate her siblings and command her parents, he was pretty sure that she would president one day.
Or dictator.
Hell, she might start a cult.
Then again, once she was out of the threenager phase, she might settle down and not be quite so demanding.
Jordyn and Hailie were young enough that they simply enjoyed riding in the tractor with their daddy. Little Reba liked to be put in the carrier against her father’s chest and didn’t care what they did.
He still made time for each of his little pretties. Still made breakfast and fed the younger ones their first bottle in the morning. There were times that he missed the morning ritual. Calving season, harvest, or a morning with Case in his office.
Thinking of that morning, brought a smile to his face. The fact that three of his pretties were pregnant made him smile even more.
He loved having babies in the house. As the little pretties grew older and would start to live their own lives, he feared that he would not have any more babies in the house. Now he would have three.
There was always time for his pretties too, he made sure of it. Coffee on the porch in the morning with Tammy. Snuggling with Alicia as he smoked a cigar, and she drank her wine at night. Of course, her wine was now sparkling cider.
A shower with Yvonne when they got home at night. Michaela gave him a straight razor shave in her little shed turned salon. Case would curl up with him and read a book.
Noel seemed to know when he needed a quiet moment to reflect and just be. He took care of his pretties, and they took care of him.
There was only one of his many little pretties that he was uncertain of what to do. Priscilla did not come around very often anymore. She was secretive. He knew something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.
He was finishing up with the annual repairs to the hay barn as he thought about what to do with his oldest daughter. The physical labor cleared his mind and made it easier to think.
Surely, if Priscilla was in trouble, she would let her parents know. Or the musketeers. Certainly, she would reach out to Camille.
And yet, when he asked them, they said that she was just as quiet with them as she was with Molly.
His phone chimed again, but again, he ignored it. If it was important, they knew where to find him. Chance had found him years ago when he needed advice on what to do with Rye. The pretties knew where he was.
Really and truly, he was not a hard man to find.
As if to prove this theory, the sound of pipes filled the air. Moments later, he had an odd sense of Deja’ Vu as Chance walked into the barn.
“Molly!”
“Come on up, I’ve still got work to do.” Molly called down at his younger cousin. “We’ll work through your issue with Rye.”
“Molly,” Chance called out, “I’ve been ordered to bring you to Pops.”
“What’s this about?”
“I don’t know. Scrapper and Toad are already there. The musketeers have been ordered to show up too.”
The presidents of all three clubs at Pops Place. And the musketeers. A bad feeling settled in the pit of Molly’s stomach.
“Who else?” Molly asked as he looked down at Chance.
“All your pretties and us.”
“Us?”
“You, me, your parents, Deuce, the trio, my brothers… Dom.”
Molly stalked to where his T-shirt and phone were. He pulled on his shirt and opened his phone to see about fifty messages. There they were on hos phone, multiple messages from the three different presidents. His father and uncle.
Fear gripped him. "Priss?"