The glass door squeaked loudly in it’s hinge as it was pulled open. “Anybody here order some hot dogs?”
I looked up and saw a middle aged woman with extremely long blonde hair standing in the doorway of my brother’s living room and the outside patio.
“Grandma!” My daughter yelled. She jumped up from next to me and raced over to her grandmother who in turn bent down and picked Zoë up from the floor and held her tightly in a hug.
“How’s my Zoë?” I heard her say to my four year old.
Another face appeared behind my mother. This person stayed timidly behind her and only stepped forward when the older woman stepped out onto the patio with my daughter held closely to her body.
I swung my legs over the bench I was sitting on and walked towards the women. “Hey Mom,” I said, kissing the older woman on the cheek.
“Taylor, honey,” Mom said, balancing Zoë on her hip, “how are you? Where’s my daughter-in-law?”
“She’s upstairs changing the baby. Here Mom let me help you with that,” I said taking a plastic bag from her. “Where’s Dad?”
“Parking the car with your brother.”
I nodded. “Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll bring these hot dogs over to Zac.” I gestured towards my brother who was at the girl talking with Isaac. They hadn’t noticed my mother coming in since they were on the other side of the patio.
“Thanks, baby,” Mom said. She carried my daughter over to the bench to sit down and the younger girl who had followed my mother in, started after her but I stuck my arm out across her and put it onto the wall to block her from following Mom closely.
“No hello to your brother?” I asked her jokingly.
“Hello, Taylor,” she said softly. She didn’t even look up at me. She was uncomfortable being around me and I could sense it.
I bent my head down and leaned up in her face to make her look up. She rolled her eyes at me looked away. “Zo, I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
She surprised me and looked directly into my eyes. “It’s Gen,” she said.
“Since when!?!?” I made a face. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t care.” She tried to move around my arm but I wouldn’t let her. Finally she ducked under it and went to sit with my mom and Zoë at one of the table.
I shook my head and went to the grill to give Zac the hot dogs. Isaac offered me a beer and I generously took one. “Guys, does Zoë not like me?” I asked my brothers.
“She’s your daughter, she loves you!” Isaac told me. He sounded horrified that I would ask a question like that.
“No, not my daughter! Our sister!” I pointed towards the twelve year old who was now laughing with her niece and our mother.
“What do you mean?” Zac asked, flipping the burgers over one bye one on the grill. He looked up at me, his face showing concern.
I laughed. “Zac it’s hard to take you seriously in that dumb hat!” I accused, pointing at the chefs hat he was sporting. “And that apron!”
“Hey, ‘Kiss the Chef’ is very kool!” He protested. He put his hand on the hat.
“Your niece, your brother’s own daughter gave me this hat after Career Day in her Kindergarten class!”
“And the apron...”
Zac shrugged. “Some girlfriend.” He went back to flipping the burgers.
Isaac laughed. “He doesn’t even know which one!” That made me laugh. Zac was the type of guy who had so many girlfriends over the past few years after graduating high school that he couldn’t keep track of them all. A few of them had been keepers but most were flakes. He went out with this one girl for so long we were all pretty sure that she was the one he was going to marry but unfortunately she had other plans. She dumped him for a med-student. Zac had been devastated but pretty soon he went out and got himself another bunch of flakes. I had heard a rumor along the family grapevine that he had been going out with another woman for a little longer than a month now but since my family and I hadn’t been back in Tulsa for over a month I hadn’t met her yet. Zac didn’t offer anything about her either, he didn’t even tell me that he had a new girlfriend. I wondered why of course but I figured he had his reasons. I didn’t really think it was nice of him to keep that sort of secret from his own brother, but I wasn’t going to press him into telling me what his reasons actually were. But truthfully I really wanted to know if he told Isaac.
“Tell you what Zac,” I said moving over to the other side of my younger brother. “I’ll kiss the chief!” I grabbed his head and jokingly kissed his cheek.
“Ah!” Zac shouted. He beat me off with the spatula. “Go kiss your wife! Not me!” I saw Clare coming out of the house with Anya’s sweet head on her shoulder. Isaac’s wife, Andy, was talking to her and Clare was laughing her beautiful, sexy laugh.
“I like that idea,” I said to Zac, patting his shoulder. I raised my eyebrows up and down at him and moved towards Clare. I slinked up to the side of her that was next to Andy and kissed her lips gently.
“Alcohol breath,” she accused as we both pulled away.
I shrugged. “Want one?” I held up my beer.
“I’ll just take a sip,” she said taking it from my hand. I leaned down so I was eye level with the baby on her shoulder. Anya smiled at me and coo-ed. I poked at her little hand with my finger and she wrapped her tiny fist around my large finger.
“OK, honey,” I warned as her fist with my finger inside of it was jammed into her toothless mouth.
“Taylor.” Clare gave me my beer back. I looked at her like “help me.” She giggled and unwrapped Anya’s fingers releasing my finger, which was now wet. I wiped it on my shirt. “She loves how her daddy tastes.”
“Yeah, haha,” I told her. “She speaking for herself,” I told Anya.
Clare rubbed her back up on my chest. “Who says that’s a bad thing?”
“Rar,” I joked, placing my hand on her vacant shoulder. “Mommy’s silly, isn’t she Anya? Speaking of silly, where’s your munchkins?” I asked Andy.
“At the park,” she responded. “They couldn’t wait for your father any longer.”
“So where’s the booze?” A deep voice called out from the living room.
“The bum’s here!” I announced, rolling my eyes. Clare shot me a look just as my youngest brother and father appeared at the doorway. “Hey Mackenzie!” I greeted the owner of the voice.
“Yo, Tay! Just point me in the direction of the food.”
“That way,” I told the sixteen year old, pointing towards Isaac and Zac at the grill.
“He looks good,” Clare said as he walked past us. I noticed she was holding the baby tighter.
I placed my hand gently on my youngest daughter’s head. “He’s great with children,” I whispered into her ear. “You always tense up when he comes.”
“I can’t help it,” she whispered back. “You know his history.”
I nodded slowly. A few years prior, my youngest brother had gotten involved in drugs and alcohol. He used to shoplift and was arrested more than once. He spent time in rehab and Juvenile Hall by the age of twelve. The booze comment he had made was a joke, he had been sober for a year at the least. He still hung around with the crowd that had gotten him involved in the hard stuff but he remained sober. I reminded myself to congratulate him on that. Life had been hard on him. First he grew up famous as my brother with my fans, and a few years after we got famous he had decided to go to a public school in our hometown. He was tortured a lot for who we were and he came home crying almost all the time. Mom wanted pull him from the school but Mackie didn’t want to. He sucked it up and went every day. He started to rebel in middle school and became elusive and was practically never at home. I wasn’t there most of the time to see what was going on, but when I was I saw this behavior. I remember one time I confronted him about why he was wearing all black, was never at home, and always had an attitude about everything. He told me “stay the ‘F’ out of my life... Oh wait a second, I’m sorry. I thought I was talking to a real brother, you already are out of my life.” Then he walked away. Since then we had repaired a lot of the damage, but there was still a sort of tension between us that would probably not go away for awhile.
“Avery says hello!” My dad said interrupting my thoughts.
I smiled. “What is she up to today?”
“She’s not feeling very well so she’s at home. She might be over later if she feels better.” I nodded. She was the oldest Hanson family member to be living at home. It was just her, Mackie, and Zoë with my parents at our old house in Tulsa.
“What about Jessica?”
“She’s driving over later.”
“Good. A party isn’t a party without Jess.”
“Clare,” Andy spoke up. “We have a few minutes till the hot dogs are ready, why don’t you and me gather up the little children and go to the park and find my boys?”
“Good idea,” my wife replied looking up at me before walking over towards Mom, Zoë and Gen.
“Got a beer for me?” Dad asked.
“Of course, Dad!” He put his arm around my shoulder and we stood next to the grill with Isaac and Zac, all four of holding a can of beer; Dad’s first and my second.
“How’s the kids?” Dad asked Isaac.
“They’re great!” Ike gushed. He went on to tell my father about how his daughter is a gymnast and how his sons are star soccer athletes and now he is getting involved once again in the whole soccer thing from our childhood. The four of us reminisced about the old days for a few minutes and helped Zac put all the burgers and on plates and the hot dogs on the grill. My mother came over and took the plate of burgers back to the table. She and Mackenzie set the table and uncovered most of the food for when the rest of the Hanson clan got back from the park.
“How about your daughters, Tay?” Dad asked. I sighed as a wave of nostalgia passed over me as I watched my mother and brother at the table. Dad’s question sounded so far away that I thought I had imagined it. Dad tapped me. “Taylor, are you all right?”
I turned my attention back towards my brothers and father. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “I was just thinking about how when we were little we used to have barbecues just like this. I never thought back then that I’d ever be married and have my own little children to take to events like this one.”
Dad nodded. “I never thought that back then either.”
“In answer to your question though, Zoë and Anya are amazing. It sounds weird but every time I hold that baby or look into Zoë’s eyes I feel like a kid again. It’s almost as though childhood can last forever. They both have that look in their eyes, the youthfulness that seems to exist forever.”
“You have that too, Taylor,” Mom said from behind me. She took a plate of hot dogs from the tray on the grill. “They get that from their daddy.”
I smiled at the thought.
“It doesn’t sound weird, Taylor,” Dad said. “I had seven children and every time I held one of them I felt the same way. It’s an irreplaceable feeling.”
“I still can’t believe that I created such a miracle,” I admitted, turning red with the words. “I mean, I hold Anya in my arms and think ‘wow, this I made this breathing being. She’s a part of my own blood.’”
I saw Isaac smiling. “When they’re babies there’s no such thing as TV entertainment or reading, the best entertainment is in the next room sleeping. When my kids were born I remember standing in the doorway of the bedroom for hours just watching and listening. There’s no better feeling than that.”
My dad and I nodded in agreement. “Now you two know what it feels like for your mother and I to look at you seven,” he said. “It’s something you never forget.”