Richard Baker's mother had never been one to mince words, nor was she one to watch her tongue when she meant business, and she always meant business. Suzanne Baker was the most down-to-earth, honest, most wonderful, blessed woman he ever knew, and it would stay that way until he found a wife. She had absolutely no qualms about chewing out any of the neighbor boys when they came speeding down the drive in their fancy cars, or stayed out until all ungodly hours with their wild parties, keeping half of the whole country from getting their sleep (according to her, at least, but with much stronger language). And boy, if any one of them suggested that their skin color should have anything to do with it, they'd be lucky if she didn't give them all a good whipping right there. No matter what, they'd always be left in a daze from the earful she gave them.
And then she'd spin on her heel, stride up their walk to where Richard sat on the steps, and say, "Richard, dear, don't you ever take an insult laying down. But you'd better not repeat any of those words to anyone, okay, sweet?"
Now, Baker can't be more glad of his upbringing, in a place like this he certainly needs it.
To four-year old Peter Newkirk barely tall enough to see over the stage when he was standing on a chair in the front row, Kate Newkirk was the most beautiful dancer in all of England - heck, the best in the world. She could spin and leap and twirl and the best of her smiles were for him and Mavis, and eventually the whole assortment of kids who ended up joining their clan. And what better than a dancer who could tell a great story and make the best cakes and sing songs just for him and be his mother?
Now, even though she's been gone quite a while, she's still his mother, and he talks about her with as much pride as if he was barely on his feet, toddling around the circus, proudly proclaiming to anyone who might listen that his mother was the bestest mom in the whole big world.
James Kinchloe was the youngest of his family, his mother had died not too long after she had him, and the mantle of mothering had fallen solely upon the shoulders of Summer Kinchloe, who was a good fifteen years older than he was. By some miracle, she managed to get meals on the table and fought tooth and nail to keep custody of her three younger brothers after his father had disappeared a couple years later. Accordingly, he, Isaac, and Jonathan interrogated her dates with an alarming amount of seriousness and hostility for three boys, all less than ten years old.
And, while he, Isaac, and Jonathan came out of boyhood with a few more scars than they probably should have, he often wonders if his real mother could have done any better.
When he was younger, if anyone asked Louis LeBeau why he loved his Maman, he would say it was because she cooked, and she taught him to cook, or she could recite any recipe from memory, or something to do with cooking, whatever it was. He knew it was so much more, even when he was younger, but he didn't really have any right way of putting it, not from his five-year-old vocabulary. And he doesn't now, either. But he loves Estelle LeBeau more than any of the ladies he's courted, which is really saying a lot, and sometimes he'll get out his one photo of her, taken just after she had Claudia, asleep on the couch with a half dozen children clustered around her (he's not sure which ones they are, they all look alike), and pray that after all this mess she's safe to come home to.
KellyAnn Hogan, it was really a wonder she'd ended up married to Robert Hogan (the older one) because he was big and broad and more than a little brusque, being military and all, and she was a delicate little thing, like, really little, and so careful and often a little too worrisome. She stood out so blatantly in the family photos, tucked under her husband's arm and the only redhead out of all of them.
Somehow, she had survived the Hogan family - or rather, kept the Hogan family alive. Even when Robert's father died of tuberculosis and what was left of the family moved in with his grandparents, and then George lost his arm in the farming accident and Ruth started running off for weeks at a time, she kept them together. Those years were harder on her than any, but they could always come home to a hug and a kiss and too many life lessons for her to get into their thick skulls.
Hogan would be damned if he got killed and set her hurting again.
Really, it was a wonder poor Elaine Carter managed to keep Andrew from blowing himself and his peers up before the age of three. How he had managed to get up to the very top shelf on his chubby toddler legs, and then pry open the lids of the most volatile cleaning supplies she owned, and dump that all on the ground with a healthy amount of baking soda and vinegar… it was decided early on that the kid had a knack for destruction. The kitchen tile never fully recovered.
And, of course, it didn't stop there. Despite his sunshiney, innocent personality, he managed to destory the garden thrice, blow up the tool shed, and get himself banned from four grocery stores - all of this before he turned ten. And then his little brother was born. She'd be lucky if Alan didn't blow her up before Andrew got home.
Because shoot, he was going to see his mom again if he had to move Heaven and Earth to get there.
"If at first you don't succeed, try doing it the way your mom told you to in the beginning." -Unknown