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“So, the way to understand all this is, rugby and American style football are brothers like Rob and I are brothers, and here you are as the beautiful cousin, soccer, which is football in a lot of the rest of the world that doesn't like violence as much.”
Nine-year-old George Ludlow was explaining the relationship between rugby, American football, and soccer to ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow. George and five-year-old Lil' Robert were actually cousins too, but first cousins. They were most distantly related to Glendella, who came from a different branch of the Ludlow family, but nonetheless had been adopted by Capt. R.E. and Mrs. Thalia Ludlow recently.
“Well, that does make sense because Grayson and Andrew are differently my more thoughtful new brothers,” Glendella said, “and you and Rob are definitely my action-first new brothers.”
“Absolutely,” George said. “You gotta have both kinds to make the world, Glendella. But don't get it twisted: Andrew can roughhouse with the best of them, and Grayson is a beast when unleashed, but what they do is use their smarts to help the rest of us do more powerful action. Like that time when Papa went to check on the hold up in our adoption – yours went fast and smooth because we already went and helped Papa intimdate the slowpokes –.”
Capt. Ludlow was quietly observing, and just started shaking his head while trying not to laugh and cry at the same time.
“ – But we had to get to the courthouse, so, Grayson figured out how to put me in a sleeping bag in the back of Papa's trunk and then duct tape it down so I wouldn't get bounced around back there. It's a good thing we had a fresh roll to use because between that and making sure Lil' Robert wouldn't get bounced out from under the back seat in his sleeping bag, we definitely needed all of it!”
“Why not just ask for permission to go?” Glendella said.
“Action men don't always have time to do all that – sometimes you just gotta go,” George said.
“OK, well, I'll start praying that a full roll of duct tape is always available,” Glendella said.
“She's such a sweet girl,” Mrs. Melissa Trent quietly said to Capt. Ludlow.
“She is, kind-hearted and open to new people and experiences,” he said as he took out his handkerchief. “This is why the Lord sent her out of that terrible household she was living in, emptied it out, and burned it to the ground. Unlike Lot, married to the lifestyle of Sodom and Gomorrah, and unlike Lot's wife, looking back still wanting that life, she just needed to be free.”
He dabbed at his eyes.
“Before Glendella, I never had a good sense of what your people have been singing about and telling the world about freedom, because as far as I was concerned, I was born free by comparison. But I see now: if you are living and perpetuating evil on any of God's children, you are a slave to that evil. Many parents … including my first wife and my own children … never knew what it was to be free. I thank God daily that He spared and is sparing me to chart a free course for my grandchildren and my adopted grand Glendella.”
“I want you to know that what you are doing is super important,” Mrs. Trent said. “But I'm also going to tell you like my mother tells my brother who has seven, and what I tell me who has five: don't mess this up. You don't want to see Jesus talking about one through eight, and how you dropped the ball on that.”
“I admire you for how you have stayed with your course of mental health treatments, ma'am,” Capt. Ludlow said. “You left me and are constantly leaving me without excuse on mine – between you and my colonel and major cousins, I see the benefits of ever more getting my internal life together.”
“It really does make a difference – I messed around and had a complete breakdown, but I don't have the skills to really create life-ending situations in such a state. I just backed out in front of a car accidentally – but to my children, that would have been too much, and my father could have lost his life saving mine. Vincent [Sgt. Trent, her husband] was playing the long game on getting me back that whole time, but he almost lost that day and not because of him. This is why I'm telling you like I get up and tell myself in the mirror every morning: don't mess this up. My dad and I both have five and nearly lost everything. God gave us a second chance, just like you.”
“Ah, we are all part of a second chance club – Family 2.0,” Capt. Ludlow said, with a smile.
“Yep,” Mrs. Trent said. “I love that you and Vincent are selling and having my father help out the veterans who want to buy. I love that you figured out how to get out quicker and let the new owners get out from under being in debt to my dad faster, although his terms will not be hard on them. It's not about that any more. We're all looking out for our families and we're in a position to look out for other families too. God has blessed us. Don't mess this up.”
“I hear you, Mrs. Trent. I hear you.”
Meanwhile, the conversation between George and Glendella was continuing, and completely knocked the two adults out of their very serious mood and then right back in.
“Do you consider yourself American football, or rugby, George?” Glendella said.
“I'm just going to be honest because lying is a terrible habit to get into, although it is a heck of a lot easier to say this with Rob somewhere else: I'm definitely American football, and he is definitely rugby. I'm tough. I've been through a lot. But I need some pads and a hard helmet before getting out here. Lil' Robert is definitely what you get when you wake up in the morning with no pads, no hard helmet, and no common sense, and start a fight, because that's what rugby is like. I've learned to not bully him, and not to bully period, because when a five-year-old beats you down twice and has Gracie and Velma next door talking about you crazy while Edwina over here laughs at you and Amanda ambushes you and pushes you into Papa's anger management Zoom sessions, you really start to reconsider your life choices.”
“See, I knew you were as smart as Grayson and Andrew, deep down!” Glendella said.
“Well, yeah, but, I don't really want that getting out,” George said, “because remember, I'm an action man.”
“Listen, let me tell you: action men need to be smart. My biological grandfather, Astor Ludlow, got to be 68 as an action man but wasn't thinking before calling over here and trying to bully Upgrade Papa. You already know what happened!”
“You know, when you put it that way, Glendella … .”
“You're nine, George. Embrace your smarts and get in good practice. Don't be out here at 68 getting laughed off the piano, losing board seats in the company your great-great-and-even-greater-great-grandfather built, having your own granddaughter running away and downgrading you from Gramps to Grumps and going to Upgrade Papa from protection and a life, burning down your own house and fightting firefighters as intruders, and ending in the asylum with no way out because you ain't got nowhere else to go, and your wife Bad Grandma out here swinging on me and getting chased out of the neighborhood by Edwina. Don't mess this up, George! I'm telling you: there's nothing good out here for action men who don't think.”
“I got it, Glendella. That's clear. Yikes – to think that somewhere along the line that whole situation never even needed to happen!”
“See, if Grumps woulda listened to me, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,” Glendella said. “Upgrade Papa has a reputation a mile long. Even I knew about it. It's like three generations of people know that you don't mess with Robert Edward 'Hell to Pay' Ludlow, but see, when you take action before you think about the facts, bad things happen. A whole bunch of people have grandkids whose grandparents messed with Upgrade Papa's cousins in high school – and by the way, that tells you that Upgrade Papa is an action man who thinks, because when you think, you can have people generations away know: 'Don't mess with my people.'”
“Well, my real plan is to become a lawyer eventually,” George said. “I will be George Green 'Taking Bad Guys' Money' Ludlow, Esq, when I grow up, so, I guess I will lean into this smart action hero thing.”
“Perfect,” Glendella said, “because it's on Uppity Foolery Watch right now: Uncle Vanderbilt just figured out which of our first cousins has been stealing from the Ludlow Winery till, and he's going to need some help getting all that back, and you've got time, because it's been going on for 20 years and will take that much time to unwind.”
“What?” Capt. Ludlow said, and took off running for his computer.
“Tom – nephew – I'mma need you to remember Uppity Foolery Watch is PG-13!” Mrs. Trent said as she went running toward her house.