Thanks for the reviews & so sorry for the delay in getting another chapter up. I've been crazy busy and having trouble getting out what I was thinking. This is sort of a transitioning chapter that needs to be here for the rest to make sense, but it's not terribly exciting on its own. Sorry for that, more to come that will hopefully be better and more quickly updated!
Plus One?
It wasn't quite what she'd hoped for, but Maia was pretty pleased to be riding home from her dress rehearsal with her mom. Her dad hadn't been able to make it, but her mom came in during the performance and got to see part of it at least. But most importantly, Maia wasn't left without a parent. The fact that her mother had arrived with peonies for her made Maia feel like she and her parents were turning over a new leaf. And for awhile, life in the Campbell household supported that idea. They'd all had a relaxing vacation together, celebrated Maia's 11th birthday in style together at a fancy restaurant just the three of them, and then hosted all of her friends for a slumber party at the Smithsonian, and had weathered another busy time at the CIA just fine. As September rolled around and Maia went back to school Joan and Arthur both breathed a sigh a relief. Summers were hard on all of them. With Maia back at school, it meant that she was occupied for all the regular school hours, plus her after school activities and lessons, and then there was always homework to do. Joan and Arthur could throw themselves into work all day, and then if they had to take things home with them they could still be together as a family as they both worked and Maia did homework. Life was on track and going well for everyone.
Or so it seemed. After spending Thanksgiving with Arthur's family, they'd hosted Christmas for Joan's siblings and their children in DC. Not wanting to spoil the actual holiday, Joan's sister Caroline had waited to break the news that she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Caroline was two years older than Joan, and had always been the one to look out for and encourage Joan. After the shock of news, and the gravity of Caroline's situation had set in the adults had all tried to come up with a plan. Obviously Caroline would need support herself. Her husband was taking some time off work while she was going through the worst of the treatment, but he couldn't stay out of work forever. & with the degree to which the cancer had spread, Caroline was going to be in need of help for months, and someone was going to need to help out with Caroline and Ron's daughter, Sarah. Once they'd squared away taking turns moving in with Caroline to help her out, it was Joan who broached the topic of Sarah-Carline and Ron's eleven year old daughter. "Have you all told Sarah?" Joan asked quietly without making eye contact with any of her siblings, their partners, or her own husband.
The question hung there for a moment in palpable silence before Caroline shook her head as she explained, "We're not sure how we're going to tell her, she's having such a rough year already. I'm afraid this might just put her over the edge." Joan remembered then how Caroline had been worried about Sarah because she'd become so reclusive. Her grades had been slipping a little, and she just seemed disinterested in school. Although her parents had tried to figure out what was going on, all they got out of Sarah was that she didn't feel like she fit in with her friends, and she didn't like school. She wouldn't admit to being bullied, but Caroline suspected there was some Queen Bee stuff happening, and that Sarah was being hurt by it.
As the group of adults brainstormed about how to talk to Sarah about Caroline's diagnosis, Joan squeezed Arthur's hand. When she got up and walked into the kitchen, Arthur followed her. "What's up Joan?" Arthur asked wondering what was on his wife's mind that they couldn't talk about either later or in front of their family.
Joan put on the kettle for some tea, and with her back to Arthur said to him, "You know how I was telling you about what Caroline said about Sarah and school a few weeks ago?"
Trying to put together the logic of this line of questioning in light of Caroline's cancer diagnosis, Arthur hesitated before answering, "Yes," in more of question than a statement. Then he just jumped in and asked her flat out, "Joan what's on your mind?"
"Well I was thinking," she started, but that was all she got out before Arthur figured out where this might all be going and cut her off. "Joan do you want Sarah to come live with us for awhile?-to get her into a new school environment?" Arthur knew his wife had a soft spot for Sarah. She and Maia were the same age, and while Joan was always the first to say that they couldn't handle a second child of their own, Joan also had always been happy-sad about Maia being an only child. Both she and Arthur came from big families of kids who got along well growing up and with whom they were still close. As Joan had gotten older she'd started to really see that part of why her siblings were so important to her was because they could be witnesses to the crazy things their parents sometimes said or did, and they could shoulder responsibility together. Maia didn't have someone else to say, "Yeah, you're right. They're crazy. Let me help you out," when she and Arthur undoubtedly did things that made Maia crazy. Joan had expressed this concern to Arthur on multiple occasions, and they'd both tried to console themselves with the fact that Maia was close to her cousins - especially Sarah. Because they were the same age, and because they had similar interests they'd always gotten along extremely well with each other.
Joan still had her back to Arthur as she poured the boiling water into her mug, but she smiled at the way Arthur could read her and determine just what she wanted to ask. Turning to face him, she nodded. "What do you think?" she asked.
"I think it's a great idea. Plus I don't think Maia is old enough to be home alone by herself for very long, but with the two of them, we could probably worry less about being home right on time. They'd be fine together for an hour or two," Arthur said - always the practical one. Joan rolled her eyes at his thinking about what the arrangement did to benefit him, but she couldn't help but grin at him too.
"Thank you," she said softly as she took his hand and led him back out to the living room. When everyone looked up at them as they re-entered the room, Arthur put the plan on the table - asking if Caroline and Ron would consider having Sarah come stay with them for the rest of the school year. Joan chimed in explaining how this could help Sarah out of her sticky situation at school in NYC, and it would relieve Caroline and Ron of having to worry about Sarah when they had to do so much worrying about Caroline's condition, and that Maia, Arthur and she would be delighted to have Sarah stay with them. Over the next few hours they all hashed out the details, and the next morning Joan and Arthur, and Caroline and Ron both sat down separately with their own daughters to explain the situation and see what they each thought about Sarah moving to DC for the rest of 6th grade. By lunch the plan was set, and Sarah had asked if she could move immediately, even though Caroline still had two weeks before she'd start serious treatment. Apparently Sarah's school situation was a little more of a mess than anyone knew, and so the next week was spent getting Sarah packed up, enrolled in Maia's school and settled in their house.
Taking advantage of a quiet night Joan and Arthur were curled up on the sofa watching episodes of Scandal they'd missed earlier in the year. Sarah was moving in the next afternoon, and Maia had been in her room all evening facetiming with her friends. "So tomorrow we have two tweenagers in the house," Arthur said to Joan. She raised her eyebrows at him and laughed a little at him, "Tweenagers? Arthur - did you just learn that word?" His eyes sparkled as he kissed her, "Yeah. Apparently that's what they call this time between childhood and total teenage drama."
"Yeah. Two tweenagers as of tomorrow," Joan said then in agreement, "I hope it's not drama, I mean it shouldn't be. They're both good kids."
Before Arthur could respond Maia walked into the room, and took a flying leap onto the sofa. Crashing into Arthur's side, he played like he was injured by his daughter. "Dad, stop - you so are not hurt! I barely touched you!" she cried out as she laughed. Arthur responded by tousling her hair, which was greeted with Maia turning dad into a two syllable word, "Da-ad!"
"Hey - you do a ninja move onto the sofa and crash into me, and I get to respond a little!" Arthur joked back at her.
"Okay fine," Maia agreed as she snuggled into his left side. From his right side Joan smiled up at him, "Do you think she wants something, or do you think your tweenaged daughter just wants to cuddle?"
"I'm pretty sure it's cuddling," Arthur said back to Joan as his eyes twinkled - all without looking at Maia, who then snuggled in closer.
"Yup," Maia said, "Well - and I was thinking about Sarah moving in tomorrow. Where's she going to live? - like what room?"
"I thought we'd put her in one of the guest rooms upstairs," Arthur thought out loud.
"Do you have thoughts on where she should live?" Joan asked Maia, guessing that was actually why Maia was asking the question.
"Weellll," Maia started, "I was thinking maybe she could stay in my room with me. I mean we could like share."
"Are you sure you would really want to share your room, your bathroom, everything with Sarah? I know you two get along really well, but you've never shared a room before and we have extra space for her," Joan questioned her daughter, because she thought that it probably wasn't the best idea. Still she wanted Maia to decide on her own that she didn't really want to share a room.
"It'd be fun - it'd be like a slumber party every day," Maia reasoned.
"That's what I'm afraid of," Arthur broke in, "Mai I think she should get her own room. You all need time to just be on your own and sleep, rather than staying up all night talking or fooling around." Joan nodded, and inside was really glad that Arthur was the one to say no rather than her. All too often she felt like she was the bad cop in their parenting duo, so it was nice for Arthur to have to be the one to put his foot down on this one.
"You can sleep over in each other's rooms on the weekends," Joan offered, "But I think your dad is right Maia."
"Awww," Maia started but then switched tactics, "Okay. So that's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights?"
"Nice try," Joan said smiling but giving her daughter a don't-push-your-luck-look from her position on the other side of Arthur.
"Fine - Friday and Saturday?" Maia suggested.
"Definitely," both of her parents agreed.
Change was coming. Both Arthur and Joan were happy that Maia was so excited about her cousin moving in with them, but they both also were wondering how they'd balance two girls and their jobs. Plus Sarah didn't know what Arthur and Joan did, and that was a secret that Maia was also going to have to keep. Living together was really going to make that a challenge for everyone.
Caroline and Ron spent two nights with the Joan and Arthur so that they could be there as Sarah transitioned into life with the Campbells. Honestly, however, there wasn't much of a transition that happened. Sarah seemed to fit right in and she and Maia seemed ecstatic to not be only children. They were together constantly, and Maia had already introduced Sarah to her school friends on facetime, and Joan and Arthur agreed to host a sleep over before winter break ended so that Sarah could meet some of the girls in person before she started at school.
A month into the new living arrangement everything seemed to be going almost suspiciously smoothly. One thing that was an unexpected benefit of having two girls in the house was that Arthur and Joan actually ended up with more alone time. Sarah and Maia kept each other occupied, studying together, watching TV together, and hanging out together. Although they still all had lively dinners together whenever possible, the girls would last for about an hour before excusing themselves and dashing off together, leaving Arthur and Joan to have another glass of wine and catch up with each other. As Arthur slipped into bed beside his wife one night he commented on this situation. "Maybe we should have had a second kid. Can you imagine how much more time we'd have had to do things like this?" he said as he pulled Joan toward him and planted a soft, slow kiss on her lips. She laughed but kissed him back, and as she let him kiss her neck and then a little lower onto her chest, she murmured to him, "Well I guess we have some lost time to make up for huh?" He just kissed her in response, so she took that as a yes and rolled him onto his back so she could help him make up for that lost time.
