February 2nd 2020

Chapter 33
Their Support of Mentors

The following Saturday morning, Lucas was already on his way to the bookstore when he got a call from Maeve. There was a small fire in the store next to theirs in the middle of the night. No one was hurt, but the site was still looked over, and with all the activity around the street, their big boss had decided to hold off on opening the bookstore, through the morning if not the whole day. This made it so that they had an impromptu – paid – morning off and possibly a whole day off ahead of them.

He'd already pulled off the road when he'd gotten the call, and now he was left with a choice. Maya was in Houston for the day, coordinating with those schools out there where Stage Ready would be coming along in days to come. She would actually be spending most of the coming week out there, seeing to their four Houston sessions between Tuesday and Friday. Instead of spending four hours on the road every day, he had convinced her to just bunk over at Sophie and Chiara's. Neither of them was looking forward to being apart for days on end, but it was just the more reasonable option.

So, as for this morning, he would just take the opportunity and go back home, working on some assignments for class. Before he could turn in the direction of home again however, he looked and realized he was near his mother's favorite bakery, and it gave him an idea.

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" his father smiled after opening the door and finding him standing there with a square box tied off with ribbon.

"Yeah, the fire department had other ideas," he nodded, then just as quickly, "Store's fine, everyone's fine, it was next door."

He'd just finished telling his father about Maeve's call when his mother appeared, likely summoned by the sound of his voice. She hugged him, thrilling over what he might have brought her in that box he carried, before recalling, like her husband, that Lucas was meant to be at the bookstore at this time. He told her about the fire next to the store, which had the expected reaction of her acting as though he had somehow just escaped death or bodily harm by a hair. In her mind, he might have come here this morning out of some post traumatic need to be near his parents… his mother especially.

"I'm not staying long, I'm going back home to work on some things for school while I've got extra time," he told his mother and father. "But there's something I wanted to talk to you guys about, so I brought these," he held up the box with a smile. Maya would joke that, now that they were engaged, every time either of them suggested that they needed to talk to their parents about something, the assumption that this something was a future grandchild would increase exponentially. Going by the flicker in his mother's eye just now, he had to say he saw her point.

They went into the kitchen, where the box was opened and its contents were brought around for the Friars to enjoy, sitting around the table.

"I ran into Coach Wiley a few days ago, at the bookstore," Lucas started.

"Oh, Mark," his mother smiled. "How's he doing?"

"Good, great," Lucas nodded. "Brian's in college, Alyssa is getting closer to that, and the little one, Jane, she's growing up fast. Mrs. Wiley is good, too."

"It's been a while since we've run into any of them," his father noted, like he was already planning to call and have the family over for dinner, a notion shared by his wife.

"We ended up having lunch together that day. He told me that he was going to be retiring at the end of this school year." Again, this caused a wave of surprise, although in his parents' case, it felt like the surprise passed soon enough, replaced with something like understanding on an age level. He'd never thought about it until now, but he had to wonder. "Were you guys in school around the same time?"

"You two graduated together, didn't you?" Melinda looked to her husband, who was already nodding.

"Anyone who saw him on the court back in the day would want that guy as a coach, for their kids or just to brush up their own skills. He might have ended up way up there with the big names if he hadn't busted his knees in college. He was really something."

"Wasn't Hank dating his sister for a while?" Melinda asked. Thomas chuckled.

"Jenny," he nodded. "He came this close to asking for her hand, too."

"Wait, seriously? Uncle Hank?" Lucas blinked, which only made his father laugh more.

"It was never going to happen. Anyway, they broke up not long after that, and then he met Tanya, and you know that ended, Joseph and the rest of them. I don't know where Jenny Wiley ended up, last I heard she was going off to study in Germany. Here, hold on," Thomas stood and disappeared out of the kitchen. They could hear him climbing up to the second floor.

"Maybe it would be better for you to take the rest of the day off… or the weekend, I mean, you do have a lot on your plate, with school, and the Sanderson farm, and the wedding… Did I tell you, I found this small shop that does…"

"Mom," Lucas turned back to her, sighing as he tried to pull her away from that line of thought. "The store's fine, it wasn't us, I told you."

"I know, I know," she straightened up in her seat, a shift which used to make him go 'uh oh' when he was a kid, like she was about to say something that would make him relent and do as she said, because there was no point trying any other way. "I can't help it if I worry about you sometimes, me as your mother and you as my only child…"

"Mom…" he held her gaze again. The old trick didn't work on him nearly the way it used to, and she knew that, even if she still gave it a shot from time to time.

"Alright, but just… just make sure that there's really nothing that could… you know…" she smiled at him, pleading just a bit.

"I will," he promised. That was good enough for her, or it would have to be, and she celebrated this with another treat from the box he'd brought from the bakery.

"Here," his father returned now, carrying what appeared to be a couple of yearbooks and a scrapbook. Sitting at the table again, he opened the first yearbook and started flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for. The boys' basketball team, who from the looks of things had walked away the big winners that year… And there was a boy who looked very much like Brian Wiley, which could only be his father, the future middle school coach. "You know, he chose to stick with the middle school, because he knew how important it could be to get those skills honed in early. He could spot talent a mile away. Look at Maya…"

Maya, who'd barely played before moving to Austin and making friends with a bunch of enthusiasts… She'd started playing more because of them, and she'd tried out for the team, following Nadine. She would tell anyone herself that she'd never believed in a million years that the coaches would pick her, and when she'd seen her name on that list she'd been stunned. And by the end of high school she was leading the girls' team, one of their star players. He had no idea Coach Wiley had been the one to push for her to get a spot back then.

"Do you think I could borrow these?" Lucas asked, after they'd spent a little while looking through everything his father had brought for him to see. "That might actually be just what I need."

"Need for what?" his mother asked. In all this time, he actually hadn't gotten to tell them about his project, they were all so busy reminiscing. That kind of happened the lot, easily so. The man was attached to a lot of good memories.

Lucas went over everything he had already come up with over the last few days, his hope to do something for Coach Wiley, to note the years he'd spent at that school, all the lives he'd impacted in one way or another, big or small, his included.

He was right. His parents hadn't known he was there that day, that he'd overheard them talking with the coach. He'd never shared with them just how important that moment had been for him, and now to hear it, they were both taken with emotion, thinking back to that time in their family's history. So many years, and so much had changed for all of them… To them, the changes that related to their son specifically could only have a weight all their own.

"If you need anything else for this, you give us a call, or you just come over, alright?" his mother had gotten up, and Lucas had done the same, knowing that 'I need to hug you' face very well.

"I will," he promised her, smiling into her shoulder. He'd never noticed until now… He'd gotten taller than her at some point.

After leaving his parents' house, he'd gotten back in his car, the books left on the seat next to him. He had told himself he would go home and study on this unexpected morning off work, but now that he'd gotten this start with his project, there was another stop he needed to make, and it might well take up the rest of the morning. After that, he'd either be headed into work for the afternoon or he'd get another reprieve and he would get to study after all. Either way, it felt right for him to take this time and put it in service of giving Mark Wiley the thanks he deserved.

He didn't know what to expect of a school on a Saturday morning, but he knew it wouldn't be all empty and locked up. Climbing up the middle school's steps, he had to smile, feeling like he'd taken a trip back through time. How many times had they all sat up here, him and his friends, him and Maya…

He came back out again about an hour later, two boxes stacked in his arms. Loading them into his car, it really felt as though he was locked into this project for better or for worse now. He was already committed to it before, but now he had gone and taken steps enough that he couldn't back down anymore. It was all happening.

He had just enough time to go home and have lunch before he got the call to confirm he was going to be working that afternoon and through to closing. Part of him would have rather stayed behind to start and sort through the material he'd gathered from the school, but he had to go, so all he could do was keep his green journal near at hand, the better to add to his plans as they came. He could already picture the look on Maya's face when she'd see what he'd brought home. It would also mean a lot of the help she had offered him would have to be given from a distance, with the days she'd be spending off in Houston, but that was alright. The two of them had earned their confidence in one another and in their abilities to work through just about anything.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners