December 8th 2019

Chapter 342
His Thoughts of Growing

"You're not going to honk for us to hurry up, are you?" Pappy Joe leaned to look through the driver's side window. Lucas looked up from his phone, half startled.

"What?"

"Just waiting out here?" Pappy Joe asked.

"Uh, no, I just had to write back to Maya," Lucas held up his phone.

"It's going to be crowded in that car, or are you dropping us off first before you pick her up?"

"I'm not, actually. She wrote to let me know she wouldn't be able to make it. Some people called in sick at the restaurant, they're shorthanded, so she offered to stay and work to closing. He would have done the same if he'd been in her position, so he understood why she would, though he would still be just a bit sad at the thought of not seeing her until later tonight, especially after having been in Austin earlier.

"Oh, now that's a shame," Pappy Joe told him. "Well, you'll be in good company tonight," he clapped Lucas' shoulder. He didn't doubt it. "Say," Pappy Joe started, looking back toward the house, to ensure the kids were still inside, before turning to his grandson again, "How did it go at the house today? You were working on the bathroom, weren't you?"

"Yeah, we finished it… after I accidentally ran into my mom at the mall and ended up telling her everything. I took her back to the house, you should have seen Dad's face when he saw her."

Pappy Joe burst out laughing at this, though he quickly reined this back in when he spotted Patty and the Hillard kids were headed their way, carrying some bags and a few containers of things for dinner that night. Lucas finally got out of the car to go and relieve them of some of the load, passing his car keys to Yoda so he'd get the trunk open.

With all passengers and packages in the car, they took off and headed back to the Hillard house. When they arrived, they came along just seconds before another car brought Aunt Dot and Uncle Emmett along to complete the dinner lineup. They all made their way inside, which made for a long stretch of people meeting up, catching up… A few times, Lucas was asked where Maya was, and he explained about the restaurant and her working overtime.

There were fifteen of them at dinner that night, which meant a lot of noise, a lot of activity, a lot of food, and little to no awareness of the passage of time. Before they knew it, the Cassidys were on their way back to Austin, and Lucas was once again bound for his grandparents' house, as he drove them home. He actually still had some time to kill before Maya would be done at the restaurant, not a lot, but enough that he was wrangled into coming in for a while.

"I bet you're looking forward to getting home after the day you've had," Patty told Lucas as she filled three glasses with her lemonade and passed them around the table. Lucas hesitated to answer, trying not to look as though he was checking his grandfather's face even as he… checked his grandfather's face, to know if she was saying what he thought she was saying. "Oh, I know about all that," Patty cleared this up at once, smiling at him as he turned to his grandfather again. He only looked a tiny bit apologetic.

"She won't tell," he insisted, indicating his wife.

"That's a promise," Patty concurred, nodding back at Lucas, who by now had little to no resistance to the realization that yet one more person had been moved into the 'aware' column. After his mother that morning, how could he even say anything except…

"I know," he nodded at her, and she smiled, reaching over to pat his hand.

"And now that I know, now that you know that I know, I have to say, I think it is just about the sweetest thing I've ever heard." Lucas bowed his head in thanks, even as his grandfather made a noise like 'well what about us, dear?' which made Patty laugh and press a kiss to the inside of her fingers before pressing them to her husband's cheek. Lucas had never seen his grandfather so appeased, and it might have been the sweetest thing he'd ever seen. "Maya told me how you were going into Austin almost every weekend for some kind of surprise for your mother, but now that makes a whole lot of sense all of a sudden, doesn't it?"

"Is that all she said?" Lucas couldn't help but ask. The professor was like a direct line to Maya when he wasn't around, she shared a lot with her, he knew.

"Yes, although she has also been wondering what exactly this surprise might be that it would take so much time," his grandmother revealed. But she didn't suspect what was really going on, or at least if she did she never mentioned it to her professor.

All these ways of referring to the same woman, her professor, his grandmother, and with him finding himself recounting his proposal plan to the woman, Lucas was hit with a sudden realization that warmed his heart all at once. From day one, as soon as Patty Robinson had come into her life, Maya had felt a connection to the woman, had been inspired by her, and in the years that followed, this inspiration was validated over and over again. Even now, as they were preparing to graduate and move back to Austin, there was never any doubt that, in one way or another, Patty Robinson would continue to be a mentor to Maya. Except now, he realized, there was something else, too.

Maya took great pleasure, right from the moment they'd learned that the professor and Pappy Joe had gotten married, in referring to Patty as 'your grandma.' But now, by virtue of one marriage and then another in the offing, it would soon be that Patty Robinson would essentially be Maya's grandmother as well… She was family to him already, and she would be to Maya in time… and family was everything, to all of them.

"Did he show you the attic?" Lucas asked Patty. Pappy Joe was one of the few out there who actually had photos of the work they'd been doing on the house, and he was guarding them with great focus and intent.

"You made the attic?" Patty pressed a hand to her heart, looking to her husband, so clearly she hadn't known. Pappy Joe gave a nod, taken with that slow, sort of faraway look, as his mind, like Patty's, went out to the little girl he'd lost, so many years ago now. Of course, he would have told her all about it. He would probably have told her parts of that story he hadn't told his grandson, and maybe even his son, either, told her the tale of his Annabeth and the loss of her.

He pulled out his phone, brought up the photos which Lucas had taken himself, in part to let his grandfather see how it all looked, as he couldn't head up himself. He had taken part in the construction of the attic, in what way he could, and that was enough.

Lucas told them about the desk that Dot was making for Maya, recalling the image Alex had shown him in the car earlier. The day really had been a long one, hadn't it? Patty was right, he couldn't wait to be home, with Maya. It was very nearly time for him to leave and head to the restaurant. He finished his glass and told his grandparents as much, so his grandfather got up to walk him back to his car.

"You're okay with all the work we've done on the house, right?" Lucas asked him as they went. Pappy Joe looked at him.

"It's your house now, Lucas. You can do to it whatever you want," he told him. Lucas opened his mouth to reply. "I know what you're going to say, because your mom and your dad raised you right, and I would answer the same. That being said, everything you've done so far, I think that old house has never looked better." Lucas smiled, glad to hear it. "I went into that house a newlywed," Pappy Joe reflected. "Then we had your dad, and our Anna… I know it's easy to look at it and say 'he ended up alone in there.' Your dad left and made his own family, as he well should, and your grandmother, my Susannah… We had some good years me and her before she passed, and then yeah, I was alone, except I wasn't. We made memories together, and some of them made me sad, some made me angry, but the rest was all the happiness I could hope to have and then some."

He paused, and Lucas imagined he was thinking of this new, unexpected happiness he had discovered now, with Patty.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I gave you that house for a reason. I could have sold it all, made a pretty penny, gone off to make what I could of the years I've got left, but I passed it on to you. I did that because I want for you and for Maya to have that for your future. You deserve it, Lucas, both of you deserve it all and then some." Lucas didn't know what to say. The best he could do was to reach over and give his grandfather the embrace he deserved. "Besides, I know you two got good taste, and you won't wreck the place." It made Lucas laugh, and he thanked Pappy Joe before getting in the car, waving at him, and taking off on his way to pick up Maya.

The day felt like it had been going on for a week. Early this morning he'd taken off, driven from Houston to Austin, chatted with Sam Hart before the dad bros showed up and they could start work on the bathroom. Then he'd needed to go to the mall and he'd run into his mother, and the two of them had talked a while, he'd told her the truth. He'd taken her to the house, showed her around. Then he'd finished that bathroom with his father, and he'd driven back to Houston with three cousins in tow. He'd picked up his grandparents with three more cousins along for the ride. They'd all had a chaotically wonderful dinner, and then he'd made a stopover at his grandparents', and now… finally, now… he was going to see Maya again, picking her up from an extra-long day of work. If they didn't both fall asleep the minute they got home, it would be a miracle.

He thought of his grandparents again as he drove. They had been so lucky to find one another as they'd done. That was the easy way to put it, but to him it felt like much more. Of all the circumstances that needed to happen, in the time that it had taken to even arrive at this point, for Joe Friar and Patty Robinson to meet one another when they could become to each other what they'd both needed… It was telling him everything he could wish to know about fate. Now, he contemplated all the things that had needed to happen to bring him and Maya to where they would be on the first of June, and he couldn't wait to see her face again, to hold her in his arms and feel the love in his heart just rising and rising in him.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners