December 10th 2019

Chapter 344
Their Run Toward the Line

Much as it should have hit them all earlier than this, Maya found herself really grasping that it was all coming to an end, that Saturday in May before their final week of classes.

It was her morning off, and she was preparing for what be her last two days of field work, and it was just… the end of the line. Soon, there would be no more of Miss Samuelson's classes, or days at the university, as student or TA, and soon after that, no more Houston… She knew that some of this feeling should be seen as a good thing, that the only reason it all affected her and the others so much was that it had all been kind of wonderful. They were times worth missing.

Her computer screen alerted her, in that familiar tone, that she had a call coming in, and she looked with a smile to find it was Abigail, or at least someone at the house using the computer while she was logged on. In fact, the face that appeared belonged to the one member of the family who didn't have his account.

"Captain," Maya greeted her little brother with a nod. It made him giggle.

"Maya, it's me," Wyatt 'clarified.'

"Oh, sorry," she replied, as though to say 'what was I thinking, of course it's you.' "How are you, Wyatt?" she asked, setting down her pen and pulling the laptop a bit closer.

"Hungry," her brother informed her. Maya looked at the time, fearing for a moment that she might have lost track and risked being late for work. It was just after ten here, which meant it would be just after nine for him…

"Didn't you have breakfast, bud?" she asked. He shook his head. "How come?"

"We're going out to the restaurant," he told her.

"Oh, that's nice," Maya smiled.

"Yeah!" Wyatt agreed. "Emma is coming, too, and her brother, and her dad," he went on to inform her. Maya tried not to let her surprise show.

Emma was Eliza's friend from school, who had an older brother, Teddy, a year older than Cara. They'd lost their mother two years ago and were being raised by their father, James Lane. Maya knew all of this, although her context was likely different from her brother's, or any of her siblings' at this point. Emma's dad was just Emma's dad to them, but to Maya he was the man Abigail had quietly been starting to see over the course of the last several weeks. And to her knowledge, this was the first time the eight of them would end up around a table together, or even all in the same room at once.

If that was happening now, then things between Abigail and James had to be going well, enough that they felt secure in telling the kids. She had no idea how this was going to go. She sincerely hoped that it would go well, for the kids' sake as much as their parents.

The closer they were getting to the end of the school year, to summer, Maya would find herself with just so much to think about, and only half of it had anything to do with school. On this side, she had the end of her classes, as student, and TA, and in her field work, and then she had finals, and by the end of the month she'd have graduation. After that… After that, there'd be Zay and Nadine's wedding, and Sam's high school graduation… She would be working her last shifts at the restaurant, several of them would be packing up to move back to Austin, which meant that this summer would be about settling in, finding work, getting everything all set for the fall, where her boyfriend would be starting at a new school, and her brother would be living with them and… also starting at a new school, while she – hopefully – would be kicking her work… somewhere. Her degree would be all good and great, but she was well aware that there was some chance she wouldn't get hired by a school just yet, in which case she needed to have backups.

It was stressful, that part more than any other, she had to admit. How could it not? She had found the thing she wanted to do, the thing she wanted to be, to make of her life, and she had worked hard to make it happen. She was right there, at the top of her class, something she would never have predicted, not in a million years, when she was younger. She was there, but it might not even matter, not in the grand scheme of things. This had left her to consider what else she might do with her shiny new degree. It did afford her some other directions to explore, and she might be happy with those, genuinely so… She just didn't want to end up feeling anything like regret, knowing she could have ended up somewhere other than where she'd envisioned she'd be.

Later on, after hanging up with Wyatt and working on her final field days' plan, she'd gone down and had a quick lunch before climbing back up to the room to get changed for work. She was right in the middle of getting her hair into a braid when the laptop alerted her to another call coming in. Turning halfway, with her hair strands captured in her hands, she saw that this call was coming from Cara. With a sigh, she let go of her hair, already feeling the whole braid start to fall apart as she went and connected the call. There was her sister's face, framed with what she recognized as one of the local breakfast restaurants back in Tucson, where they would often go.

"Hey, I can't talk long, okay? I have to get ready for work. How are you?" she asked as she sat down at her desk. She could just see conflict in her sister's face, like something in her wanted to scream, but another counseled for her to side with peace. "So, how'd it go?" Maya sighed, seeing no sense in continuing with the pretence that she had no idea what was working its way through Cara's mind at the moment. This made her blink in surprise.

"You knew about him?" Cara asked. It wasn't entirely accusatory, but there was definitely a hint of 'how come she told you and she didn't tell us and neither did you?'

"What did your mother say?" Maya asked patiently. She needed to know what Cara and the others were working with before she could say anything… It was a good thing she tended to err on the side of caution as far as showing up at work on time. She was due to start at one, but she'd be there at twelve thirty. Today though, depending on how this conversation went, she might be cutting it close.

"She said…" Cara started slowly, looking around. Was she in the bathroom? "Well, they both were saying things. Mr. Lane said that he had asked Mom out a couple months ago, and then she said how she didn't say yes at first, because she didn't want to do anything unless she was sure. But then she said that she really thought she should give him a try, so they went out on a date. And then they went out on another one, and another one, and now she says they're serious enough that they had to tell us." She stopped here, letting out a breath and looking back to her sister with uncertainty deep in her eyes.

"We talked about this over the holidays, remember?" Maya told her in a light tone. Cara nodded quietly. There hadn't been a Mr. Lane or anyone else on the horizon at the time, but one day, when they'd been together, Cara had brought up the idea of what happened if her mom ever got married again. Maya had asked her if she would be okay if she did, and Cara had given a very vague sort of 'I guess' before reiterating that she wanted her to be happy, of course she did. She had not anticipated that it would happen so fast, more like a few years down the road.

"It's barely been a year," she finally spoke.

"Cara, it's just dating, okay?" Maya smiled at her. "Nothing bigger than that right now, isn't that what they said?" Another small nod. "I know it all sounds impossible from where you're standing, but… that's just how it happens, most times. You never expect you're going to meet someone that's going to make you feel something like that, and then boom, it happens." I was just going into school, first day, and there was this boy… "Whether or not things get really serious with them, it was important, for your Mom and Mr. Lane, that you all knew the truth, wasn't it?" Another nod. "How is he? Is he nice?"

"Yeah…" Cara replied, the answer coming so easily as to be undeniable. "He's funny."

"Is he?" Maya asked, smirking. It tugged a smile on her sister's face.

"He does voices when he tells stories, Eliza said so after she had her sleepover at Emma's house. And Eliza had told that to Wyatt, too, so when we were all sitting down out there, he asked Mr. Lane if he could do alien voices. So, he did this whole bit like he was an alien and he would pick up things from the table like he wanted to know what they were. Wyatt laughed so hard his face was all red, and now he wants him to come and play in the spaceship with him."

"That's great," Maya laughed, just imagining how much her little brother would have lit up. "How did the others react? Not to the voice thing, but…"

"I don't know, Wyatt always kind of understands everything than us," Cara told her. "He likes Mr. Lane, so that's all he cares about right now. And Eliza and Emma are best friends now, and if this goes on then they get to be sisters and it's like that's all they can think about. I think Teddy knew, like he found out without his dad telling him. He goes to my school, you know? But he's a year higher than me."

"That's what I heard," Maya nodded.

"Sam's doing that thing where you can't tell what he's thinking. He's good at pretending." There was just a bit of double meaning in this. Maya knew Cara had been upset, back when she'd realized what was going on with their father, when she'd understood that Sam already knew. She hadn't gotten mad at Maya about it, but Sam was different, he'd been her brother all her life, he was in their house…

"I'll talk to him, okay?" Maya promised. Cara looked at her again, hesitating for a moment before speaking what had been on her mind.

"Wyatt's going to forget him, isn't he?" Definitely going to be late for work…

"I don't think so," Maya leaned in toward the screen, like that would somehow bring her and her sister closer together. "He was five, yeah, but he's got all of us to help him remember, and pictures, and videos… No one's going to forget Dad, okay? Just like no one's going to forget Teddy and Emma's mom…" It was a light nudge, but Cara looked at her like she got the message. They weren't alone in this, she wasn't alone in this. She had her brothers and sisters to talk to, and she had the Lane kids, too. "I know you miss him a lot. I miss him, too," Maya told her, absently reaching up when she felt her eyes stinging. "And that's okay, Carebear…" Her sister gave her a nod, clear blue eyes welling up, too. "I'm going to come to Tucson to see you guys as soon as I can, yeah?"

"When?" Cara nodded again.

"Uh… two weeks? Two weeks, yeah…"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners