April 1st 2020
Chapter 92
Their Fall in Days
Lucas had a plan.
This was his last day working at the shelter, with the end of summer meaning he'd be starting back at school in a few days' time. It wasn't as though he'd never be here again, especially after the time he'd spent here over the last couple months. But he wasn't going to know what became of most the animals here, wouldn't get to be involved so closely when he'd been getting to know some of them so well over the weeks. As difficult as that would be in some cases in particular, there was one above all of them he kept thinking about.
All summer long, he'd been hoping to find a home for Shadow. This was his last day at the shelter, and he had made up his mind that this would be the dog's last day here, too. He could have taken him from here from the first day he'd seen him, but he'd resisted the pull up to now. This was the end of that.
"What do you think? You want to get out of here?" Lucas asked, crouching to give his bud some good scratches. Shadow responded with some kisses, making him chuckle. "Just a few more hours."
He'd asked Maya about it, of course. It wasn't like he was bringing home a piece of furniture they hadn't planned on. Bringing home a living thing, a fourth dog, meant a need for consensus.
"Look at that face!" she'd gasped, taking his phone from him, when he'd shown her a picture of Shadow. "How am I only just now seeing that face?" she'd turned a look bordering on affront toward him. He'd explained his whole 'I can't bring every single dog I like home' rule. "Sure, sure," she'd nodded, still smiling at the picture. "But… come on…" she'd thrown in her own set of puppy eyes.
"How would you feel…" he'd started to ask, only to be cut off.
"Yes," Maya had told him, beaming.
"I didn't even ask…"
"Face," she argued back. So, that was that.
Now here they were, and the day was just about done, so he'd gone about starting the process so that when he did leave, Shadow would be coming with him.
"Dad, look! He looks just like Pan!" a girl's voice made him look up. She couldn't have been more than ten, and her eyes had fixed to the dog walking at his side. She came walking up to Shadow, who stared back curiously. "What's his name? Or her name?" she looked up to Lucas.
That was all it took. All at once he knew he wouldn't be bringing the dog home with him… but he would keep his promise to him, that it would be his last day here.
"His name is Shadow," Lucas told her, crouching and then kneeling next to him, scratching at his back. When she heard the name, the girl let out a short gasp and smiled.
"We had another dog before, but he got sick and he had to go to sleep," she told Lucas.
"Sorry to hear that," he told her. He sympathized with her on all that, thinking of his old Dash.
"His name was Pan… because when he was a puppy, he kept trying to jump on people's shadows." At the sound of his name, or near enough, Shadow gave a bark.
"Well, what do you know?" Lucas laughed. "This guy here got his name because he kept following me around, like a shadow." The dog barked again. "Some people thought he had a bad attitude, but I think he just knows who he likes. And right now, him just sitting here like this, I think you should pet him and see what happens."
The girl looked back to the dog, reaching out her hand until he came up and sniffed it. After a moment, he nudged the hand with his nose and she came closer and did as Lucas had suggested.
"All summer, anyone so much as walked up to him, he'd retreat, or he'd growl, unless it was me. Then she came, and it clicked with her, too."
That was what he told Maya, when he came home and she asked where Shadow was. She looked disappointed for a moment, but then she looked at him, and maybe he wore his own disappointment, which felt a lot more like loss, and she decided that it was more important that he felt better.
"He gets to be in a good home," she stated, smiling. Lucas nodded.
"He does." Maya came up to him, putting her arms up around his neck.
"Think of the summer he would have had without you there. Maybe he wouldn't have been where he needed to be by the time that girl showed up." He looked at her, with that smile of hers, and he just chuckled. "Yeah, that's right, I'm good with the words, too," she told him.
"Are you? I had no idea. Hey, Maya, what was The Song of the Summer this year?" he pondered.
"Well, let me think for a second, I think it was…" He didn't let her finish, instead following his natural impulse to want to kiss her when she was being all cute like that.
Lucas knew he wouldn't just go and forget about Shadow just like that, and it would probably take him a few days to settle on the fact that he might never see him again. He wouldn't have much of a choice but to deal with that fact though. In a few days' time, he and Sam and all their college friends would be starting a new semester, a new year, and when that happened he would have to be focused on that and not on the dog. He would have to stop recalling that look on his face, as he'd left with his new owner, Stella, like he was so torn, like he could have been happy no matter which of the two he followed but in the end… maybe he also felt what Lucas had felt, that the girl needed him in her life most of all.
"Do you know what sucks about being in college at my age?" Sam asked Maya and Lucas as the three of them sat to dinner that night. Maya looked like she wanted nothing more than to tease him with a hundred answers, each more ridiculous than the last, but then finally resisted and gave the proper response.
"You tell me."
"I don't get to go through all of that with Cecilia, and Dora, and Adam…" Sam told her. "By the time they'll start college, I'll be almost done."
"Unless you go the same way he did," Maya pointed out, nodding over to Lucas. He chuckled, nodding in agreement. "Or you just study something else for a few years. No one will wonder why you're still there, you won't look a day over Freshman, and we get to keep you around for a while longer. I don't see any downsides here, do you?" she looked from Sam to Lucas and back.
"You'd let me stay that long?" Sam looked surprised. "Not that I'm saying I'd do that, but…"
"What do you mean 'we'd let you?'" Maya almost looked offended.
"Sam, you can stay as long as you want," Lucas chimed in.
"You, me, the golden years," Maya went on, nudging her brother's foot under the table.
"Okay, but before you buy the rocking chairs, can you take me to the bookstore tomorrow? My last textbook finally came in and I want to look through it before the semester starts. I've got that class the first day," Sam told his sister, who got that amused little smirk on her face aptly nicknamed 'I love you, my nerdy little brother' by Lucas.
"I need to pick up a couple of books from mine, too," he mentioned.
"So, maybe we swing by both bookstores tomorrow, make it a road trip, maybe play a round of 'my bookstore is better than your bookstore," Maya smiled, looking to both her college guys. They were on.
Going up to get ready for bed that night, it really felt like summer had officially gotten to the point where it had bowed out, for them anyway. Now they were turned toward the next thing, toward fall and this new school year. It was hard to believe they were already headed into their second year in this house, that Lucas, and Sam, and Dylan and Rosa, all of them were starting their second years at school, whether that was from starting, or restarting, or hitting the next part of their education. But as hard as it was, it was even stranger to think it had been five years since they'd graduated from high school.
There had been rumblings of a reunion possibly happening, until someone had rightly pointed out that five years might have felt too soon. Most of them would just be out of college, some of them still there… No, they would wait another five years, that'd make more sense.
Even so, it had ended up that a lot of them had gotten to see each other the previous spring. They'd decided, those of them who'd been of that same graduating class who had also been around for the homage to Coach Wiley, that they would try and make an effort of being there for the basketball finals every year. So, they'd been there, those of them who could. After the girls' finals – they'd won – they'd ended up sitting out in front of their old high school, reminiscing. Mostly they'd reminisced over basketball, but there was plenty just about school, and senior year, and coming out on the other side of those school years.
"Still thinking about the dog?"
Lucas blinked, realizing he'd been distracted until Maya's voice brought him back.
"What? No… Well, maybe a little, but that's not… I was just thinking about that day after the girls' finals," he explained, which made her smile in understanding. Their unofficial five year reunion…
"That was a good one," she nodded.
"It was," he agreed.
"You know what I liked the best about all that?" He didn't. "When we were all out there together, I'd look around and think about when we were still in high school, and you and me we just knew that… all those years later, we would still be together. The fact that we stood there, all those years later, and it was like 'yeah, of course we're still together, go ahead and check up on us in another five years, we'll be there,'" she nodded confidently. "That felt really good."
"I know just what you mean," he nodded, laughing lightly. "What do you think it'll be like, in five years?" he wondered.
"Oh, well…" Maya considered this. "In five years… Married, finally," she counted off with a smile that he matched. You'll be done with school, maybe working at Sullivan Stables…"
"Maybe," he agreed. He still hadn't made up his mind. It had been right there in the will, that it was up to him, and who knew what he'd decide, in three years' time. "And you will be teaching," he decided to fill in some of that picture himself.
"One can only hope," Maya nodded.
"World renowned songwriter," Lucas added with a smirk.
"Someone's mom," she countered, with a breath and a smile. It warmed his heart, as only she could.
"Someone's mom," he repeated with a tip of the head. "Which will also make me someone's dad," he stated, feeling that little thump in his heart at the thought.
"Is it five years from now yet?" Maya joked, and right then and there Lucas felt much more at peace over Shadow's adoption into another home. It was hard to trouble himself over what might have been when he heard the call of what was to come.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
