May 1st 2020

Chapter 122
Their Rally Around Truth

By the end of the night, it really got to feel as though the news about the impending arrival of a Hart-Lane baby had cleared away any and all anxieties Maya or Lucas might have had about hosting the year's Thanksgiving dinner. The only one who was possibly affected in a different way was Maeve, who now found herself having more difficulty over keeping her own baby secret when the main topic of conversation seemed to revolve around babies. The parents around the table all had their specific points of view on experiences and what it would be like for those two, starting all over again at their age, and with all those grown and growing kids in their midst already. For once, Maya and Lucas were more than happy to field the looks they were getting, like a number of people at their table was growing eager toward the eventuality of grandchildren or great grandchildren.

Maeve made it through with her secret intact, though shortly after dinner she claimed she needed to get going and Lucas drove her home before returning to find the rest of their guests were getting ready to head out as well, with two of them looking to a long drive back to Houston, and others with a quartet of young children in need of bed time. Goodbyes were said, and soon enough it was just the two of them and the dogs. Most of the picking up had been done already, something Lucas knew would have been spearheaded by his mother.

"Was Maeve okay?" Maya finally got to ask.

"Hard to say," Lucas scratched at the back of his head. "She didn't really talk on the drive out to her place. I tried to get her talking at first, but it wasn't getting anywhere so I let her be."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Maya nodded. "I can only imagine what she must have been feeling like. It's kind of my fault, I should have known not to tell everyone about Abigail, not when she was there and…"

"It's not like that," Lucas promised her, moving over to put his arms around her waist, which made her smile as she looked to him. "So, another sibling, huh?" It didn't matter that they shared no blood whatsoever, so there was no need of questioning whether this would be a new brother or sister to her.

"I'm starting to lose count," Maya laughed. "Four, and four, and two, now one more... That's twelve of us now, which is just crazy to think about, isn't it? From solo to a dozen… and every one of them I love, every one of them… they just make me better," she couldn't stop smiling, maybe even cry a bit, and Lucas was right there to sweep those happy tears dry.

"Between her, and Maeve, and whenever Zay and Nadine trying… that's a lot of…" Lucas was cut off as they heard the key in the door and turned to find Sam had returned from Cecilia's.

"Hey!" Maya went toward him. "How was it out there?" Her brother looked like a kid who'd been busted coming in after curfew, which he wasn't in any way.

"Huh? Oh… it was good," he replied. "I should get to bed, I have a lot of work to do tomorrow," he went on, moving up the stairs. Archer barked and followed after him. Lucas and Maya looked to one another.

"Was it too good to be true to think trouble was behind us?" Maya frowned.

"I'm not sure that's what that is," Lucas told her.

"What is it then?"

"Well, earlier, when we were on the call and Abigail said about the baby, I could have sworn I saw this look go over Sam's face. I don't know what it was exactly, but it was almost like he was upset. He looked fine after that, and then Cecilia's dad came to pick him up and he was gone, but now… I don't know."

"You think he's unhappy about the new sibling?" That hardly sounded like Sam, who was a stellar big brother all around, whether it was to the siblings he had grown up with, or the ones he had gotten via his mother's second marriage, or even to the young Hunters, who were only siblings to him by virtue of their being his sister's siblings. They were as much family to him as any of the rest, and they loved him like a brother, too. So why would this one be any different?

"I don't know what he's feeling, we haven't talked about it," Lucas pointed out, and the look passing between them said it all: maybe they should talk about it with him. "Should we wait until tomorrow?" Maya considered this for a moment before taking a deep breath and letting it out.

"If we wait, we're leaving him to a bad night's sleep. If we go…"

"We might not fix it, but at least we'll have tried?" he guessed. Maya nodded.

So, they made their way up to Sam's room, only to find that he wasn't in it. He wasn't in the bathroom either, but then the attic door was open, and as Maya climbed up the steps, she spotted her brother sitting on the bean bag, looking into the telescope view, pointed toward the window in the roof.

"Last minute stargazing?" Maya asked. Sam didn't look away.

"I come up here sometimes, helps me sleep when I look out there for a little while," he replied. Maya climbed up the rest of the way, Lucas behind her, and the two of them went and sat on either side of Sam, waiting silently until he'd look back at them.

"What's on your mind?" Maya asked, lightly prodding her brother's arm.

"Nothing," Sam shook his head.

"You sure about that?" Maya wasn't convinced, and he knew better than to assume that she was. "Did something happen at Cecilia's?" she asked, to rule it out.

"No, everything was good, really. She made the whole turkey on her own, and it was really good. Her father said that she got that from her mother, that after she died he and Cecilia mostly ate take-out or went out to restaurants, because if feeding them was left to him, they would both have starved or been poisoned. Cecilia said that's why she started learning some more about cooking, because she actually got tired of pizza for a while." He smiled as he said all this, so they could believe him when he said that everything had gone well tonight. That was one possibility removed, even though it brought them back to the other hypothesis…

"Is this about your mom?" Lucas slowly asked. Sam looked at him, like he didn't understand what he meant.

"What, because of the baby?" he finally asked. "No, that's great, really. I told Cecilia about it, and we talked for a while trying to decide if I wanted it to be a boy or a girl. If it's a boy, then that'll even it out, four and four, but that's not all that matters. Personally, I could think of a lot of reasons, one way or the other, so really… brother or sister, I'm good," he nodded.

Again, they could tell he was being honest about it, that he was happy about his future sibling. And yet… the hiccup, whatever it was, it definitely had to do with this, they just weren't sure how exactly.

"Don't stay up here too late, okay?" Maya finally told him.

"I won't," he promised, and she scooted over, kissing him on the cheek and briefly hugging him. He hugged her back and then she got up, motioning for Lucas to follow. He clapped Sam's shoulder and left him to his stargazing. The couple left the attic and headed back down to the kitchen.

"What do you think?" Lucas quietly asked.

"You remember when we were figuring out where we would go for college?" Maya responded with a question of her own.

"I do," he nodded. "You had trouble deciding where you were going to go. The twins were like a year old, and you didn't want to… Oh…" Lucas paused as he started to see what she was getting at. Her thought was that the thing that made her brother upset was that he would be out here, in Austin, while his mother went through this pregnancy, and when this new brother or sister would be born, and go through all those early stages, and who knew how much, or whether he or she would be the only one. It would have hit him all at once, him and that fast-thinking brain of his.

"I had a bit of that, too, when MJ came along, and then Haley, but by then we were just two hours away, and we could get back whenever we wanted… mostly… Tucson is a lot closer than New York would have been, but it's still too far for casual visits, and he's sixteen, and in college…"

"So, what do we do?" Lucas wondered.

"I don't know… I don't know that there's anything we can do, not really, short of him transferring off to a school back in Arizona, and I don't think he'd go that far. But…" she trailed off, shaking her head to herself.

"It's going to be on his mind," Lucas fill in the blanks, and Maya turned to him with a sigh. "Like there was any doubt he was related to you," he offered a light joke, which worked well enough in making her laugh just a bit as he held on to her.

"Not a boring day in sight around here, is there?"

"Nope," he smiled down at her. "Turned out pretty well, didn't it? Brother woes aside, secret babies aside…"

"Turkey drama aside?" Maya followed along in the same tone, and Lucas bit back a laugh.

As thankful as Gracie Hunter had been for her spaghetti, which had also been consumed by her father, brother, and little sister, she would keep the others' plates, and her eyes would look as though they were windows to the terrors her classmate had revealed to her. After a while, she'd asked if she could take her plate and go eat somewhere else. She had been asked to stay at the table with the rest of them, so she had spent the remainder of the meal staring into her plate, even after it was emptied, rather than to look anywhere else and see what she didn't want to see. Sitting next to her, Nellie had worked over time to eat her bits of turkey meat so as to make it disappear and allow her twin to at least look at her, but it had only worked so far as to have the two seven-year-olds muttering to one another.

"Yeah, besides all of that, it was a pretty solid day," Maya smiled. "If you ask me, a little drama isn't a bad thing. Makes things memorable."

"I'll definitely remember this one," Lucas agreed.

"Good, I'll quiz you in five years," Maya smirked.

"Ah, and me without my notes," Lucas sighed, which made her chuckle.

"This will reflect poorly on your record," she 'scolded.'

"I have ways to make up for it though…"

"Oh, I know you do," Maya hummed.

When they went back up the stairs to get ready for bed, Maya couldn't help but stop in and check what her brother was up to. Sam had finally left the attic and gone to bed. As far as she could tell, he was asleep, and she hoped that was actually the case. He'd been doing well enough with being away from the rest of his family, but sometimes they couldn't help but remember he was still a kid, and while this place was very much his home, the vast majority of his heart continued to see home as being the place where he had his parents there with him, and the rest of his siblings, too.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners