January 29th 2021
Chapter 29
Our Cheers For December
Just the day before, Maya and Lucas had found themselves debating what was in many ways a very odd and not entirely solvable question. More to the point, it was something they felt very strongly about and expected no one else to care about.
"So, since she was born on the 31st, but there are only thirty days in November, is she a month old today or tomorrow?" Maya asked. She was laid out on her side, on the bed, with Marianne there at her side, as she held the baby's hand in hers. Sitting at his desk, where he was finishing up reading through an article Doctor Alvarez had sent him, Lucas swiveled in his chair, smiling to see the two of them out there.
"Uh... I'm not sure, I mean... It's like you said, she was born on the last day of the month, so... Technically, when she gets to the end of the next month..."
"Yeah, but if I tell you to do a thing, one month from now, it'll be the 30th again, won't it? So... won't that mean it's tomorrow?" She was looking at him now, with an expression that read 'I swear, I'm actually smart, I don't know why I'm getting hung up on this.' They would in time accept that some things would go and challenge their reasoning when it came from some parental place.
"I guess... it'll be whatever we decide it will be?" he suggested. The more he stopped to think about it, he was really feeling himself spiraling with her, and they were better off bailing out while they could. "What do you think it should be?"
Maya pondered this, looking back to their daughter even as she looked at her, too, and she just had to lean in and kiss her little cheek, and her fingers after that, as she stretched out her hand.
"How is she already a month old though?" she breathed out, her heart feeling massive in her chest.
She was still considering the question that next morning of December 1st, as she finished developing the photos that they'd taken that previous afternoon of Marianne, still on the bed, with the small sign Maya had made for her: Marianne at 1 month. She could do as many drawings and paintings as she wanted, but this, immortalizing their baby girl and how she was at this time in her life... The camera brought that reality together. She had been with them for a month already, and it had been beyond wonderful.
It had also been a month since Maya's grandmother came to live with them, and that had been its own kind of wonderful. So much of her family... all of it beside her mother... had come into her life later on, through any number of circumstances, each one requiring some level of adjustment, of discovering what it was that solidified them as family beyond blood. Elizabeth Hart had been back in her life now for about five years, yes, and they had spoken countless times, had seen one another several times, too. But she had always been far enough away that it was difficult to see her as who she might be on the day to day, which really was important, in some aspects.
It was much like she'd been doing with the Clutterbuckets, since they had come out here to look after the little Hunters, it was like... like she was learning to be a granddaughter. And she kind of loved it.
"Tell me now, what is your position on Christmas decorations here?" Elizabeth asked, after Maya showed her the photos. She had made a few copies of it, knowing others would like to have one. Her grandmother was absolutely one of those. She would look to the genuine article, there in her arms, and then to the photo, as though to tell Marianne, "See? This is you."
"As in do we have any?" Maya asked with a laugh. "We almost need a whole separate room for them," she joked.
"No, no, but good," Elizabeth laughed along, touching her arm. "I meant the date, when you will be putting them out, and the tree, too."
"Oh," Maya smiled now. "Well, we tend to go the way of wanting them up as soon as possible… but at least waiting for December," she explained. "What about you, when do you do it?"
"Well, Chuck was not one for excess when it came to the holidays. We'd have the tree, natural, but not until Christmas Eve. Used to drive your father and your aunt crazy, having to wait," she recalled, paused in reflection for a moment before letting out a breath, looking to the baby and then to Maya. "The first Christmas I spent in Arizona, with Luna and her girls, everything went up, in the night of the 30th, so when they woke up on the 1st of December it was as though a fairy had come in the night. You should have seen their faces," she beamed, recalling it herself.
To Maya, the message was clear. Her grandmother had embraced this reverse attitude in the past few years, and she looked forward to carrying this on here as well. She was very much on board.
"We were thinking of tackling it all over next weekend. I'm taking Marianne to the high school on Friday, then after that..." she gestured around the house. Her grandmother was pleased to hear it. "I know it's too early for all that now, but do you think Luna will mind if I copy her trick in a couple years?" she smiled.
"No, I think she'd be thrilled," Elizabeth laughed.
"Great. Now, until then, we do try and have one new thing every year, although it's Marianne's first Christmas, too, so we might go a bit overboard..." Maya admitted with a smile somehow as sheepish as it was self-assured. "But I'm thinking maybe you and I and Grangie might go shopping for some holiday goodies this week..." she suggested now, and she had an immediate yes from Granny Lizzie.
It had only been a month since she had come along, but Maya was almost sure she saw something like indecision in her grandmother. When she had suggested her coming to stay with them, her intention had been to be here only for a little while, maybe a few months, before returning to Tucson with Luna and Abigail and the kids.
But now, if Maya was seeing it all correctly, it just might be that a part of her wanted to stay here for good, a part big enough to approach some majority over a return to her daughter's home. She may not have known her that well, or at all, until the last handful of years, but she could see something like that holding some weight over her. Another thing she shared with her Clutterbucket grandparents was this shadow of regret hanging over her, over the distance she'd permitted to exist between herself and her children. She'd been making up for some of that in Tucson, with Luna and her daughters, and with Kermit's children and widow, too. But what about Kermit's first born, the one whose creation had started it all? She felt she owed Maya some of that, too. Well, maybe not owed, but... They both deserved this thing they'd been denied by circumstances. They deserved to be a family, too. And she was a connection to the father she'd lost, wasn't she?
"Can I ask you something?" Maya turned to her grandmother, a few days later, as they went to get in the car after getting Marianne into her seat. Elizabeth looked to her granddaughter, with casual curiosity. "If I asked you to stay with us, just stay, not because either Lucas or I don't feel we can look after Marianne on our own but just because it's good, having you here... Would you? I know all the others back in Tucson are probably looking forward to having you back, and I'd never want to get in the middle of that, but I still want to... make my claim, I guess. I'd love it if you stayed with us," she nodded.
Her grandmother took this in now, and she stood staring back at her with just the spark of a tear in her eyes. Finally, she just... breathed... and she moved up to her granddaughter, enveloped her in her arms, and there was her answer.
She would tell Lucas about it all that night when he came back from the ranch. Of course, before she'd ever told or asked anything of her grandmother, she had discussed it with Lucas. There had been very little reason for her to think he would say no, but she had to ask it all the same. This was installing a new resident into their household, as permanently as life would permit. It wasn't as though they hadn't been functioning that way ever since they had lived in this house. They'd had Sam, and then Cara after him, and then who knew what would happen when Maya's younger siblings started looking at colleges? They might come to the conclusion that Austin was the place to be, like Sam and Cara had done.
She didn't even need to say the words. Maybe it was just there in her face, as soon as she'd started with 'I've been thinking...' He had filled in the blanks in the same breath as he'd shown his agreement, and that had been that.
She couldn't exactly say that it had already become a habit for her to find herself spending time with both her grandmothers together, though naturally it had been happening more and more, with the two of them living in Austin now, one of them at her parents' house and the other at her own.
She definitely remembered the first time it had happened, the first time the two women had met. It was just a bit surreal, wasn't it? These two had shared so much in their respective lives without knowing one another. They had lost touch with a son and daughter, and for that they didn't get to know their granddaughter until she'd reached adulthood. Much as their stories were varied by circumstances, it did not change the years they had spent without Katy and Kermit, or how they would find the other woman to be someone they could sympathize with like few others would.
They did spend time together, beyond those times when Maya had been there to see it, though it had not happened right away. She hadn't known why at first, not until Angela had confessed her initial apprehension. She wished she didn't have this feeling in her, she did.
It was not one she had cultivated for years and years, it couldn't have been, because she never knew, not until after Katy had come back into her life and shared her story. It was as though she'd been trying to get hold of her daughter all this time, in all the years since she'd run away from home, and then she discovered that there had been a time, a chance, for someone to catch her hand as she sailed by, to keep her safe, to maybe get her back home to her. Instead, she'd allowed her to keep on floating away, for more than twenty years. How could she not feel even a little thrown by that knowledge?
It didn't affect her nearly so much anymore, really not at all, and Maya could say without a doubt that the credit went to time, to perspective, but most of all to Marianne. Those two women loved their great granddaughter like she was the best thing in the world, and that shared love just sort of radiated out, and let them breathe, and focus on the joys of the present more than the pain from the past. Now, this year, spending Marianne's first Christmas with the both of them, Maya felt deeply how this would be one of their most memorable holidays yet.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
