February 14th 2021
Chapter 45
Our Family With Branches
The days leading up to the arrival of the group out of Tucson had not gone down in any way as they had been expected to go. Even as Maya was home, making calls, and arrangements, all looking ahead to this latest bit of Sleepster fun, Lucas was getting a call from the Sandersons, asking him to come along and get a look at Trooper as soon as possible.
He'd been expecting this call for a while now, honestly, they all had, but it didn't make it any easier. Doctor Alvarez couldn't get away from the ranch, so Lucas called his aunt and asked if she might meet him there. It wasn't that he didn't know what he'd need to do, whatever the situation may be, but this was old Troop, and he couldn't see himself going out there on his own. With the promise that she'd meet him out there within the hour, Lucas took off from Sullivan Stables and headed to the farm.
Missy's grandfather was waiting for him at the gate when he drove up, and they walked over to the stable as Lucas was caught up further. He'd been seeing the deterioration in his visits, which were twice every day lately. Just this morning, he'd started to think maybe things were improving, though on the whole that just felt like wishful thinking. When he came and found the old horse, all that improvement had faded away and taken its wishes with it. This would be the end of the line for dear Troop.
Doctor Tanya Hillard arrived promptly, as promised, to find her nephew sitting with the horse, brushing at his back and talking to him. It took Lucas a moment to pull his attention away and see her, at which point he discovered that she hadn't come alone.
"This is Mateo, from the shelter. He asked if he could observe, if that's alright?" Tanya explained. Lucas remembered her mentioning him before, how he was also on his way to becoming a vet, though only in his second year of college at this point and with many more years ahead of him. It reminded Lucas at once of how she had enabled him to learn through her, when he'd worked at her clinic in Houston, and he appreciated the notion very much.
"Of course," he finally nodded, stretching out his hand to shake with the young man, who came up and offered his hand with a nod.
There was not much to be done for Trooper beyond exactly what Lucas had already been able to take in since he'd arrived. For that, he was really glad he had his aunt nearby. He was able to step out of one position and take on another, to just be a friend to Troop and a representative of his late grandmother, staying with him until the end.
After they'd taken him away, Lucas, Tanya, and Mateo had been invited into the house by Mrs. Sanderson for something to drink and eat. Lucas was going to stay until Missy came home from school, so he might talk to her. She would take the loss hard. She'd been looking after Trooper as much as him, maybe even more. She would have wanted to be there with him when he went, but she was in school and that was where she had to be.
When he happened to look out the window and spotted a girl coming toward the house, he thought it would be her, but then he realized the hair was blond, and the face was not dissimilar to his wife's, and he moved to the door to meet Cara.
"Hey, what are you…"
"I was on my way home and I saw your car was there, and your aunt's, too. It's Troop, isn't it?" she asked. He could only nod, and Cara's face softened into sadness. "I'm so sorry," she told him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he nodded, that one small word loaded with feelings, saying something closer to 'I will be.' He thought of his aunt, and the assistance she'd given, which led him to look back at her, off in the Sandersons' kitchen. They could just see them all out there.
"Hi, Dr. Hillard," Cara waved at her, as Tanya stood from her seat to come and greet her back, which soon brought the others from the kitchen as well. "I was going to call you, actually. We have shows coming up, me and the band, and I was wondering if we could bring Maggie to one of them. I know she wanted to go to one. She could stay backstage with someone, I checked."
"I will discuss it with Hank and let you know," Tanya told her, her smile gracious even as she looked unsure about sending her eleven-year-old out there.
"These are the dates, here," Cara reached into her bag and pulled out a small flyer, which Lucas recognized from the stack destined to be displayed and passed around the university. It took him back to the days when Maya and the others would do the same, at the school in Houston.
"Thank you, oh… Mateo, would you like one of these, too?" Tanya asked, remembering the boy, standing behind her.
"Sure," he said, spying Cara for the first time even as she noticed him.
To say the seconds were charged as she extended another bright blue sheet over to him was an understatement. But then, almost as soon as the paper left her hand and he turned it about in order to read it, she gasped, like she'd suddenly remembered…
"Oh, practice! I gotta go! Uh, see you at the house, and keep me posted, and so sorry about Troop, and nice to meet you… Bye!" Cara rattled off her farewells to Lucas, Tanya, Mrs. Sanderson, and Mateo respectively before bolting out the door. She could just be seen jogging back on to the lane and off toward the house.
Over the days that followed, Lucas had to say a lot of what happened that afternoon at the Sanderson house continued to feel present and important. The leading event, for him most of all, of course, was the loss of Trooper. When he'd come home after leaving the farm and told Maya about the old horse, she'd had this flash over her face, like even though she'd known it would happen soon… it still hurt a great deal. He'd spent the vast majority of that evening with Marianne in his arms, and she'd been particularly cuddly with her dear dad, to his great comfort.
The morning after, when he'd gotten in his car to head to the ranch, he'd started to slow as he passed the farm, as he would usually do when he prepared to turn in and go check on Trooper… and he remembered. He didn't need to do that anymore. Now, all he could see was the look on Missy Sanderson's face when she'd come home from school the day before. She'd seen him, and she'd known, and she'd dropped her school bag on the porch before bolting out to the stable. Lucas had gone after her, found her sitting there, holding Troop's blanket and crying. There was little else to do than to sit with her and put his arm around her shoulders, holding her as she quietly processed the news. She'd devoted so much of herself into Troop's care, and now that he was gone, she didn't know how to cope. That morning as he passed the farm, Lucas wondered if he might talk with Juliet and see if they could hire on any extra help, like a teenage girl who was so caring and intuitive with one horse, so why not others? By the time he'd come back that afternoon, he had the approval for him to make the approach.
Missy had jumped at the chance. She knew enough to understand where this had to come from, but she appreciated it a great deal and looked forward to starting, which would happen a few days after the sleepover.
Another thing that would be happening after the sleepover was the first of the TXNY shows the band had recently booked. A couple days after she'd received the flyer, Tanya Hillard had called back at the house to tell Cara – and Maya and Lucas – that she and Hank had agreed to let Maggie go to one of the shows, as offered. Arrangements had been made so that Maya would go with her, and the two of them would watch from backstage. The girl had not been told yet, but she would know soon, and they foresaw great giddy excitement. Maggie's older sisters, Sarah and Evie, had been the first in the Hillard household to follow the band, before they'd even known of their very close family connection to its lead singer. Maggie herself had been all of four years old when she'd first met Lucas and Maya, but she'd appreciated TXNY's music, nonetheless. In the past year or so, that appreciation had grown exponentially.
As to the other thing which had happened at the Sanderson farm a few days back, well… Lucas had actually forgotten about it for a while, after he'd gone and comforted Missy before heading home. It had completely slipped his mind, right up until the day before, when Maya returned home with Cara and Marianne from some pre-Sleepster supply errands. Cara had gone dashing up the stairs without a word, phone in hand, while Maya followed with the baby in her seat. She had this smirk on her face, which begged an explanation.
"Something weird happened at the grocery store," she started.
"Weird how?" he asked, and his thoughts must have gone the way of someone approaching her in some uncomfortable manner. She waved this notion off at once.
"I think Cara might have met a guy," Maya smiled, looking up the stairs in case her sister was still hanging around. "I had to take Marianne for a diaper change, and when I came back, she was talking to one of the stock boys, I think he's new…"
"Long curls, undercut?" Lucas asked, earning himself a look of intrigued surprise like 'you know something, and you have not told it to me?' "Sounds like Mateo. He works at the shelter with my aunt, he was at the farm the other day, when she came for Trooper. Cara stopped in when she saw I was there, and he was there, there was a thing with the flyers…"
"A thing? What thing?" Maya asked, with just a twinge of that old matchmaker rising up.
"Like… electricity?" Lucas shook his head as he searched for the word. Hearing this, Maya looked caught between excitement and apprehension, something seemingly inevitable when it came to a sibling's potential love life. They had certainly encountered that rollercoaster with Sam and Cecilia and Dora in the last few years, much as that had all settled by now.
Whatever had happened in that moment at the grocery store, it was likely far out of Cara's mind now, as she looked forward to her siblings' arrival. Maya would be off with her, to pick them up from the airport, the Hart-Lane kids and the Chen girls all together. Meanwhile, Lucas was on his way to get Maggie and Henry Hillard, newly inducted into the Sleepster ledger, before continuing on for the little Hunters and other attendees.
"Cara wanted to know if she could tell Maggie about the show this weekend," Lucas whispered to his aunt as they waited for the kids to come down again with their bags.
"Yes, absolutely," Tanya smiled. "You know, when we moved out here, I was worried that those two would struggle to find their way, but they've been adjusting very well. Maggie really blossomed thanks to the music, and I think it's rubbed off on Henry, too. They've been so looking forward to this sleepover all week."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
