March 10th 2021

Chapter 69
Our Night of Bonds

If they were going to make it through the next few hours, at this point, they were going to need help. The daytime ahead already looked as though it would be messy and disjointed, with the time they had spent awake, so they didn't care much about preserving this idea like they were sleeping anytime soon. Maya needed to eat something, and Lucas, too. In no time, there was bread in the toaster, and jars of peanut butter and jam on the counter. Now, they could only wait.

Lucas didn't know how to express what was going through his head and heart at this point, but then there was Maya at his side, and if he knew one thing right now it was that she was in the exact same space as he was. With that in mind, he quietly slipped his arms around her. Just as quietly, she put her own around him, and they held to each other. He kissed the top of her head, kept his own head bowed to hers. He knew, just as she would, somewhere, that Marianne would be okay. He knew that the worrying was all too normal right now, and it would pass on the same way. Until it did that though… there was nothing more to it than this.

"Would it be really too chaotic if we called your mom in the morning… in a couple of hours?" Maya mumbled.

"No, I've been thinking about it, too," Lucas admitted. "Pretty sure if we called her right now, she'd be here in fifteen minutes, tops. Maybe knowing that is enough for right now."

"Yeah, it kind of is," she agreed, then, "Wish I could call my mom and have her here in fifteen minutes."

"I know," he kissed her head again, his hands grazing at her back for comfort. "After this is passed, we should go up to see them for a weekend."

"Genius ideas on no sleep, you're flexing, Huckleberry," Maya informed him.

"Stranger things have happened," he smiled as she turned her eyes up to him.

Her young siblings may have ended up expressing themselves in unexpected fights, and tantrums, when it came to missing their parents, but Maya was not spared, in her own way. She may have been twenty-eight years old, but it didn't mean she suddenly was completely fine with living so far away from her mother and father. Theirs had always been a very special and tightly knit relationship, and it was that exact reason which had allowed her to encourage Katy's departure, and Shawn's going with her. She was out there living her dream, and he was with her, supporting the woman he loved. That they knew that their children were in very safe and loving hands, their lives for the most part undisturbed, had been the reason why they were able to go in the first place, and yet… None of them would presume that the choice had been made easily. It had been the hardest for them, probably. How could any of them get in the way of that, of letting a loved one spread her wings after keeping them tucked in for so long? And she was succeeding out there… She was right where she was supposed to be in this moment.

But the children missed their parents. They all had their reasons, their ways. For Maya… Here she was, a mother herself for the very first time, and it was… so much… made more so by this sudden turn in her music career. Now more than ever, there would be this part of her that desperately wanted and needed her mother and father. On this night especially, as she had to deal for the very first time with her daughter being sickly in any way that felt on the line between safety and danger… It bore down on that childlike part of her, the helplessness. But they were so far away.

"You, me, the pumpkin, your brother and sisters and the grandparents," Lucas declared with a nod, and it lit up her face, just as the toasts came jumping up.

"You PB, I J," Maya instructed, and he nodded at once.

They got to work, each grabbing two of the slices and applying their designated topping. When they were finished, they each exchanged one of these, so they both had one of either kind. Maya pressed hers together into a sandwich, while Lucas ate his one at a time. They stood at the counter the whole time. They could have gone to sit at the table, but that would have felt too much like they were settling in. That wasn't it at all. They would eat, and then they would go right back upstairs to their daughter.

"I should really send that text to Morgan," Maya shook her head. Rather than biting into her 'sandwich,' she would tear off chunks before eating them. "Might still be awake by the time she gets here, who knows, but if I'm not…"

"She should be here in two hours," Lucas pointed out.

"Already?" Maya blinked, looking at the time. She'd seen it, and somehow it hadn't added up to her that they were this near to it. Now that she realized this, she looked to the windows. It wasn't full light out, but… the sun would be up soon. Morning was just on their heels. "Wow…"

"Should be a good sign, right?" he asked, and she gave a quiet nod. Between that thought, and the food, they were really feeling better than they'd done all night. Maybe it was foolish optimism, but they were choosing not to consider it that way. They preferred going down the path of relief.

"Sometimes it still feels so strange to think this is where we all are now, most of us married, most of us parents…" Maya stated. Lucas considered this for a moment as he finished his peanut butter toast.

"You know it'll have been fifteen years this fall since you moved here?" he asked. Now she looked at him, the surprised and amused look on her face letting him know that she hadn't thought of it until he said it. He was right though. September of this year would mark fifteen years since she and her mother had very suddenly found themselves moving from New York to Texas and moved into their little house. Fifteen years since she'd walked into school for the first time and met the man who would one day be her husband and the father to her children, met a handful of people who would stand like cornerstones to her new life and remain as such, all these years later.

"Oh, we really need to do something about that one, too," Maya smiled at him, and Lucas nodded. "All of us, all the kids… Marianne, and Nicky, and Mia, and Giulia and Baby Garcia… Farkle and Isadora need to be here, too, with Ada and Bertie…"

"We're going to need a bigger playpen," Lucas intoned, making her chuckle.

"The rate we're all going, in a few years, who knows…" she went on, and she could see the thought it conjured in his mind right then. They hadn't exactly stopped to consider it all just yet, no sort of plan, which was more than understandable when they were still settling into having Marianne in their lives. Thinking of another baby at this point felt much too soon, didn't it? But whether they had meant to or not, they had settled the idea on the table… or the counter, and to ignore it would feel a bit like inviting misunderstandings.

They were aiming to have more kids, that was never in doubt. Even before they'd formally addressed the subject in any way, it was almost a silent agreement that they both saw themselves with a big family. Four, five children, more if that was how it all shaped up in the end… That was what they saw, and the more time went on, that never wavered. And then they'd had Marianne, and they had seen what it was like to be parents, to have this little person who was theirs to love and protect so very fiercely… It was innumerable joy, and it was… everything they'd been feeling tonight. They felt it all, and now more than ever they were committed to this family they were building together.

Maya finished the last chunk of her toast, brushed off the crumbs from her hands, checked her face for the same, cleared her throat, and turned back to Lucas.

"So, here's what I'm thinking…" she started. He was finishing his second toast, too, so he did as she'd done and faced her.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"I… I need to get back to work. I missed this year, and I don't want to miss two in a row or go back this fall and not get to finish the year," she told him. He nodded again. That was completely reasonable. One way or another, they were on her schedule for this, and he respected it. "Honestly, I wouldn't say no to having two whole ones where I'm there before I'm at any point in a pregnancy that would mean leaving in the middle of a year."

"I get that," Lucas went on nodding.

"It's not too long, is it?" Maya asked him now, like she worried that it would be, for him anyway.

"No, of course not," he assured her. "You and me, we are going to make this family of ours, on our own terms," he vowed, pulling her back into his arms, which made her smile. "Everything will happen when it's supposed to. I believe that. Anyway, I am not about to complain about getting to spend a little more time with just you and me and her," he nodded up the stairs.

"I really do love you so, so much, you know that?" Maya asked, looking at him. In her eyes, he could see so much more to this statement. This night had not been what either of them expected, but it had happened, and they were getting through it, together. She was so very thankful for him, it overwhelmed her. He held her face in his hands, that beautiful and bright face, the features now echoed on to their daughter's…

"I do," he promised. "Just like you know that I love you so much I can barely stand still for it."

"Good, that means you're alive," she smiled.

"Always a good thing," he agreed, meeting her in a kiss that tasted of peanuts and strawberries.

They were called back to reality and the moment as they heard Marianne crying upstairs.

"I'll clean up here, meet you in a minute," Lucas nodded to the stairs, and she went.

Back in the room she went, finding her grandmother already working to calm the baby as she stood. Maya's suspicions that this was a diaper problem were proved correct, and she took her from Elizabeth's arms and carried her across the hall into the nursery.

"Oh, I know, this is so unpleasant, isn't it?" she softly asked as she pulled the offending diaper away and went about cleaning her up. "How's that, huh? A little breeze, refreshing…"

With a new diaper and a stroll in her mother's arms, Marianne clocked her fastest return to sleep of the night, which felt like yet one more encouragement to her exhausted parents. They weren't out of the woods yet, and morning was just nearly upon them, but they were at this point now where they felt as though their heads had never been so clear. Weighed with exhaustion, bordering on delirium, but on the whole stronger for it. For the first time, they felt confident enough to settle Marianne back in her crib.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners