March 22nd 2021

Chapter 81
Our Farewell to Absence

It was on the way back to school the day before, after the third trip, that Maya and Barton got to talking and ended up agreeing that they needed to note the end of this mad week with a dinner. The two of them, the spouses, the kids… There was a brief consideration of all of them going to a restaurant, but by the end of it, Barton insisted on receiving the Friars, and so that was that. That night, Maya had checked that Lucas would be able to go, and he was. The next night, after they all went their separate ways, following the seniors' tour of the museum, Maya went about getting Marianne and herself ready to head to the Day house while they waited for Lucas' return from the ranch.

"Hey! What do you think for… Woah!" Maya paused when he came along, as she caught the scent coming off of him.

"Yeah, I need to jump in the shower right now if we want to be on time," he sighed, with apologies in his eyes, before moving toward the bathroom.

"Can't wait to hear about this!" she called after him, scrunching her nose as she turned back to look at Marianne sitting up in her crib. "Oh, you think my face is funny, huh?" she smirked at the sound of her daughter's laughter. "You're lucky you didn't catch any of this, oof!" she waved her hand in front of her nose. Alright, at this point she was definitely putting on a show for her.

When Lucas re-emerged, clean and smelling entirely better, he did quick work of getting dressed for dinner, in the process sharing the tale of a runaway horse who'd gotten himself caught up in a very unpleasant situation, from which Lucas had helped to spring him. He'd managed to get a change of clothes out there, but it was late in the day, and there'd been no chance of washing up before coming home, so here they were.

"Hey, just so long as everyone got out alright," Maya tried very hard not to let her mental image of whatever it had all looked like translate into too much of a smile on her face. "And now you have a story to share at dinner," she went on.

"I do have that," he agreed. "My mother would be proud." That got a snicker out of Maya. "Now your story, do I need to wait until we're at the Day house or can you tell me how the field trip went today?"

"Can I tell you in the car?" Maya asked, indicating the time.

With Marianne settled in her car seat, the three of them were soon on their way, and Maya went about telling Lucas about this final field trip with the seniors. As with the juniors, they hadn't had to deal with anyone wandering off, so there were no pages assigned, and Maya had made another raid of the gift shop for a raffle. Maybe out of some place of nostalgia, each one of her seniors ended up with something by the time all the 'prizes' went out.

"You know, I like having the means to do this, but I'm also just a tiny bit afraid of how much these feelings are going to cost us," she sighed, which made Lucas laugh. He wasn't surprised by this in the slightest. "I'll be fine, you know? Prom gift? That one won't even cost a thing. Graduation… mostly pencils, but that's nothing out of the ordinary, is it?"

She'd been preparing for that project for a couple weeks, knowing she would only be able to put it into effect once she received the diaries with the final assignment. They would be returned to the students for them to keep when the year was through, and from there they could do whatever they wanted with them. Whether they would keep them or not, Maya would send them back to their owners with her own parting gift in the form of a drawing, on the end pages at the back of the seniors' sketchbooks. It was the best way she knew how to let them go.

"Depends on the pencils, I guess," Lucas commented, and Maya smiled. This would be his answer.

Arriving at the Day house, they went up and were welcomed at the door by the youngest of the four boys, Anton. He'd be turning thirteen before summer's end and would be starting at the middle school in the fall. The resemblance to his brothers and father was unmistakable. Being the furthest removed from his start as one of her students, he was familiar with Maya only as his brothers' teacher and his father's sort of co-worker, who he'd met a few times now. There was every chance that the connection between the Friar and Day families would carry on even after Maya regained her classes and Barton went on to his next assignment. So by the time the youngest of the Day boys walked into her class, he could easily be as familiar to her as the likes of Missy Sanderson.

"Mom and Dad are in the kitchen," he informed the guests, and they went along in that direction, after freeing Marianne from the car seat, which was left near the door. In the kitchen, in fact, they found the remainder of the Day family, as Barton and Michelle were aided by Dakota, Roman, and Lambert in the preparation of the evening's meal, something the boys all looked practiced in doing. Barton had told Maya once how they'd started all four of them in picking up some cooking skills from an early age. Of the four, he said that Lambert had taken the most to it. He already wanted to be a chef, and it showed.

"Oh, hello!" Michelle set her spoon down, wiped her hands, and came toward her guests, easily focused on the baby girl. To Maya, it recalled the previously mentioned desire Barton and his wife had had, regarding having a daughter, when instead they'd had one boy after another. It tended to leave them very glad to see Marianne, and Maya was happy to oblige as she allowed Michelle to take her into her arms. "We are so happy to see you, yes, we are," the woman beamed at her smallest guest of the night before turning to her parents.

"Us, too?" Maya joked, and Michelle laughed.

"Always," she promised, greeting her and Lucas in turn.

Conversation around the table that night would weave in and out of subjects. They'd talk about the field trips, of course, those with Dakota and Roman's classes as much as the others. Lambert and Anton would be encouraged to speak about how things were going for them in the eighth and sixth grade, respectively. The former tended to skate along the 'above average' line, while the latter would be said to have his highs and lows. They also asked after Sullivan Stables, and here they learned how the Day family had taken a trip out to the archive a few weeks back. Michelle asked after Maya's music, and she explained how she was going to be 'coming out of leave' with all that, in just a few weeks. As this went on, both Maya and Lucas would be amused to see the way Dakota and Roman would listen throughout the discussion. Like many others of her students, they still had difficulty sometimes processing how their teacher had this whole other career at the same time, one that took her around the world, and had her working with famous people.

After dinner, the boys set about clearing the table, and washing and putting away the dishes, leaving their parents and guests at the table.

"Do you know what you'll be doing next year?" Maya asked Barton, as the thought now occurred to her.

"Nothing definitive, no year-long contract as of yet, so probably looking to short stints for now," he replied, and Maya almost felt bad. It was the nature of the job he'd chosen, but still. She knew that getting to teach the art class this year had been something as close to his dream posting as he could get. But then the year was ending, and Maya was going to be back in the fall… "What about you? Ready to start back?" he asked, and there was no need for her to so much as think about it too long, or at all.

"Very ready, so ready," she nodded, then paused, looking to Marianne now sitting in Lucas' lap. All at once, the answer felt bittersweet. It was hard to believe their baby girl would be nearly a year old by the time she went back to work. It almost felt like she was trying to ignore the subject, the fact that she'd be going back to work and wouldn't get to be with her all day, every day, as she'd been for most of her young life.

"Oh, I know that look," Michelle Day spoke. Maya looked back at her, found a sympathetic smile. "It never gets easy, you know? Whether it's your first one or your fourth," she peered over to where her four boys were wiping plates dry. It was very efficient with four of them at it, so it was easy to get them to cooperate. Everyone did a fraction of the work, so no one had to do the whole of it ever. "But you'll remember the first one the most."

The closer they were getting to the end of the year, the more real her return to class became, the more aware Maya became of the impending change in routine. Lucas was, too. It was one more step along their family journey together, a new version of their reality, where they were both working parents. They had been juggling things well enough this year, hadn't they? They were ready for what came next.

Back on the road toward home, with the baby asleep in her seat, Maya and Lucas discussed their plans for this Date of theirs, over the weekend to come. It could have been that the magnitude of what constituted a lowercase or capital date would change a lot, from when they had started as a couple of teenagers to today. In some ways, it had, but not so much as to feel like the Dates of yesteryear only now counted for lowercase dates. Even now, they would be contented with fancy dress, a dinner, a stroll through the museum, and it would have nothing to do with their need to get back to their daughter at home. Then again, neither would blame the other for wanting to be with Marianne.

"Do you know what I'm looking forward to?" Lucas asked, as they stopped at a red light. Maya turned to look at him.

"No, what?"

"Lunch with you, every week," he smiled, and she laughed.

"You and me, both," she slowly nodded. "We'll have to figure out what day we'll do it this time. Your schedule is going to be changing, too."

"Yeah…" Lucas breathed. After a year of being at the ranch full time, the residency was going to be something else, wasn't it?

"We'll make it work," Maya promised, her tone bringing him back around.

"We will," Lucas agreed. "Another thing I'm looking forward to," he went on, as a thought struck him. "Marianne's first Fall Fest," he smirked, more so at the way Maya's face lit up once she realized that was true. She hadn't even thought about it until now.

"And the first harvest…" she added.

"Pumpkin's first pumpkins," Lucas nodded, making Maya laugh. "And Halloween will be right around the corner then. Going to be hard to top last year's, isn't it?"

"Knowing our history, I'm not entirely sure you didn't just jinx us there, Huckleberry," Maya gave him a look.

"Yeah, I heard it…"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners