A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

April 1st 2021

Chapter 91
Our Summer of Family

The first time they heard the Marvelers' song on the radio was the day they drove out to Houston to get their swans.

Much as Cheyenne had offered to drive to Austin to do this for them, they were happy to make the journey themselves. The day couldn't have been better for it, a breezy August day, just the two of them and Marianne… Even if it was by no means the first time that they had made this trek with her, there was something about this time that felt like they were bringing their daughter into the fold of those great, long rides. And then the song came on, and Maya – who was at the wheel – resisted the urge to honk the horn for how glad she was to hear it.

The whole experience of getting it to this point, from sending it to the band and then working it over with them, to finally hearing the finished product that night they'd come to see TXNY play… It really put her back in touch with how much she enjoyed working with other artists and seeing her own music and lyrics take up life under their vision. It took her back to all those sessions with Ree especially, and it left her wanting to someday repeat the exercise of putting together a whole album with someone.

That night, when the show had ended and they'd come backstage to find her and the rest of the band, there had been something so astounding about being in that space, the ten of them together, TXNY and the Marvelers. Hearing the latter tell the night's headliners about how much they had enjoyed the show, how it brought on something of nostalgia to them, there was nothing of bragging or posturing about it. On the contrary, they could really feel it, understand it. A few years back, TXNY had had this opportunity to get signed, to take everything they did to a new level, and they'd turned it down. It wasn't what they were looking for in their lives. They wanted… exactly what they had, this choice of doing things as they'd always done them and all the while having the jobs they wanted, the families they desired…

The Marvelers had looked as though they'd been wondering how come no one had signed them by now, and here the answer made a whole lot of sense to them. Hearing how this was the first step, the second of which had led to Maya's starting as a song writer the way she'd been doing it, that made even more sense. They'd been seeing her move along, not just working with people but really making excellent choices as she went, choices they were humbled to be included in.

She had taken her time working on this song, if for no other reason than that she had the luxury of it thanks to her maternity leave. She'd even had the pleasure of getting Sam to step into the booth for the first demo. When the other band had learned that the voice on that solo demo had belonged to her brother, they'd been as amused as they were impressed.

"You should get him up there more often," Tamsyn praised, with bandmate Neil nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, that took a lot of arm twisting. I don't see him falling for it another time, especially for anything more than a demo," Maya chuckled, and Cara seconded the statement regarding their brother.

Hearing the final result was as thrilling today, on the radio, as it had been after the show. It wasn't like she'd broken some sort of Marvelers formula, where the result would be a simple imitation of some existing song of theirs. She wanted it to sound like something they'd do, not something they'd done. She'd been pretty sure she'd achieved that, and hearing it once it was all done… Yeah… It didn't sound like anything else they'd done, but it still sounded like something that belonged to them.

"Remember how nervous you were when you sent it to them?" Lucas asked, in the passenger seat, as though to say, 'I told you that you had nothing to worry about.'

"I don't know, I spent so much time on it, maybe it just felt like… precious," Maya admitted, then, off the sound he made, "Are you laughing at me?"

"I wouldn't," he innocently promised, even as the subtle tremor in his voice suggested otherwise.

"Yeah, okay," Maya whispered with a squint.

"Say what you will, but I'm really impressed, alright?"

"I trust you," Maya smiled, then, "Thank you." That made him smile.

Maybe a part of why they'd chosen to drive out instead of having Cheyenne come to Austin, aside from the breezy summer, was that it almost didn't feel worth the trip for them to do it that way. The swans were kind of small, slightly larger than a twenty-five cent coin, really, so it felt sort of… too brief to warrant making the tattoo artist drive four hours round trip. They might have decided to just find someone in Austin to do it for them, but Cheyenne had done their owls and nightingales, so she had to do their swans, too, didn't she?

There had been what felt like much too much discussion about where to position the swans in relation to the other, larger birds. The plan was to add to their 'family of birds' as their own family would grow, but then it wasn't as though they knew exactly how many children they would end up having, so what could they really do about it now, when they had Marianne only? Start in the middle and alternate? Align from the end nearer to their respective inner elbows and go up?

"We could do them in chronological month order," Maya teased one time, something as silly as it was impossible to plan for, which really only served to make them see how pointless this was. It really only mattered that they did what felt right. In the end, they went for the 'work your way up' approach.

It had only been a few weeks since Maya's last time in the chair, but she was really happy to add this extra component, another reminder of their baby girl. She watched that little bird come to life on her arm, and all the while she would look over to where Lucas stood, holding Marianne. She was a big hit out here today, that was for sure. Lucas would say how he could tell a lot from the way people would interact with the baby girl, and Maya tended to agree.

"You good?" Lucas teased when Maya came over to trade places with him.

"You would be amazed the things I can do with one arm free and her in the other," she informed him.

"I believe it," he assured her at once before tipping his head to her left arm so he might see the result. The little bird still had that 'freshly made' look about it, but even so, it made him smile more and more as he took it in. He couldn't wait to get his own.

To sit in the chair now, Lucas barely got to feel as his swan was added. He was too distracted from looking at Maya almost going out of her way to show him how she was able to guard her left arm while keeping their girl secure in her right.

"Come on, you have a comeback for it, I can see it in your eyes. Give it, tell it," she challenged him when he got up, all done. He had the face of someone who had no choice but to relent.

"I was going to say that no one liked a show-off, but that clearly I did," he confessed. It made her laugh, which in turn radiated out of Marianne, too. She'd been particularly chipper today and her parents loved to see it always.

With the matching swans added to their arms, they settled Marianne in her stroller and made their way on foot along the two blocks separating them from Isabel Garcia's restaurant. It was not the first time they'd brought Marianne out there, but then both Lucas and Maya of course continued to be well-loved among the latter's former co-workers. It was as though the message had been sent around, the moment they walked in. They're here! It was a perfect way to end the day's trip, and they started back for Austin after lunch. They may have also picked up a few things from the Nook on the way back, because, well, they were already in Houston, and they missed the place, as ardent supporters of Ma Maggie's as they were.

They were barely getting on to Austin streets, bringing them not quite home yet but much closer than they'd been at the start of the drive, when Maya got a call from Grangie, asking if she and Lucas and Marianne would come to dinner that night. The Clutterbuckets were taking off with the little Hunters to head to Los Angeles in a couple of days, to celebrate the twins' birthday with Katy and Shawn, and it only seemed right that they should get this chance to do the same out here, too, with the rest of the family, and the girls' friends… The reason that it was so last minute was that the birthday girls, in their infinite but soon to be eleven-year-old wisdom, had originally wanted to hold off any celebrations other than the one that would include their mother and father. They were the reason why Nellie and Gracie existed in the first place, right?

Plus, they were going to be celebrating Haley's sixth birthday at the same time. That had been in early July, and they had seen their parents since then, thanks the Dallas trip, but Haley… The twins were getting their birthday in Los Angeles, and she wanted that, too. She didn't mind waiting, she insisted, though they could easily recall a number of incidents since then where the youngest Hunter had shown off signs of her having been slightly more attached to her birthday than indicated earlier on. And the closer they were getting to her sisters' birthday, the more 'mopey face' would go and show herself, full of envy and regrets. Finally, picking up on all of it, Nellie and Gracie had chosen to compel their grandparents into holding a small sort of 'pre-LA get together' that could serve as the other half of all three girls' parties. Haley had been giddily awaiting 'the people' ever since.

"Can't even say no to that, can we?" Lucas joked as they considered whether or not they should go home and change. They didn't need to dress formally, not for a very informal and last minute birthday party for a six-year-old and a couple of eleven-year-olds.

Haley was ready when they arrived. She had her favorite summer dress on, and her favorite little sandals, and she had her locket on. Grangie had done her hair in the double braids, the way she did for Nellie when she went to the ranch for her riding lessons. And she had a party hat on her head because… well, because it was a party. The whole ensemble added up to really just drive home how time was sparing no one at all, and the littlest Hunter was growing up as much as anyone.

"You got another one!" she pointed excitedly to her big sister's arm, spotting the covered tattoo. She knew what that plastic meant, and she knew what was underneath. She was very impressed with them, always, and she really liked the little bird on Maya's arm, and on Lucas' as well. "What kind of bird is that?"

"It's a swan, you know what those are, right?" Lucas asked, and his small sister-in-law nodded at once. She wanted to know why they had a swan tattooed on them, and he explained that it was for the month of October, which meant that it represented Marianne, who had been born then.

"What about July?" Haley inquired, for her own birthday.

"That… would be… an eagle," Lucas recalled. She was familiar with those, too.

"And August!" Haley asked now, for the twins, of course. Lucas had trouble finding that one, and he turned to Maya for assistance.

"Uh…" she had to think, too. "It's… blue, I think. Kingfisher?"

"Yeah, that's it," Lucas pointed back at her before looking down to Haley… who had disappeared. Maya laughed and made him look to see her sister crouched at the living room bookshelf. She pulled out a book from there and carried it to the couch before motioning for Lucas to come.

"Can you find it?" she pointed. He picked up the book, the visual dictionary Haley had in fact received as a present for her birthday, back in July. She would not look at it, she'd said, not until after her LA birthday. Lucas found the kingfisher for her, after which Haley appeared to have completely forgotten about her rule, as she sat and looked at all the pictures. She was still learning to read, but for now she really liked the illustrations. She stayed focused on these as the other kids came along. They were just as fascinated with the swans. Haley informed them at once about eagles and kingfishers. Then, she blinked and asked for MJ's bird, for December.

They'd been getting to see more of Katy and Shawn in the time between the end of one season's filming and the start of the other, though other things had kept them from returning to Austin for the whole time outright, just as things on this end had kept the kids in Texas over the summer break. None of it felt any more ideal to any of them than it had been before, but they were sort of making it work at this point. They had found that they could all cope better than what they'd experienced before.

"Kind of wish we could go with them, right?" Lucas guessed, later on, as they sat on the couch, buried under sleeping Hunter kids.

"Yeah, but this will be good for them, I think," Maya reflected, absently brushing at Gracie's hair. "Plus, there's so much out here…" There was, wasn't there? Residency was coming, and the new school year, Maya's return to work, and the birth of Chiara and company's new baby… They couldn't get away, and that wasn't an inconvenience or a burden. It was life, their life, and they loved that life very much. "Just before or just after Marianne's though, maybe we can go?" Even as she said this, she was hit with a wave Lucas recognized and felt as well, as they faced the fact that their daughter was coming up on a year of life, less than three months from now…

"We couldn't go on Halloween," Lucas stated.

"Or the anniversary…" Maya added, making him smile.

"Or that."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners