February 27th 2021

Chapter 58
Our Work to Organize

"You wanted to see me?" Lucas asked Juliet as he came to find her on her way out of Donna Devereaux' studio. He'd only just gotten the message, as he'd been off watching Nellie ride around on her horse. His young sister-in-law had been demanding it, so he could see how her lessons were going. Possibly, she also really wanted him to see the double braids her grandmother had done on her, which were clearly her favorite new style. She had that smile about her which he recognized as being in the vicinity of Maya's 'this new way of doing things is very exciting' smile.

"Yes! Yes, I did. Come with me," Juliet led him back toward her house with a great big smile of her own. As they went, Juliet asked after Marianne, and Lucas was more than pleased to fill her in on all the latest developments. It could feel as though there wouldn't be much of anything to say, seeing as his boss was very dutiful when it came to keeping up to date on the young Friar girl, but then to hear it out of her father, her life was a constant stream of stories, even if they centered around 'and then she said something that is definitely gibberish and not an actual word, more of a sound, but to us it is definitely a sign that she is asking something from us and we are very proud.'

As they walked into the house, Lucas was presented with a view that already had him startled out of surprise. The place was always so very neat, not a thing out of place or just lying around, but today the living room and dining room were seemingly overrun with boxes of various make and size and shape, enough as to be spilling out into the hallway. It might have appeared as though she was moving, except how a brief look beyond the boxes would show that they were sitting amid the rooms without any of the furnishings having disappeared or been packed away. No, these were just a whole lot of boxes brought to sit in the middle of Juliet's home.

"What's all this?" Lucas asked, his eyes spying the words written on top or on the side of the boxes. Some of them were in Juliet's hand, he recognized it, just as he recognized Manny Alvarez' hand on others, and Donna's, and even… his grandmother's. He would never forget hers. The more he looked, he spotted years as they were indicated on some of the boxes, and it felt like he'd discovered order in the chaos. The boxes were stacked according to years, going all the way back to the first one, the year Sullivan Stables had been opened. You wouldn't know them to be as old as they were by looking at some of them, but then that was Marianne Sullivan for you. Melinda had not needed to go very far to learn that habit of care.

"Did your grandmother ever talk to you about this idea she had? About creating an archive at the ranch, a… a museum of sorts?" Juliet asked him.

The words seemed to light up a memory in him. He remembered being ten years old and, yes, hearing about something like this from Marianne the first. Her health had been declining already, though not so much as to let them know how little time they had left with her. Whether or not they knew this, looking back on it now, it was possible she was feeling like she didn't have nearly as many days left as she once did and, left with this realization, all she could do was to start and consider what she still needed to do, what she wanted to leave in the world.

It had been years now, of course, since she'd passed away, and this fleeting idea had remained that, but somehow here they were today, all this time later, and Marianne's friend and her grandson were standing in her old house, with all these boxes. He had to imagine they'd been sitting in any number of places up to now. Here in this house, in Manny's office, Donna's studio, possibly his own parents' home, and storage…

"I remember, yes," Lucas told Juliet.

"Sullivan Stables is turning sixty this year," she reminded him, and he had to pause, realizing this was true. He saw the 'est. 1970' on the sign every day, and somehow the notion always escaped him until Juliet mentioned it. "I don't know, I guess I was thinking about your grandmother a lot, and I remembered her plans for the archive. I figured… it might be the time for it. What do you think?"

"Sixty years…" Lucas breathed, shaking his head to himself in light disbelief. "I remember… ten years ago, you did something for the fiftieth, but I… I still couldn't bring myself to come out here," he admitted. "I regretted it afterward."

He'd kept it all to himself… mostly… It didn't help that it had been in the spring of the ban year. He'd already been in a bad headspace with everything going on with Maya, and Maya's parents, following the accident and its consequences. He told her about it, he remembered that. As ever, she'd been right there for him, and even though he hadn't gotten to be there at the ranch for the event, he had been able to celebrate the anniversary, in his own way, by telling her stories of his grandmother and the work she'd done.

Lucas smiled, seeing one of the boxes nearer to the early years. It was identified by his grandmother, in her very recognizable cursive. But then, in one corner, he would spot what could only be described as a shaky attempt at imitating it by what would have been a five or six-year-old Melinda Sullivan, who'd gone and written her own name on the side of the box.

"I think… She would still want it to happen," he finally told Juliet. There was this urge in him now, like he really only wanted to go and start opening box after box, to see what was inside all of them, what treasures they might discover. His eyes would trail to the boxes from the year he was born, wondering what his grandmother might have held on to. He knew from stories how often she would take him around the place when he was a baby… not unlike how he would go now, with his Marianne.

"Good," Juliet smiled. "Then I would like you to take care of it." Lucas turned back to her. "That really sounds like I'm delegating this little… invasion," she gestured to the spread of boxes around them. "But that's not it at all. No, the way I see it, this project belongs to you," she explained. "If you don't want to, I'll happily give it a go, but…"

"No, I'll do it," Lucas cut in at once, fully determined. Juliet gave a knowing smile and a nod.

"Thought you might," she told him as he turned to look at all the boxes again. There were really a whole lot of them. Even with the minivan, he'd likely have to make… oh, eight or more trips back and forth to bring them all home. If he did that, he didn't even know where he was supposed to put them all when he got there. Maya would probably figure it all out in the blink of an eye, she was great like that with a project, but then it didn't exactly feel efficient, if he'd have to bring it all back here anyway…

"Where is this all going to go exactly?" he turned back to Juliet, who looked like she'd been waiting for that question, all the better to lead him out to find out.

They left the house again and she led him along. The whole of the land and the structures belonging to Sullivan Stables extended remarkably far once you actually went and looked at it. Some of the buildings hadn't actually been in use for several years, but Lucas' grandmother always believed that so long as the structure remained sound, sooner or later, a use would present itself. For the most part, that purpose usually became storage in the interim. The place Juliet took him to now was easily the largest of those unused spaces they had. It was the previous location of Donna Devereaux' dance studio, until she'd relocated a few years back.

"What do you think?" Juliet asked.

"Yeah," Lucas chuckled. When Juliet asked what that was about, he explained how he used to come up here with the rest of his turtle friends, because they loved the view from the balcony up above. Sometimes they'd go up there and spy on Donna and her assistants as they'd lead brides and grooms and their parties through lessons. They'd found it pretty funny, right up until they'd been busted and made to come back down and dance with the flower girls. "Pretty sure that was the first time any of us danced with a girl. We were… eight and nine? Nine and ten?"

"So, you were mortified," Juliet guessed with a laugh.

"Some more than others," Lucas smirked.

"You know, there might be pictures in one of Donna's boxes," Juliet pointed out, and now he was laughing again. He didn't doubt it. Back then, she'd have her daughter trailing along so much of the time, taking photos so they might provide them for the couples who'd like to remember these moments of their wedding journey. Now she had her grandson doing the same.

"I better get in those and make sure before I let anyone else near them," Lucas nodded. "Okay, so I'll liberate your living room of all those boxes and bring them out here as soon as possible."

"That would be very appreciated. I'd have had them all sent here already, but I wanted to run it all by you first."

Manny didn't need him so much for the rest of the day, so once he'd seen to his tasks, he got started. The inside of the former studio wasn't so clogged with stored items, but it was definitely going to take some time, especially on his own. Before long, he guessed Juliet had gotten the word out, as others who worked in various areas of Sullivan Stables started popping up to help him with the clearing out and cleaning. Once that was done, the ferrying of the boxes began. They maintained the triage as it had been accomplished earlier, keeping everything by year or period as indicated on the boxes. Some of them were unclear as of yet or spanned too big of a time, so they got their own pile.

By the end of the day, the future archive was loaded up with so very many boxes, which didn't make it look so different as what it had been when Lucas had first walked in, but it was a start, so that was something done. Before he left to head home and tell Maya about all this, he took a detour to track down a box in particular. Donna's boxes, as they would find, were all loaded with great photo albums, at least one each among many other items, and they would be great resources.

As Juliet had told him he would, he found the pictures of himself and Zay and Asher and Dylan, looking like so many awkward little weirdos, paired with the bride and groom's young nieces, as he recalled. The girls hadn't been all that happier at the prospect, but then they'd flipped it around, finding entertainment in making the spying boys squirm. It was tempting to make them disappear, but then who was he kidding? It would get out one way or another, and he'd get teased relentlessly. Before putting the album back, he snapped a picture of one of the photos and sent it out to the rest of the turtles.

Zay: Where did you find this?
Dylan: Z, your face!
Asher: My one definitely tried to kiss me.
Zay: Lucas, WHY?!
Asher: Nervous, Babineaux?
Dylan: You look like your skeleton tried to get away!
Asher: I'll take ten copies.
Zay: Don't you dare!

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners