March 6th 2021

Chapter 65
Our Night of Knowledge

It almost felt as though they were reproducing the photo they had taken, the very one Maya had brought with her at the awards in January. Here they were, Lucas and her, lying on their sides as their daughter lay between them on the bed. She'd been all of two months old at the time, and the scene had felt serene, and joyful. She was five months old now, and she had a fever, and her mother and father looked weighed down with concerns as they gazed upon her.

They'd cooled down the room as best they could, they did everything they could in order to help her get through the night. Now, it was down to this. They would lay near her, keep watch over her even as they hoped to see her fall asleep and get some rest. Maya had started cycling through every lullaby in her arsenal, and Lucas knew she'd keep going, wouldn't stop until she ran out of songs, not until she ran out of voice if she had to. After a while, because there was really no space in his mind for humility in this instant, he joined his voice to the effort. Maya looked at him when he started, and her eyes were filled with gracious love for him. They were in this together.

There was no telling how long it took, they hadn't been paying attention to the time, but they'd estimate it was teetering toward an hour before the slow process ran its course. Marianne started to doze off, and finally she fell properly asleep. It was a relief, to some extent, though not so much as to leave her parents entirely released from their concerns.

"I don't want to move her," Maya shook her head.

"We don't have to," Lucas promised. She didn't want to risk waking her again, and neither did he. Anyway, at this rate, it would take a lot to get either one of them to fall asleep. They would lie here with their baby girl, and that would just be that. "You know, I never got around to tell you about the field trip today," he found himself telling her, and Maya turned her eyes toward him. She didn't say anything for a moment, but then she understood what he was trying to do. They were going to be here whether they wanted to or not, and they could stay silent and allow their thoughts to run haywire… or they could just talk to one another, about anything and everything that came to mind. This, right here, she wanted to hear about.

"How did it go?"

The Simon Sullivan Archive had been up and running for all of a week at this point, so they were still very much in this stage of figuring out how it would go. Would it be something where they got a lot of visitors? Sporadic groups? Only occasional? Would it just sit there, unappreciated? They would have to wait to find out. At this point, they suspected that they were in the initial post-launch rush, and they would have to wait some more to really see what they were dealing with.

The way they had worked it out, for now, was that any number of the people working across the whole of Sullivan Stables would take an hour somewhere in their day when they were available, to be the one to look over the archive and its visitors. There'd always be two or three of them at any given time, both upstairs and downstairs being looked after. Time would tell how much of a permanent staff they'd need.

It had mostly been the weekend, bringing larger crowds around, and then over the week, they would get a lot of older visitors, people who were not working, or going to school… This was more than fine, naturally. Lucas loved to see them go along, to know that they would have been around the ranch in years long past, that some of them would have met and known his grandmother, maybe even his grandfather, too.

He had been spending more hours out there than just about anyone, he suspected. If Manny suddenly needed him again while he was out there, he would send someone to take his place, and Lucas would hurry out at once. He was really glad to have been at the archive at one time in particular, just a couple days back. There was an old man, visiting on his own. Lucas was on the ground floor, sitting at the welcome/information desk in the corner, and he happened to notice him. He watched him go along, and he was left with this feeling, like… memory. He didn't know this man, but he looked at him and he would just feel as though the stranger was taking in his surroundings with remembrance.

The old man stopped when he came to find the display they'd created, in honor of Simon Sullivan. There was a portrait of him, a painting done by Maya, and photos, and then the old articles. Whether they liked it or not, this was part of his story, and it needed to be shared.

To Lucas, it felt as though the man was turning faint, overtaken with something, and so he went out toward him.

"Sir, are you alright?" he asked. The man looked at him, and there was a flicker of instant recognition in him. Whether he picked up anything that called up either one of his grandparents, there was no saying, but he clearly understood that this was someone who was family to the late Simon Sullivan.

"You're Melinda's boy, aren't you?" he guessed, and Lucas tipped his head in confirmation. "Yes, you have the look alright. John Carson," he extended his hand, and now Lucas was the one to feel a flicker.

He knew the name. He hadn't known it a month ago, but he'd learned it, in the process of bringing the archive together. He'd worked here, right in the beginning, and for many years, though as far as he'd seen he'd been gone by the time Lucas himself was born. He had been there, the night of the storm. He'd been with his grandfather, when they'd worked to save the horses out of the burning stable. He said as much here, standing before the clippings and the portrait.

"It could have been me that night," he pointed to the articles. "I wanted to go in there, but your grandfather wouldn't have it. He might have knocked me right on the ground to keep me out of there, if that was what it'd take. But I listened, and I stayed back. I still wish to this day that I hadn't listened. I could have saved him. There was really no one like him, he was my friend, I…" he grew quiet then, held up a hand in apology as emotions silenced him. Lucas pressed a hand to his shoulder, and it was like Mr. Carson felt an echo of his old friend. It brought a small smile to his face, and he tapped Lucas' hand. "I haven't been back here in so long… I didn't realize how much I missed it."

"You're welcome any time," Lucas vowed, and the man looked glad to hear it. Lucas suspected they'd be seeing a lot more of him as time went on.

As much as the prospect of people returning to the ranch, of their recalling memories, was something Lucas cherished, there were other things that did this for him as well. Chief among them was the prospect of field trips, and study groups. They'd already started to see some visitors come along who truly embraced the resource of the upper level, the proper archive, with the books, and the documents, so neatly organized… They had tables and chairs along the way, giving it the feel of a small library. He'd been seeing students coming along, for research purposes, and he'd happily chatted and shared some of his own knowledge with several of them.

And today… today had seen the first field trip, with elementary school kids arriving by the bus load with their teachers. Lucas had given the tour, something that felt like such an amalgamation of everything he had done in his life, from his museum days to now working as he did at the ranch, with Manny, and the horses… The whole thing was made even further interesting by the fact that this group of students – which came in staggered tours to factor the archive's capacity – included three of Maya's siblings and one of his cousins, specifically MJ, Nellie, and Gracie Hunter, and Maggie Hillard.

They had been part of three separate tours, and all of them had just been so happy to be there and to see him. It could become just a bit chaotic to get them to remember that they were there with their classes, that they had to follow along with the other kids, when they just wanted to come up to him and talk to him as they would do at any other time. It wasn't as though they had never been out here before. They had all come to see the place on opening day with their families, and some of them had even been around before then, too, when everything had still been in the process of being organized.

"MJ's teacher just let him go and look at the TV & Film exhibit after a while," Lucas told Maya, that night, as they remained with their sleeping, fevered daughter. "The twins sort of balanced each other after a while, though I think Gracie only convinced Nellie by pointing out they'd probably get to go and see her horse after. And then Maggie, she ended up trailing after me like she'd soak up everything she heard and saw."

"Maybe the tour guide thing is genetic," Maya quietly suggested. Lucas could see she was doing her absolute best to go with this, to allow the conversation to keep her steady, but he also knew that part of her just couldn't commit. She still worried so much over Marianne.

"I could see that," Lucas nodded.

He looked back down to the baby, same as Maya was doing. She was still sleeping, they could see. They watched her chest rise and fall, watched her hands and feet move ever so slightly in her sleep. They listened to the quiet sounds she made, all of it coming together to show that their girl was here, with them, that she was resting, but at the same time they couldn't help but take it all in and add it all up to an impression they did not like. To them, she looked sickly, pained. In all likelihood, they were worrying themselves much more than necessary, but then it was the thought of 'but what if we're not?' that ruled the coop.

"You know, I've been thinking, after talking to Mr. Carson and some of the others who've been coming by the archive, who knew my grandparents… I'd like to take down their stories, to collect them. Not sure what for yet, but… They feel too important to be left to disappear. Some of them are really so fascinating, you know?" Maya looked back at him again, the tired worry in her eyes taking a moment to step aside and let her reflect on his words.

"You should do it," she agreed. "I do love the stories when you tell me about them. I think other people would love them, too."

"I think so, too," Lucas breathed.

"She loves them," Maya stated, brushing at Marianne's hair as delicately as possible. Maybe she just liked the sound of her father's voice, who was to say, but right about now, the thought of those stories being something to make his little girl happy woke a new resolution in Lucas. He just might have to look into the idea some more.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners