April 5th 2021

Chapter 95
Our Turn to Houston

Already, as they awaited this day's arrival, knowing that it would come, they had started to look at this year, this handful of months, as a baby boy boom within their group. Back in May, they had welcomed Dylan and Riley's Nicky. Then in July, it was Will and Kayla delivering little Oscar on to them. And now, as August was coming to a close, Sophie and Chiara and Asher and Ray were about to see the arrival of another baby boy in their midst.

Maya had just gotten off a call with her parents out in Los Angeles. She'd sent them the video of Marianne's first crawl, really waited until she was able to watch them as they saw it, to make it as close as possible to their experiencing it together. It was without a doubt bittersweet, though Maya had expected no less. All these feelings she had in her, about seeing her daughter grow, about being far from her parents, she knew they were feeling it, too, deeply, painfully. They saw their granddaughter as she accessed this new skill, and it seemed to hit them hard, to show them yet again what they were missing for being so far away. She didn't want them to feel anything like that, didn't want them to feel guilty. There was no way around it though, was there?

"Don't worry, when their faces go like that, it's just because they love you so much," she whispered, smiling at the way Marianne just stared back up at her. Sometimes she was so sure her eyes were like hers, but other times, especially when she looked at her this way… She only saw Lucas in there, that Huckleberry concern… "I love you like that, too. So, so much," she told her, leaning into the little hand that reached for her face. It felt so important to her that she say the words to her, that she would hear them, and know them, and understand the feelings underneath.

She was caught up in that bubble with her baby girl, enough so that she didn't hear the phone when it rang, and it wasn't until Lucas came sliding into the room that she finally looked away from Marianne.

"Was that the…" she started to ask.

"It's go time," Lucas cut in. She gasped.

"Chiara?" she asked.

"Yeah, come on," he went back into the hall. She heard him knocking at Cara's door as she got up to prepare Marianne for the ride ahead of them.

It was late already, enough that they had been in that sweet spot between bath time and bedtime for the baby, but now instead they were looking to what would probably be a sleepless night. Unless Baby Boy Garcia made his entrance sooner rather than later, he wouldn't be born until they'd moved into the next day. There was nothing to be done as far as the two hours it would take them to make it to Houston. All they could do was get moving and get going.

"Part of me thinks we should leave her here, but then… She should be there, too, shouldn't she?" Maya asked when Lucas returned.

"I think she should, yeah, but I get the other part, too," he admitted. "If we leave her here, they'll have to look after her if she wakes up. I know they'd do it, but it does feel more like we should let them sleep if we can."

"Sold," Maya agreed. They would take her with them.

Cara and Elizabeth saw them off with well wishes to Chiara and the rest of the families. Once they were in the car, Lucas drove while Maya started checking in with others of their group who were likely in this same rushing momentum.

"We're leaving as soon as Dylan dries up," Riley informed her when she asked if they'd left yet.

"Was he in the shower?" Maya asked, feeling like this was more likely to be something else entirely. She was definitely on the right track.

"No, just a little… bath time mishap with Nicky," Riley explained. Even though she didn't go into the details, the very thin thread of her that sounded like she was trying not to laugh allowed Maya to know that it had just been funny, and everyone was fine. "What about you?"

"We just left," Maya let her know, now holding back a laugh of her own. She could imagine so many ways to interpret this mishap that left her friend in need of drying up. "We'll let you know when we get there."

The next call went out to Nadine. Maya was almost sure that she might have been working, but instead it turned out that she'd only just arrived home, all of ten minutes before they got the call. As worn out as she'd been, the news was as much of a boost as she could hope to get. They were taking off for Houston even as Nadine and Maya spoke. Zay would drive, naturally, while Nadine took the next couple of hours to catch a much needed nap. She was very good about dozing off and waking back up when needed by now.

"Zay doesn't think I'll pull it off this time," Nadine told Maya. When she asked why, Nadine replied by holding out her phone, she guessed, as Maya now heard the voice of Mia Babineaux in the background. The girl was giving a very excited chant of 'Baby! Baby! Baby!' over and over again. Maya snorted before quickly putting her phone on speaker, allowing Lucas to hear it, too. He laughed.

"I don't know, my money's still on you," Maya informed her bandmate.

"I have slept through worse," Nadine confirmed.

After hanging up with her, Maya found a message from Morgan to let her know she was on her way. As new as she was to the group, she had been so readily welcomed by all of them. Still, it was clear at times that she was still coming into the fact that she was one of them, and she could consider herself as such. With the band, it was easier, but then those of them out in Houston were outside of that, much as she recognized how they were all part of this same unit. They had taken her in, accepted her and integrated her as though she might have always been with them. That they reached out to her on this night, as they put the word out to those people in their circle, would come to mean so much. By the next weekend, they'd take it all the way, opening the door for her to join them on their weekly dinner roster.

With the way things were shaping up, Maya and Lucas got to the point of expecting to be there first. But then Maya called Rosa and discovered she was nearly there.

"Jenna and I were already in Houston, visiting my mom. We were like halfway home when Ray called, so we turned back as soon as we could," Rosa explained. "You guys brought Marianne with you?"

"Yeah, why?" Maya asked, looking into the mirror in the back to see her in her seat. She was asleep.

"Just that we figured we'd crash at my mother's place when this is over, get some sleep before heading home. I called my mother to let her know, and she offered to watch the kids if you guys don't want to keep them around the hospital all night."

"Uh…" Maya thought for a moment. "Hang on," she told Rosa before repeating the offer to Lucas. They'd brought her along so they wouldn't be saddling the responsibility on to Cara or Granny Lizzie, but they still saw the merit in not having four little children in the middle of the waiting room. And she'd be near enough that they could get to her if there was anything…

"Might not be a bad idea," Lucas finally admitted. Maya was thinking the same thing. "If she's sure…" he tacked on. Tracy Coleman had been his boss for four years, he had no trouble believing that she wouldn't commit to an offer like this if she wasn't ready to follow through, but he still had to ask.

Maya called her after hanging up with Rosa, and she received a rousing promise that she was more than happy to do this for them and the others. It would only be Marianne, Mia, and Nicky, as of course they'd be keeping Giulia nearby, the better to meet her baby brother when he came along. When they finally made it into Houston, they took the small detour – which was not so far off their route anyway – and drove past their college home, now that of Sophia and Chiara, and Asher and Ray's across the street, and on to Tracy's house just two minutes away.

"If she wakes up and she gets fussy, give her the little crochet pea pod thing? It's right on top in the bag there," Lucas told his old boss as he carried the sleeping girl into the house.

"Pea pod?" Tracy chuckled, quietly smiling as she observed Marianne.

"Yeah, Maya's sister made it for her. She really gravitates to it these days," Lucas explained. Tracy opened the bag she'd brought in for him, and as promised there it was, a vibrant green pod, open to show three peas inside, all of them with two dots for eyes and a curved line for a smile. Cara had made this one for her while she was out in Tucson visiting her parents and younger siblings. She was getting very good, and it was easy to see that she found no greater mark of her success than how Marianne clearly loved it.

"Alright then," Tracy smiled and nodded, setting the figure back in the bag before turning to receive the small girl. "I'm going to need to keep my eyes on you if you wake up, won't I?" she asked, even as Marianne kept on sleeping undisturbed in her arms. "Go on, give them my best, alright?" she told Lucas.

As he returned to Maya and they continued on their way to the hospital, Lucas found himself thinking about Tracy's offer again. On the one hand, sure, she was being nice to her daughter's friends, and they appreciated it. To see her with Marianne though, it felt more as though they'd missed some other factor underneath, a subconscious compulsion. Rosa was twenty-five now, still young in many ways, but by this point it wouldn't be out of place for her mother to start thinking about the future, about the idea of grandchildren.

That was all good and fine, except for the part where Rosa, her only child, had made it abundantly clear that she did not see herself having children. She loved them, sure, and with more and more of her friends having them she was getting to flex a lot of 'Zia Rosa,' as she would call herself. But she had known for years that she didn't want to have any of her own. When she and Jenna had started on the way to seeing one another, in the spirit of full openness – and because she had, according to herself, the romantic skill of a shambling elephant – she had told Jenna about this clause. If she was actually going to do this thing, it felt logical that she should get this on the table so there wouldn't be any unfortunate surprises down the road. But then Jenna was on the same page as her, so they were good to go.

"It'll be fine," Maya shrugged confidently when Lucas mentioned all this to her. "She's just up the street from Chiara and Sophie and the guys, and all their parents are either in Austin, or Italy, or not talking to them. Eager and willing grandma, right there? Put her on the clock," she declared.

"Well, when you put it like that," Lucas laughed. "Now that you said it though, kind of feels like she should be with us at the hospital tonight."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners