May 14th 2021

Chapter 134
Our Arms Around Returnees

It had been so good to have this time away in Arkansas, the three of them day in and day out, and much as they would have liked to stay that way moving forward, it couldn't last forever. They wouldn't have wanted that anyway, would they? They had things to get back to, things that mattered a great deal, too. The one thing they'd lament would be having to leave Marianne behind for the better part of their weekdays.

Over the last few days, especially once they came back to Austin, they had been watching her get more and more confident on her feet. She wasn't suddenly a steady little walker, but she would evolve, slowly but surely. By the morning of Maya's return to work, she would find it hard to focus on getting dressed when she could see Marianne standing by the bed, holding to the mattress, and taking little steps to get closer to her while she held on. Maya would move about the room, just to see if she'd keep doing it, and she would.

"Going to keep Granny Mel entertained today, are you?" Maya finally scooped her up, kissing her squishy little cheeks with a smile. She nodded to Marianne, and Marianne nodded back. "Yeah, keep her on her toes," Maya laughed.

Even though she regretted having to leave her daughter behind again, Maya had been looking forward to this day for some time. With the return to class, most students were coming back from just two weeks away, but one of her students was to be seen in school for the first time since the very first day of the year back in September, the day he and his little sister had learned of their mother's passing. Khalil was coming back this morning, and though she wouldn't have him in her class until the very end of the day, she knew she'd be looking for him in the hallways in the meantime.

X

There was no one else awake in the house when Lucas had gotten up and readied himself to head out. His shifts would be starting earlier in the morning now, but on the upside, he would be getting home earlier, unless something came along that required him to stay longer.

His days varied in intensity, but generally speaking they went by at a steady pace, not too loaded and not lagging either. He didn't really have moments where he would stand around with nothing to do, and that was fine by him. When he would have a meal break though, he would usually be found sitting on his own, with his laptop, with his notes, eating with one hand and either writing or typing with the other. Most times it would be related to his work here, but whenever he would get the chance, he'd be putting in more time toward the ranch stories, especially now. They were nearly finished… sort of.

Little by little, the project had been coming together, more so back before he'd started his residency. He'd known that once he started here his availabilities would change, and he had done all he could ahead of this point. He'd done his interviews, and he'd sent queries out and received written accounts. He'd gathered facts, found more information to go along with those stories, the better to start and pull them together in a collective and rich format. By the time he'd started working out here, every chance he got, he continued with his proofing and polishing, all to get him to where he was today.

He was done. He only had to read through it all again, and it was going to the printers… The more they'd worked on it, not knowing exactly what they would make of it, the answer had become evident. They would publish it as a book, available at the archives either to be read on site or purchased. Whether it would go beyond, to larger bookstores, was left to be seen, although he knew one woman out in Houston who would gladly take on the initiative to sell it at her store, too.

At first, he asked Maya if she might do the cover, a painting, or a photo. But then she came back to him with a countersuggestion: they would use the photo of Simon and Marianne Sullivan in front of the arch as the cover. They would find none better, and she was right. When they showed the mock-up, with the added text and everything, to Melinda and Michael, the Sullivans had that immediate reaction which left nothing more to be said. They had their cover.

He had never imagined this would be the outcome of the project. All it had been, in the beginning, was a desire he had to reach into the past, to find stories of those people who had been so important to him and to the ranch, people he had never known or who had been lost when he'd still been so young, people his children would never know. He wanted to show them their legacy. He would read some of the stories to Marianne sometimes, and he could swear he saw the difference in her. He read to her a lot, more and more as she was getting older, too. And she loved it all, she did, but when he would tell her about Sullivan Stables, it was like she knew. He was telling her about their family, and she wanted more and more. The thought of sitting with her soon, bringing out the book and seeing recognition in her eyes…

"How's it going out there?" Lucas asked when Maya picked up his call. He'd do his best to check in with her at the end of his break, especially on the mornings when they didn't see each other when they woke up. And today, with her headed back to school…

X

It had somehow slipped out of her mind, right up until she drove into the lot, that there was something else she needed to look in on, as the kids would come back to class today. She would be on the lookout for Khalil, of course, but then she had to know about Phoebe's situation. The last time she'd spoken to her was the last day of class before the break, when she was about to take off for a ski trip with her family, and Stella, and the Days. Maya was left to wonder how it would go, especially with the secret hanging overhead. Had she succeeded? Had Phoebe and Taylor and their parents had the kind of Christmas they needed?

The easy way to get to the bottom of it, the easiest, was to take herself around to the front of the school before classes started, the better to run into them, even if she was going to see her seniors right in first period. So, that was what she did. She didn't have the diaries to lug in, as the kids had been allowed to hold on to them over the break, the better to chronicle what they had been up to, or just allow what inspiration struck them to be shared. She could leave Grandpa the trolley in the minivan and walk around to the front of the school. As expected, she spotted the two girls not five minutes later, as they came up from the bus stop. She didn't leave them time to get all the way to her with their customary greeting, not when she spotted something that became much more important to inquire about.

"What happened?" she asked as she took in the end of a cast poking out of Stella's unzipped coat front. Phoebe had both of their school bags.

"It was my fault," she declared with a look of deep regret toward her best friend.

"No, it wasn't," Stella told her. From the tone of her voice, Maya would guess she'd been making this reassurance more than once already. "You didn't force me to go out there with you, I wanted to."

"Snowboarding?" Maya guessed, and the girls nodded.

"She was actually doing really well, the first couple days," Phoebe gladly brought up. "Then, the third day…" she gestured to the arm. Standing closer now, Maya could see the cast went past Stella's elbow. It rested in a sling, which explained her predicament with the coat. "We almost went home, but…"

"I wanted to stay," Stella took up the story. It was easy to see that Phoebe still blamed herself for the injury, just as much as Stella stood unwavering in her belief that it was unnecessary. She was thankful for her friend, to have her there by her side. "My parents and a couple of my sisters came to join us, we had a great Christmas, all of us, the three families together," she smiled, and here Phoebe had to smile, too, as she agreed on the statement.

"How's your arm?" Maya asked, knowing very well how cumbersome and uncomfortable this had to be, likely more so in Stella's case, as the injury appeared more pronounced.

"It's not so bad, I have medication. Mostly it's sleeping that's complicated, that and well…" she looked at herself again, and only now did Maya realize which arm it was. Her writing arm, the one she used for her art, too. "What am I going to do about your class?"

"Don't worry about that, okay? We'll figure something out. I know you're good for it," Maya smiled reassuringly. "So, I'm guessing everything went the way you wanted?" she looked to Phoebe as they all walked toward the school.

"Yeah," Phoebe breathed out like, for a second, she'd forgotten everything else. "Didn't say anything, it all went fine. Stella's thing kind of…" She didn't finish the sentence, hating how it suggested the injury had served her well in distracting her parents from getting curious about her. Again, Stella just sought to shift blame off of her. She had none to assign.

With this unexpected wrinkle at least, Maya didn't end up seeking out Khalil Russell throughout the morning, and she didn't see him until midway through the afternoon.

In between her two free periods, she had taken up the routine of grabbing a snack and a tea from the cafeteria before returning to her class. When she did so today, she happened to walk past the boys' bathroom just as one student was coming out, which drew her eye over in time to spot another standing back there, giving all the clear signs of stalling for a return to class. After a moment, Maya paused and slowly moved to lean against the lockers on the opposite wall to the bathroom. Here, she casually took a bite from her cookie, tested a sip of her tea, and found it still too hot. Finally, after nearly five minutes, where her whole cookie and about a third of her tea had been consumed, Khalil stepped out of the bathroom. He stopped when he spotted her standing there.

"Welcome back, Mr. Russell," Maya held her cup toward him in greeting. "Everything alright in there?" she asked.

"Yes, Mrs. Friar," he responded, polite as ever though with hesitation. Was she going to bust him? With a sigh, she downed a few more gulps of tea.

"Thank you so much for helping me clean up that spill. I wouldn't want anyone to slip and get hurt." Khalil bowed his head a moment and finally nodded. "Why don't I walk you back to class, just in case there's any confusion with your teacher?"

"Thank you," Khalil agreed, and they started toward his classroom together.

"How was Desi this morning?" Maya asked.

"Good. She was looking forward to going back."

"Great to hear it." She paused as they reached his door. "Don't be late next period, yeah?"

"I won't, I promise."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners