August 11th 2021

Chapter 223
Our Great Christmas With Festivities

"How was it today?" Lucas asked Summer that night, when at last the only people left in the house were those who lived in it. He'd gone downstairs to find where she'd gotten off to, while Maya was trying to convince Marianne to relinquish her locket and her bells, after seeing that neither Levesque girl was in the nursery. He found Summer sitting on the couch, with the sleeping Tori in her arms, looking at the still lit tree.

"Great, it was great," she spoke in a hushed voice, so not to wake her daughter.

"Yeah?" Lucas asked as he sat across from them on the recliner. Both he and Maya would try not to give in to the impulse of getting a bit... hovering parent over her, but it was hard not to, especially in situations that could be particularly complicated for her. Christmas day was its own brand of complicated already without the added difficulties she had to shoulder.

Her first Christmas without her family, but also her first with her daughter, surrounded by so many people, some who had known about her and Tori, some who were only discovering one side or the other...

Of course, they would have the usual suspects, with the Hunter Harts, Hart-Lanes, and Calaharts, the senior Friars and the elder, the Cassidys, the Hillards, and the Sullivan-Reyes. Then they'd have those who would only be stopping by for a visit in the midst of their own festivities, like the Matthews, and the Days, the Buckleys and the Munroes...

"You're going to be okay with this?" Maya had asked Summer when they'd started seeing about who might drop by on the 25th.

Barton Day and his wife and sons would be in attendance, naturally, but that meant putting her in line to have her secret discovered by Lambert, and Roman, too, even if he was two grades above them. And then Taylor... Taylor who harbored that quiet crush on her and had no idea about her circumstances. It was almost enough for Maya and Lucas to feel more nervous about that than the fact that they would receive Peter and Jo Munroe in their home, after everything they'd gone through the year before. They were good though, all of them, as good as they were ever going to be. Neither Dylan nor Kyle was ready to mend that bridge, but they would not fault their friends for inviting them.

"It's okay," Summer had told her teacher. "It's perfect, actually. I've decided that I won't hide it anymore. I'm going to let people know about Tori. Before, it was just that... I was adjusting, to being new, to being a mom... But I'm going to start work again in the new year, to get things moving for me and her, so I have to own up to everything. Anyway, if I tell those guys now, then I'll at least have them and Lea on my side, right?"

"And me," Maya had smiled.

Being determined was one thing, and by the time Christmas rolled around and the guests were inbound, it was hard not to tell that Summer was nervous, beyond nervous. It didn't matter that she knew Taylor and Lambert for being good guys who would most likely be very kind and respectful to her. Their reaction was like the litmus test to tell her how the rest of the school might react. Maya held her tongue rather than to point out how not everyone was like those two. Summer was so much stronger than she knew, and she would discover it by herself.

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Friar," Lambert greeted her with a smile and a clear container full of baked goods topped with a bow. The boy may have wanted to be a chef when he grew up, but he wasn't a half bad baker either.

"Oh, top marks, top marks," Maya had to gasp as she took his offering. "Merry Christmas Mr. Day... and Mr. Day... and Mr. Day... and Mr. Day... and Mr. and Mrs. Day," she tipped her head to each, making them laugh.

"Is Taylor here yet?" Lambert asked, showing the other thing he carried, which had to be his best friend's gift.

"Not yet, but... I think that's them now," Maya looked past him and out the still open door. There was indeed the Munroes' car, which soon unloaded the couple along with their son, their daughter, and their daughter's roommate.

Maya would tell Lucas later how seeing Phoebe and Stella, and Dakota Day, along with all those of her current and future students throughout the day, had made her think of what Christmas might be like when she'd have been teaching ten or twenty years. She sort of had a way of forming such bonds with her students, so much that they'd be here today. With more years going by, they could have a packed house just with those kids.

"You already got all those cards this year," he'd reminded her, knowing it would make her giddy all over again.

She had told her graduated seniors that they could write to her, to keep her updated, and they had done that, a lot of them, with a Christmas card. The best part was that, even though she'd only thought to do it last year, she'd also received several cards from former students of years prior. Her inbox at school had overflowed with them, and now they were strung up along the attic wall. She'd gotten some in previous years, but never like this, and it had kept her in emotions, every time she saw them. They would later be safely boxed along with the rest of her collected works and letters from her former kids.

Taylor came bounding up ahead of the others, and with his jacket open they could spy his sweater, which was hard to miss. He was rocking his best ugly Christmas sweater. It had lights that flashed along the front. This was his favorite day and oh was he ever going to show it. He had a present under his arm, too, and he and Lambert exchanged theirs with a Merry Christmas and a thanks. They would open the presents once they'd gotten through all the greetings.

The Munroes and the Days were very familiar with one another, naturally, with their sons being best friends and with how Barton and Michelle had taken Taylor in on several weekends in the days of the family rift. The same could be said of the Munroes and the Buckleys, who arrived shortly after their daughter did.

Summer had gone upstairs when the Days' car had arrived. She didn't want her appearance to interfere with the family's entrance, like they'd all be stuck in the door, and she'd show up with her baby. With how the Munroes and the Buckleys arrived so soon one behind the other, it was several minutes more before she made her way down, with Tori balanced in one arm as she held the ramp.

The more she grew, the more the now four-month-old girl looked like her mother. That same dark hair, those same clear, bright eyes... Someone might have decided that here were two sisters with a sizable age difference, but no. There was something in how Summer carried herself, in how she handled Tori, that made it very clear. This was her child, her daughter.

Maya and Lucas both watched her come along from where they stood in the living room, the former talking with her two most recent graduates, the latter discussing the new dogs with Tanya Hillard. They looked to where Taylor and Lambert had gone and opened their presents. Summer wasn't going to make a beeline for them and just hold out Tori like this was show and tell. She greeted others of their guests, made introductions where they were needed. The baby was a big hit, as was to be expected. Finally, Lambert had looked up and spotted Summer, so he tapped Taylor's arm for him to look, too.

It was like a scene in a movie. Summer was almost completely turned away from them when they saw her, enough that they could tell it was her but also not enough for them to see the girl in her arms. As they started to make their way over to her, she turned, and then they saw the baby, the little girl who was like a mini Summer. The boys stalled where they stood, naturally stunned, and now their classmate saw them. She was happy to see them, and she smiled as she walked up to them, which worked to break them from their immobility.

Even without being close enough to hear what they were saying, with how the living room buzzed with voices, Maya and Lucas could guess at the conversation. Summer wished Taylor and Lambert a Merry Christmas, and they wished it back to her. She then introduced them to her daughter, and her bold confidence here, they knew, stood all the better to hide the tremors of nerves underneath.

As understandably surprised as they were though, both Taylor and Lambert were just as their teacher had imagined they would be. Lambert reached out and gave Tori's little hand a gentle shake, which earned him a smile from the babe. Taylor looked just a bit like his world had been sent in a great spin, dizzying him, and he would probably be thinking about it for the rest of the holiday break. But in the moment, stood before the girl he liked, he would be himself. When Tori appeared drawn to his blinking shirt, he submitted himself to her curious pokes, pulling a delighted squeal out of her when he turned around and showed her the back of his sweater had more to offer.

As Summer would tell Lucas on the couch that night, she hadn't exactly laid out her whole story to them, nor had they expected or demanded it of her. Mostly, she had told Lambert about her attempts to reproduce her grandmother's recipes from memory, and she'd watched Taylor as he sat next to them and entertained Tori who he held in his lap, supporting her as she remained fascinated with his sweater. She'd told them how she'd come to live here at least, the broad strokes of it, and she'd told them how she planned to stop hiding her secret in school when they went back. She was reassured, now more than ever, that she would have the two of them and Lea by her side if everyone else decided to shun her, and that was really all she needed.

"Don't stay up too late, alright? We're leaving early," Lucas told her when he finally got up again.

"I won't," Summer promised with a smile and a nod. They were leaving for Arkansas in the morning, and she was coming with them. She was looking forward to New Year's with Maya's maternal family.

When Lucas got back up to their room, he found that Maya had finally been successful in transforming their girl back into her everyday self. Marianne stood in the hallway, waiting for him, in her footy pajamas and with her hair let loose once more.

"Story time, Daddy," she informed him.

"Past your bedtime, Hucklebucket," he scooped her up, making her laugh all the way to her little bed. She scrambled down and grabbed her pea pod, while he pulled up her blankets and reached for her book. She had several of them for Christmas, and they'd been working through them all month long, or trying to. If she liked a story, she'd ask it for several days one after the other. This one though, she knew, was a special one they'd kept for Christmas day, and she was Ready with a capital R.

They had been after a Great Texas Christmas, and as they went to sleep that night, spooned together, both Maya and Lucas could say with absolute confidence that it was what they'd gotten. They would remember these days in years to come.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners