December 20th 2021

Chapter 354
Our Support For Departures

"You're wearing the boots and everything?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah!"

"The hat, too?"

"Yeah, hat, too."

"And in between the boots and the hat?" he mimed. Marianne stared at him.

"A dress," she pointed to the closet. She walked closer, inspected the selection hanging overhead, hands planted on her hips like a superheroine. Lucas snuck a picture. "That one, Daddy," she pointed.

"This one?" Lucas came and lifted one hanger from the bar and Marianne reached her hands up. "Hold on, hold on, let me just take this off the… Here you go. You got this?"

"Got it!" Marianne promised, dashing to her bed, and setting the dress down before pulling at her PJs to get them off. She was very good at dressing herself by now, and as promised she got the garment on herself, right side around and everything. "Gotta close it now, you do it, please?"

"Hold up your hair?" he told her, and she did. "Wouldn't want to get it stuck anywhere it doesn't want to be, would we?"

"No," Marianne shook her head.

"Hold still, nearly done. There you go."

The dress handled, Marianne sat on the floor and tugged the boots on to her feet. This could get trickier, but she managed it. Lucas watched her do all this, at once amused and fascinated to see her go. She grabbed her star, and her hat… No, she needed to do other things first.

"Can Mommy do my hair now?" she asked. Lucas looked through the doors, into their room, to see that Maya had just returned from doing her own hair and makeup in the bathroom.

"I think so," Lucas told Marianne before stepping into the hall. "Is the salon open?" he asked.

"Oh, we don't do cowboys here, only sheriffs," Maya shook her head at him.

"Just so happens I have one of those right here."

The rest of Marianne's ensemble came together in no time. Her hair was put into a pair of braids, the hat came on, the locket and the star, too… Now they were all set to go.

"Pawpaw?" Marianne ran back to the couch when she saw that the man wasn't dressed to go like they were. Charles Hart looked as though his heart grew lighter, younger, every time she called him that.

"You have a good time, alright? You can tell me all about it when you get back." Now that was a trade-off she could get behind. She loved to tell stories.

So, they left the house, the three of them on their way to the ceremony for the graduating class of 2033. It would be the first of two they would attend this year, as they would soon be embarking on another road trip to Tucson in a very short time. They weren't about to miss out on Eliza and Emma's graduation, were they? And they would be coming back with the two of them, too, them and their belongings, so they could then move in, get settled with their big sister, and get acclimated to the city that would be their home for the next four years at least. As for Charles… and Luna… Well, they didn't know yet, not for sure. Unlike their daughter, Maya and Lucas knew that the reason why 'Pawpaw' wasn't coming with them today probably had more to do with his wanting to make sure he wouldn't miss the call if it came.

"I was going to ask if you were smuggling a basketball under there, but now I'm not sure that's all you've got…"

Of all the people for them to run into, right as they were walking away from their car, they were thrilled to come upon none other than Julianne Shelby. Maya approached her former teammate with open arms, and they embraced, both with care not to squash anyone in between.

"Triplets, really?" Julianne shook her head, still in awe. When she saw Marianne now, in full Sheriff Annie regalia, she laughed and approached her. "You're getting so big! Hello! Do you remember me?"

"Juju-annie!" Marianne proclaimed, showing that she absolutely remembered her.

"End of an era, huh?" Lucas asked his former schoolmate as they greeted one another.

"Yeah, took long enough for this school to run out of Shelbys. As far as the rest of us are concerned, we're all in agreement that we kept the best for last," Julianne grinned. "My mom's emotional about it right now though, so, you know, approach with caution."

Ruby and Abby had decided to end their joint scholarly ventures the way they'd started them, which was to say that they dressed exactly alike – easy with the cap and gown – and styled both their hair and makeup exactly the same, too. If they played their cards right – and stayed away from anyone who really knew them – they would be impossible to identify as one or the other except by sheer random luck. This fall, they would be going to two different schools, nearly on opposite ends of the country, both of them on basketball scholarships. It had been a difficult choice for them to make but also one they felt strongly was needed. They knew who they were together, but they still didn't really know what it was like to not have one another to return to at the end of the day.

To see them all together, Matt, Kate, Nathan, Julianne, Scott, Allison, Ruby, and Abby Shelby… With how spread out they were in age it was rare to find them all in the same place. They hadn't known the eldest two as much, but the rest… Three of them had been classmates, two of them students… It was like Julianne said, it had taken a long time before they were all through these halls.

"Hey, Angel, where's your sister?" Maya asked when she spotted the thirteen-year-old Ríos boy. He looked uncomfortable in his suit and eager to get it off, but he stopped fussing with his tie when he heard his name.

"Uh, hiding, I think," he quietly replied.

"From…?" Maya blinked.

"Aunts and cousins," Angel shrugged. "They can be… a lot," he reasoned.

"She's going to come back out for the ceremony, yeah?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, I guess so."

As vague as he sounded, the fact that he had told them what he had told them showed both a solidarity with his big sister and a trust toward the Friars. He may not have known them as well as his sister or his mother did, but he knew that he could confide in them… to a degree.

To Maya, it was a reminder that, as much as she tried to help her students grow and expand, there was only so much she could do, and the rest would come from the kids themselves, either in the years they spent with her and the rest of the faculty of their school or somewhere beyond, wherever their lives would take them. As far as Talia was concerned, well… Some parts of her had changed over the years, and that was great, and other parts had stayed just the same. That was great, too. She was a quiet girl, didn't take up a lot of space, but that was how she liked it. She did her own thing, most of the time, and so long as she was happy, then who were they to tell her to change?

"Rocky, Rocky!" Marianne called, pointing off somewhere. Her parents turned to see what she'd seen, though the nickname spoke for itself. Rochelle McNeil had heard the call, too, and she was now cutting through the various clusters of graduates and guests to get to them. It wasn't so long, a year, since she'd been the one running around in one of the flowing gowns with her classmates.

"Hey!" she greeted Marianne first and foremost, being that she'd done the calling, and then repeated again for her former teacher and her husband. "Bodhi's just making sure that his grandmother is settled in okay before everyone else gets in the room.

"She must be excited," Maya smiled.

She'd met the woman a few times in the last few years, and each time she was reminded of how supportive she had been of her grandson, from day one, even as others would have insisted on saying that this was her granddaughter, that 'she' was not a boy. Bodhi had stated in the past how he sometimes felt that he wouldn't still be alive today if it hadn't been for her. Thankfully, he did have her, and so here he would stand this morning, head held high to receive his diploma. It didn't matter that it had taken him two more years than the others. All that mattered was that he'd made it.

"There he is, Captain Bodhi, signing off," Maya hugged him when he finally appeared.

"Yeah," he laughed, looking just on this side of emotional at the thought that his quiz team tenure was coming to an end.

It had meant a lot to him to be a part of Born Curious, and he'd told them. With how he'd fallen behind back in middle school, the idea that he would be an integral part of a knowledge based activity could have been laughable. Instead, it had been an anchor, helping him gain the focus he needed to push forward until he landed right here, about to graduate with a pretty solid record. In just a few months, he'd be going on to college… right here in Austin.

Just last year, the plan had been that Rochelle would go to school here for a year, until Bodhi was done and could follow her to whatever school they chose, anywhere in the country and beyond. Since then, they'd been living together, while he finished his senior year, and she was a college freshman. As they'd told Maya and the rest of the team a few weeks back, they had considered all their options, not just regarding their education but the rest of their lives both at present time and in the future, near or far. Rochelle continued to maintain that she could get the education she wanted wherever she chose to go, and she was enjoying her university, right where she was, so why should she have to give it up to go and attend a more prestigious school?

When it came down to it, both Rochelle and Bodhi had good reasons to stay in Austin, and in both cases, it went down to family. She wanted to be able to see her little brothers grow, and he didn't want to be anywhere that would prevent him from looking after his grandmother. Thinking of how they'd decided to stay in Texas, even if they'd gone to Houston, Maya and Lucas understood this reasoning very well. Was Maya able to resist making a joke that they wanted to stay where they could keep an eye on the team? Not even a little, and her former students just laughed. It wasn't wrong, was it?

Finally, it was time for everyone to take their seats. Lucas saw Talia had slipped in among her classmates and he pointed her out to Maya. After some speeches, the diplomas were handed out. A personal highlight for the already emotional teacher was how, whenever one of her students was called up, Marianne would hear the name and either mention what was on the cover of their diaries or recall some drawing or another she'd particularly liked among the pages. She didn't miss a single one, not even the Shelby twins. When they all threw their caps in the air, Lucas made sure to lean in and tell Marianne not to do it with her hat. It would get lost… or hit someone in the face. They compromised by allowing her to toss her hat as much as she wanted once they were home, and she could stand on the front lawn. Her Pawpaw came out and sat on the porch with her parents and they all watched and clapped for the graduate from the class of… Oh, they didn't even want to think that far ahead… Better let her stay little just now.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners