October 12th 2022

Chapter 285
Our Advance Toward Schools

They'd had to think this through before school started today. The last few years had been easy, with only the one of their girls in school and also in the program at the ranch. Lucas would go and pick her up on those afternoons and bring her out to Sullivan Stables, and she'd have her time with green group, and now blue group, and they would head home. But now there were the triplets, too, out in preschool, and as she'd had to remind Marianne, they were too young to start off their own journey through green group. Could they have made an exception? Sure, they'd done it before. But instead, his gut told him to wait that one more year, until they were four, so that was what they were doing. It didn't solve his issue, instead creating it. He couldn't do those two pick-ups and then drop the triplets off at home or anywhere else before bringing Marianne and Winnie out to the ranch. It would be too much, and they would be late each time. After she went back to work, Maya would do the preschool pick-ups on blue group days. She might have done them already now, but he preferred to leave her as much of precious time with their littlest two as she could while she had it. He would collect them, and…

"You leave them to me," Donna Devereaux had jumped in the moment she'd heard of this quote-unquote dilemma. Oh, it wasn't even a question. Extra time with her young pupils? All the more for her to strengthen their dancing feet. He would have joked about 'how can I say no to that?' but he was almost certain that it would have gotten him scolded. When he'd spoken to her after his lunch with Juliet, he'd known better than to ask when she was considering her retirement. That woman would remain with the ranch to the day she died, and that would be that.

So, that was how it would be for the next few weeks. Was it closer to the preschool than the elementary school from the ranch? Yes, but he started by collecting the new first graders before heading to pick up the triplets. It felt like the thing to do, thinking about how it might have gone for those three. It might be a bonus for them to have their big sister there, too, when he arrived.

If he'd been worried about how this day would go for her, he only had to get a look of that gapped smile on his firstborn to know all was well in Annieland. She pounced at him, and he caught hold of her at once. Winnie wasn't far behind, and Lucas extended an arm to her. She was always welcome for hello hugs.

"So, I guess that means you want to come back tomorrow again?" Lucas asked them, and they nodded. "Oh, good," he breathed out and they laughed. "What about the others? Are you all in the same class?" They nodded. The two of them, and Harper, and June, and Mosi Okafor… Adam Gray, too, but they wouldn't let that get in the way of their good day.

"We're going to preschool now, yeah?" Marianne asked as they walked back to the minivan. She had been thinking about her little sisters, too.

Theirs had been a day mixed with ups and downs. Their teacher was more than used, in the years she'd spent with children their age, to those first day blues, so she was usually skilled when it came to bringing kids out of their shells, turning those distressed little faces from drop-off into smiles by pick-up time. The Friar triplets had been a challenge. It wasn't as though they'd never played with other children their age, but then they'd found themselves in a new place, with new people, and what could they do about that except to cling to the very little that was familiar to them? They had each other, and all through this day they were never more than an arm's length away from one another. If one of them had to go to the bathroom, they all had to go. If there was a new activity, they would travel as one. They wouldn't talk to the other kids, just huddle together. They wouldn't be pushed to do anything they didn't want to do, but they would be coaxed toward opening up, relaxing their triple formation just a bit. It had not worked a hundred percent, but all things considered, Alma considered this first day a success.

Oh, but when they arrived, Lucas, Marianne, and Winnie… They were all sat together, shoulder to shoulder, looking at a book that lay open in Lucy's lap, there in the middle while Kacey and Remy had their heads stuck to hers at either side. They were in their own world, up until Marianne went across the room and called their names. They looked up at once, catching the familiar voice far more than the words it spoke, and then it was a rush for all of them to get up, the better to run and meet their sister. At least that was what Kacey and Remy did. Lucy spotted her father further back and took off like an arrow to get to him, arms outstretched already as she called for him. When he picked her up, she had him locked tight.

"Hey, bun," he hugged her, rubbing her back as he kissed the side of her head. "Did you have a good day?" he asked her. Asking if she'd missed him would have been unnecessary, what with the way she held him. She pulled back her head to look at him and nodded. "Yeah?" he smiled. He'd been genuinely worried that she'd tell him she never wanted to come back, with the way they were all sitting by themselves back there.

"We got cake," she reported, and he laughed.

"You did?"

"For our birthday because it was before," Lucy reported.

"Was it good?" he asked, and if Maya had been within earshot, she would definitely have laughed at his attempt to pretend as though he had never had any preschool birthday cake before. Lucy was still nodding when Lucas felt the clamping of small arms on both of his legs. "Alright, well, we need to get to the ranch, but I can't wait to hear all about it at dinner, huh?" he kissed her cheek as he went about lifting one foot and then the other to walk back toward the exit, making his small passengers giggle as they held on and were not dislodged. Lucy looked down when she heard her sisters and added her own tinkling bell of a laughter. "What is it? Something funny?" Lucas asked her, 'oblivious.'

"Daddy, look," she pointed down, so he did as told.

"Oh, hey there! That explains a lot…" he smirked. "We're going to be late getting you girls to Donna if we don't…" He didn't have to finish. They let go, and Lucy tapped his arm, so he'd set her down. No one was going to be late to Donna's studio.

Lucas still had to speak with Miss Alma briefly before they went, receiving the tale of the triplets' inner circle, just the three of them for the better part of the day, and the news that she had already sent on the video from lunch time and the cake to Maya, so they could see it later that night. The teacher also took the time to ask her former charges about how their first day of first grade had gone, after which they had to go, because Remy was this close to yanking her father's arm out of its socket so they wouldn't be late getting to the ranch.

The more the triplets had become speakers as they'd grown, the more it made for car rides filled with voices. Driving the five girls on their way to Sullivan Stables that afternoon, Lucas got a small preview of how everyone's day had gone as they talked between themselves in the back of the minivan. He tried not to listen in so much, knowing they would have this same conversation later on, over dinner, and as he was not involved in the slightest here, he imagined he would be expected to receive all this information as though for the first time. Still, the bits he caught here and there made him smile, as much for what they suggested of his daughters' time at school as for the way they all expressed themselves between one another. He could listen to them all day.

"Daddy, she's here," Marianne reported as they drove up from the arch and toward the ranch parking lot.

"I see her, I see her," Lucas bit back a laugh. "Hope we're not in trouble," he joked, only to get concerned eyes out of the triplets. Were they in trouble? "Jokes, just jokes," he assured them. She's just really looking forward to spending time with you today."

Out they came after he parked, Kacey, and Remy, and then Lucy, all of them soon carried off by Donna Devereaux, who wanted to hear all about their day as she led them to her studio.

"Okay, bandanas on?" Lucas turned to Marianne and Winnie, and they nodded. One had hers tied at the top of her long braid, while the other had hers like a headband. He had his blue bandana around his wrist, and he held it up to show. "Alright, let's go find the others."

Lucas wasn't sure what Donna got the triplets up to out in the studio – possibly some sweet treats were involved – but they were all of them very happy when he collected them again at the end of the day's blue group time to head home along with Marianne and Winnie. Oh, she would never spoil their dinners, she swore, and for that Lucas could only smirk. They would soon see one way or the other, wouldn't they?

When they finally reached the house and he got them all out of the minivan, none of them waited around. The moment their feet touched the ground, they were running to the door. The first of them to be down and able to go was Kacey, and she climbed up on to the porch and stretched up, trying to ring the doorbell. She had to get all on her tippy toes, but she managed it, so that by the time Remy joined her, the door was opening, and there was…

"Mommy!" the twins spoke as one as they rushed to embrace her where she stood.

"Hey! Hello!" Maya bent to embrace them right back.

From where he stood, Lucas could see how much she'd waited on this moment. She'd been back to spending her days with them, when she'd started her leave, and then over the summer… It had taken her back to before she'd gone back to work again, and now that was all over. She'd missed them as much as they'd missed her. In a flash, Lucy was there, too, seeking a spot into this hold and finding it. Taller than the three of them, Marianne simply benefited from her mother's leaning position to hug her from above, too. Everyone always loved to tease him about his 'girl dad' prowess, but then he'd look at his wife, she who had carried all but one of their seven girls… Once upon a time, they had been a part of her, quite literally. Now, they were out in the world, growing more day by day, but they still felt like a part of her, so much so that being apart from them and being reunited with them was like a physical reaction, loss, and then relief. Into the house they all went, there to be brought back together with their littlest sisters, both of them showing their gladness for this reunion in their own ways.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners