November 25th 2022

Chapter 185
One Family and Another

"Are you excited for tomorrow?" Lucas asked Jamie as he sat there between him and Maya on the bed, casually letting his little hand feel its way around his mother's growing belly.

He'd been so curious about all this baby thing. It was brand new to him, even the idea that there were two little people on their way to being his brothers or sisters growing inside his mother. The last few days he'd been coming over from his and his brothers' room down the hall, up to his parents' room, so he could get up on the bed and do much as his father did, 'conversing' with the unborn pair.

"Yeah," Jamie answered Lucas' question with a nod.

"What is tomorrow, Tadpole?" Maya smiled. She brushed at his hair, marveling at how he was just a couple of weeks away from being two years old.

"Gramma come back," Jamie replied.

"Yes, Grandma Abby is coming back from her trip, who else?" Lucas asked. Jamie thought.

"Sammy?" Yes. "Wy... Wy-att!" he sort of hiccupped the name, which fittingly made him sound like a little frog. "Li-za... Caaara..."

"That's right," Maya chuckled. "Who else?" Oh, he had to think some more. "Daphne?" she coaxed, and Jamie straightened up. Yes, that was it!" He repeated the name, though from him it sounded like...

"Daffy! And... and Stevie," he added, the s on the front barely making it. Lucas held up his finger. One more. Jamie thought hard. "Daffy Stevie Dada," he nodded. There. We can work with that.

Right about now, the newly united Hart-Bretts would be on their final day away before flying home to Austin. They would be here in late morning/early afternoon, depending on how their flight went, and they would shift immediately into the next step. Moving day. The Harts had left after the wedding with their house all packed away, so all they'd have to do would be to get everything loaded and brought over to what had been the Bretts' home, itself looking as though it had been given half of a makeover, with bare spaces that were just waiting for its five new occupants. Naturally, the Friars would be on hand for this process, all of them helping in what ways were befitting of their individual skill sets.

It was going to be a scorcher today, and while all their hopes were on the need for tomorrow not to be this hot and humid, today the plan was everyone to stay at home, where it was cool, and conserve their energy toward whatever activities they might chose instead. They discussed these options over breakfast, which had the brothers deciding it was high time for some more Star Wars play acting, tacking locations on to each room.

"So here's me right here, pregnant with twins, guess we know who that makes me?" Maya joked, looking to Lucas.

"Well I was about to say..." he gestured at himself, mouthing the name 'Luke,' and she had to bite back a laugh at the implications.

The character debate was cut short by the sound of the phone ringing, so Lucas went to answer, while Maya corralled the boys into helping her clear up the table.

"Hello?"

"Lucas, help!" the small voice greeted him, immediately scared and frantic. He reacted at once.

"Ava, what's wrong?" he asked, and that made Maya stop where she stood and turn at once. The boys looked up, too, at the sound of the name, though they had even less idea of what was going on.

"My dad, he's sick," Ava told Lucas. "I-I don't know what to do."

He didn't waste time making up his mind. He told Ava to hang tight, and he would be there as soon as he could. He was leaving right now, and Maya was going to stay on the line with her until he got there.

"Hey, Ava, sweetie, I'm here, okay?" Maya spoke to her before looking to the boys. "Go see Pappy Joe and Patty, okay? Stay there for now," she told them, turning to Elliott in particular on the end, and she allowed herself a brief moment of pride, seeing her eldest take charge of his younger brothers. She watched them head out the kitchen door and to the little house. "Lucas is already on his way, Ava. Tell me what's going on with your dad. Is he awake?"

The heat was the least of Lucas' concerns as he drove toward the Nash house. It was not a long drive but it wasn't next door either, so he did all he could to shorten the drive but also stay safe. He made it there in excellent time and hurried up to the house. By now, and he was sure that this kind of eventuality had played into this choice, Bill had given them a key, so he could let himself right in.

"Ava?" he called.

"Up here!" she called back from upstairs and he went up, double time. "Bathroom!" she added, and he followed her voice.

There were memories in his mind, images he'd seen with his own eyes that just stayed there forever, for good or ill. The first time he saw Maya, at school. Pappy Joe at the bottom of the stairs after his fall. Maya, at the hospital, after their accident. Maya when they were married, and one, two, all three of their boys when he first saw them... Today, he got this. He got Ava Nash, sitting on the floor in her bathroom, her father laid out on the ground, his head in her lap while she had the phone in one shaky hand and a wet cloth in the other. And the look in her eyes, the fear and uncertainty even as she did what she could, now breaking with reassurance at the sight of him...

"It's okay," he told her. "It's gonna be okay." She nodded.

Lucas carefully picked up Bill Nash, giving as little care to any stench or questionable stain as Ava had done, just storing it away in favor of focusing on the problem at hand. The man was full grown, taller than him, but overall on the stringy side, so it was a strain, calling up just a bit of that old pain from his crash through the fence last year, but he set that aside, too, until they reached Bill's room and he could be set on the bed. Once he was down, Lucas stepped back, took a few moments to breathe while Ava came along to see how her father was doing.

They set themselves to tending to him, the two of them together. They cleaned him up as best they could, and Lucas checked him out... It wasn't hard to guess what was going on with him and how he'd ended up here, but it was still so hard to see it, especially with Ava right there. Lucas dreaded to think what she would have been left to do if she didn't have him to call on.

Though he'd told her that he would look after things at the Nash house and she should just stay home and take things easy today, Maya came along, about an hour after Lucas had arrived. While he stayed with Bill, she took Ava along, helped her get cleaned and changed, too, seeing to the bathroom, the clothes that needed washing... As morning progressed, everything looked normal, mostly. Bill was still laid out, and he'd been sick again, but this time Lucas was ready for him with a bucket. Downstairs, Ava helped Maya as they made lunch, with any luck something that Bill would be able to eat and keep down.

Ava was quiet all the way, only speaking when she had a question on whatever they did or when answering a question put to her, her words minimal here. She was just trying to get through the day, focusing on what needed to happen. Things may have looked almost normal again, but they weren't, far from it, and she was well aware of that; there was just no room for her to stop and drop her shield. Maya understood that... more than she wished she did.

Bill ate his lunch in bed. They all sat around that room, which made for a very strange and quiet meal. After lunch, Bill slept, and they let him be. Lucas elected again to stay with him, so Maya asked Ava if she could see her room. Ava brought her, showed her around a bit, but her heart wasn't in it. After a while she stopped, sat down on her bed. Maya sat next to her, took hold of her hand.

"This is your space," she told her. "The rest of the world is not supposed to be in here with you, except sometimes, times like... today... it just won't stay out." Ava looked at her. Yeah, that was it. "I was six, when my father left," she revealed. She'd never actually told her about it. She had seen enough to at least piece some of it together on her own, sure, but the actual timeline, the circumstances... "My mom, she did her best, but it was... it was very hard. Our stories are our own, but what it comes down to is that you and I are a lot alike in some ways, and I know how that feels. I can't promise you that it won't keep being hard for a while, but you're not alone, okay? And we're going to do everything we can so things get better. That I can promise."

There were still signs of the way things used to be, in Bill Nash's room, the room that used to be shared with his wife before she left. She may have taken off, bringing everything she cared to bring with her and leaving the rest, but before that departure, she had kept a clean house. Without her, Bill had tried to do the same. Corners of the room looked as though they'd been left untouched since she left, not even kept in order, just… in the disarray in which she'd left it when she'd packed. Lucas couldn't help but wonder sometimes. Clearly, Mrs. Nash had checked out of her marriage at some point, and she'd chosen to leave, but what about Bill? Had he still loved her very much or had he checked out, too? Looking around, Lucas wasn't sure that he had. So now here he was, feeling the abandonment of the one he'd loved, trying to look after his daughter, and all the while fighting against something that wouldn't leave him be.

He saw that, he understood it, he did. But all he could see in this was Ava. She would be eleven in a matter of days, and Lucas knew she was excited about it, she'd told him all about it, what she wanted to do on that day, what kind of cake she wanted… In previous years, with her mother calling the shots, birthdays had not been what they should have been, not for a child her age, and it was sort of a… collective goal, for Ava, for her father, for the Friars, that they change that, now and forever more. That was what she was supposed to be thinking about right now, not this, none of this. At least he wasn't the only one to think so.

Bill had been very quiet all day, more so than his daughter. As the hours had passed, Lucas knew that this outward silence was held up against inward thought… a lot of it. They were coming on late afternoon, thinking about what they would do about dinner, when he finally spoke up.

"I messed up," he quietly started. Lucas looked at him. What was there to say? He was correct. "I wasn't… I didn't want…" He looked around, his head turned in the general direction of where Ava's room would be. "I can't do this… not on my own, I…" He turned back to look at Lucas, his eyes suggesting he had a big ask to make and he wasn't sure how to approach it. "She's going to be starting school soon. She is such a smart kid, hell of a lot more than I ever was, but if she has to be right there with… all of this…" he shook his head. "I need to go somewhere, I need… help…" his eyes welled up at saying the words, knowing them to be true. "I am so grateful for what you and your wife have done for us, for her, you taking her into your home every now and then, especially when you've got three of your own and two more pretty soon. I'm not asking this, expecting to give nothing back for it, I would…"

"She can stay with us, for as long as she needs to," Lucas spoke up, rather than to let him continue to push when he didn't need to. "We'll need to work it out with her school, all of that, but we can do it."

"It could be weeks… months…" Bill blinked.

"As long as it takes," Lucas nodded. "On two conditions."

"Yes," Bill listened.

"Not until after her birthday."

"Of course…"

"And you have to tell her the truth, can't just disappear. She needs to know when you go." Bill was quiet, but he nodded. His wife had not given their daughter that same courtesy, but he would, for however long he'd be away.

"Can you take her… for tonight?"

When Lucas finally left Bill's room and went to find Maya and Ava, he came upon his wife sitting on the girl's bed, where the soon to be eleven-year-old had fallen asleep, head in her lap. Lucas relayed his conversation with Bill via sign language, including the request and its response. She was right there on board with him. Of course, they would keep her for as long as it would take. Still, this opened another question, one neither father nor daughter would be willing to consider as being possible.

"What happens if he never comes back?" Maya signed before looking back down to Ava, sleeping soundly, head in her lap, holding on to her knee like the corner of her pillow.

Then she stays with us. It's not even a question, is it?

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners