A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!
December 2nd 2022
Chapter 336
Our Pride For Her
In the last ten minutes before the show could officially begin, Maya and Lucas sat curled around a phone screen to say goodnight to their girls presently out at Sanderson Farm. They could vaguely hear some of their friends in nearby seats doing the same thing with their children, wherever they may have been spending that evening, but there was no taking their eyes away as they were treated to their daughters' antics, taking the phone in turn to talk to their parents. Mackenzie tried to run away with it when it was her turn, like she didn't want to have to relinquish them. Lucy was the one to convince her to give it back, she of the gentle voice at a time like this. She also held the phone for Aubrey so she could see them, and the baby girl gave them a good look at her forehead with how she tried and tried to get closer to them. Lucy reminded her how to blow a kiss, and she did so, and that was the end of that. They had to hang up, and the girls needed to get to sleep, and the show… the show was about to begin.
"Am I holding your hand for this?" Lucas tipped to whisper at her ear and Maya smiled.
"What do you think?" she asked, and a moment later his fingers came to link with hers. "Correct."
Even as it all started, the curtain, the music, all of it, they still wondered if Marianne would be alright. Her part didn't come right away, and they were focused on the actors, all of them doing a fantastic job, but it was impossible to give them a hundred percent of their focus. They didn't have to wonder when their daughter would first appear, they knew, and they awaited the moment, very nearly holding their breaths the entire time.
And then there she was… Their little Hucklebucket, their Annie girl… Part of the reason why they hadn't brought the triplets or Mackenzie was that they were certain at least one of them would call out to their big sister when she first came on the stage, and frankly, right now, it was a miracle that neither of her parents made a noise when they spotted her. Possibly, they had gone speechless, even as the array of grandparents and great grandparents had done.
If there was any kind of distress on her face, it had everything to do with what she was doing in character. She was solid. She went up there and soon there was her music, for the song she had practiced time after time over the last three months. There were no nerves, not a single quiver, just Marianne Christine Friar and her clear young voice, singing to the entire audience as they listened to her. She stood on the very stage where her grandmother had performed, and her mother as well, in some other fashion. She stood on this stage, in the theater that had been the reason for her mother and grandmother's move to Texas in the first place, and that fact was not lost on Maya or Lucas at all.
For the whole length of that song, even though they knew there were so many more people than them, it felt like there were only the three, only Maya and Lucas holding hands, tightly together, and their firstborn daughter up on the stage. It could have been a dream, but they knew better.
When the song was over and everyone cheered, they saw the small battle that took place for Marianne to remain in character instead of smiling as she wanted to, but she stuck the landing and carried on. Her parents had tissues at the ready before she'd come along, and that was good, because they needed them desperately. By the time Young Cosette's era came to a close and she would be played by her older counterpart the next time she came along, they had to remind themselves that there was a lot left of the show and they had to wait to go and see their daughter, even though all they wanted to do was hug her and tell her how great she'd been. Without even seeing her, they were just about certain that, at this moment, she was backstage, watching from the wings and silently singing along to all the songs that followed.
They made it through it all. Intermission went by in the blink of an eye with how everyone was massed together, talking about the rest of the musical, naturally, but Marianne's part first and foremost, as though the entire show was only about her. The rest of the night went by about as well as any production should hope to go, and then it was time for everyone to come up and take their bow. When Marianne and the other children came along, they got a very solid cheer, as much from their respective families as from everybody else in the room. They saw her scanning the room as she stood there, beaming from ear to ear and showing everyone the gaps in her teeth, and when she looked in their direction Lucas raised his arm, brandishing a baseball-sized pumpkin that lit up. They'd gotten it especially for this, and she soon found them and waved at them with both hands before lowering them to quickly sign at them.
"See? It went well!"
"She's calmer than we are," Maya told Lucas without looking away and he laughed, she knew, with new happy tears in his eyes. She was right there with him on that.
When they could finally be reunited, Marianne ran for them and right up into her father's arms. Even as he held her, she reached back so that her mother would join in, and she could see them both.
"That was so much fun! It was better than all the times we practiced!" she told them, sounding like everything had been kind of loud around her and she couldn't tell that she was shouting, which made them laugh. They could also tell, just looking at her, that as much as she was running on the energy of the last few hours, she was fading just as fast and would be sleeping hard in no time.
"You were so good up there," Lucas told her, and he chuckled when he felt her reach her small hands to his face. He'd started to cry again. "We're so proud of you, pumpkin," he went on, and she nodded. She knew; she could see it in their eyes.
There was a party afterward for the cast and crew. Marianne wanted to go, as was her right, and she did go. Her parents knew that it was only a matter of time before she dozed off, and once that happened – less than an hour later – they headed home with her. Lucas drove, while Maya sat in the back, Marianne secured with her head to her shoulder. There would be these times, every now and then, where she would look at any one of her children and find herself in complete and total awe that she and Lucas had made this person, that once upon a time they'd been little more than a thing first moving in her belly, that they'd been curled up little babes in their arms… It could never be so true as with Marianne, always to be the eldest of those babes of theirs, always the first one to hit this milestone or that one… Tonight's first, oh… It was in a class all its own.
Once they got home, Lucas carried Marianne up to her room and Maya went about getting her changed into her PJs while he went up the road toward the Sandersons' along with Eliza and Ben. It would have been easy to leave the girls there, and their neighbors probably would have kept them gladly, but this seemed like the more reasonable choice, especially with the baby, and then morning madness… Soon, he was coming back up the road, carrying the sleeping Kacey and Remy. Right behind him, Eliza had little Aubrey, while Ben had Lucy and Mackenzie together. Everyone was soon back in their own bed where they belonged. It would have been so easy for Lucas and Maya to be up half the night, if not the entire night, talking about this day, and about the show, but they went to sleep, knowing they would have to do a lot of it again the next night.
They had no idea what that next morning would look like, but they figured it would look a lot like the previous one, and they were correct. Marianne was up before any of them, making her bowl of cereal, cutting her apple… When Lucas went down to find her, he pointed out that she wasn't going to the theater until mid-afternoon this time and she said that she knew, but she still wanted to be ready. Once her sisters were awake, she just looked forward to being with them again and to telling them about the premiere. This was going to be the day where they got to see it, all of them. They would all be taking some good naps to make it happen, and there was no telling how it would go, especially with the baby, but there was no way they were going to prevent them from seeing their big sister up there.
They had as many adults as they had kids, Maya and Lucas being joined by Ella, Katy, and Melinda for their second round, so they all had one of the girls in their laps throughout the show. If any one of them showed signs of needing to step out for any reason, they would easily be taken by the one who had them. They did very well for themselves, all in all. Aubrey needed to be taken out a couple of times, and then Lucy once, otherwise, they stuck it out and enjoyed themselves. It helped that, by now, thanks to Marianne, they were all very familiar with the songs. It was very funny to see them get excited for their personal favorites, even if it was sung by other people than they were used to.
Their favorite part, uncontested, was when their sister had her part. They had been told to be as quiet as possible, even when they saw Marianne, and they mostly managed it. Aubrey let out a little squeak, and they knew Marianne caught it, but she recovered from the surprise like a pro.
Before they knew it, they were fully into the show's run. Over the course of four weeks, in which there would be performances every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday, the Silvan Hughes Theater would run its production of Les Misérables. And on half of those nights, Marianne Friar would play the part of the Young Cosette. Already by the time that first weekend was over, and everyone had gone back to work and school, a lot of their colleagues, classmates, and other people they regularly interacted with had either seen the show itself, or they had seen the segment on the local news. For Lucas and Maya, it was a lot of people telling them how they'd seen Marianne and she was so sweet, and funny, and mature, or remarking on how talented she was at such a young age, how she had to take after her mother…
For Marianne herself, they had wondered how it would go, with people she interacted with, especially her classmates. They could already see the likes of Adam Gray teasing her and picking at her joy. At the same time though, they knew their daughter enough to think she would hold her own against them, and she did. She had nothing to feel embarrassed about, quite the opposite. She'd done three performances now, and she couldn't wait for the next one.
It became part of their routine for that month, four nights a week, whether she went on or the other young actress did. They couldn't very well bring all the girls each time, or leave them with sitters just the same, but they also wanted to be there for Marianne, so they alternated, Maya attending the Friday and Wednesday performances, and Lucas doing the weekend ones, while the other was home with the triplets and little sisters. The third and final time when they both attended it together was the night of the final performance.
The closer they'd been getting to it, the more certain Maya and Lucas had become that Marianne was dreading that night, dreading the moment when it would all be over. These weeks had been so much fun for her, and she would have gladly done so much more. But the end line had always been on the horizon, and now they had reached it. The last time she sang her song, when she finished and people applauded, it was the first time she came close to breaking, but she didn't… not until she'd finished her part and left the stage. A minute after she'd gone, someone from backstage had come out to signal to Maya and Lucas, who knew what this would be before ever getting up and discreetly moving back there to find their daughter, crying in the arms of her crouching adult counterpart. Nadia gently indicated that her mom and dad were there, and Marianne shifted at once to embrace her mother, who lifted her up until she was locked on her like a backpack. It didn't matter that she seemed to be inching her way to catching up with her height. That was her baby girl, and she was feeling a lot right now.
"Hey, you did it. You were a pro out there, you know that? Even today, when it was really hard," Maya told her, speaking at her ear as she rubbed her back. "This is just one adventure ending. You've got so many ahead of you, I promise."
"Promise means yes," Marianne mumbled when she finally spoke again, and Maya chuckled.
"Always."
They ended up watching the rest of the performance with her, right where she'd done it all this time. They got to see how she'd had her viewing corner bonified all this time, with a comfy seat and snacks. By the end of it, she was once again singing along to the songs under her breath or mouthing the words. And when the finale of the finale was done, she went up there with the rest of the cast like she'd always done, only this time she knew exactly where her parents were, no pumpkin needed, though she did have it in her hands, glowing orange, as she took her bow, as though she carried her greatest supporters with her, right where she stood.
They would not have the closing party on that night as they'd done with the opening party. That would be the next day, which was just as well, if they wanted their youngest performers to get to participate in earnest. For that night though, as they left the theater, they knew they needed one thing, and one thing only, and it was the soundtrack to Marianne's very favorite musical, and not even for the name of both the musical and its title character. One thing was for sure though, if the theater ever put on a performance of Annie, she would be the first in line to audition, all songs memorized from top to bottom.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
