A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!
February 4th 2022
Chapter 35
Our Call to Voices
Little by little, the piles had shifted. The unanswered pile had felt just a bit daunting at first, but over the past few hours, it had gotten smaller and smaller. And now there was only one left. Maya couldn't ignore the fact that it felt almost too appropriate. Even when she'd been in school with the rest of them, up until just a few months ago, she'd had this tendency of hanging back, of waiting, letting everyone else go before her and sometimes just running out of time in the process, as much as Maya tried not to let it happen.
Dear Mrs. Friar,
I've been meaning to reach out to you for a few weeks, ever since I found the drawing you did in the back of my diary. I didn't know it was there at first, but then one morning I emptied my bag to put away my things for the summer. When I got to my diary, I was about to put it on the shelf with the others from the other years, and I decided to take them all down instead. I sat on my bed all morning, looking through each of the books, from freshman year to now. It was a little weird, I think. I remembered doing all of those, but at the same time it was surprising to see how much my drawing style has changed. I drew so many cats back then… I still do now, sometimes, but not as much. I guess they were my comfort zone back then and I found it hard to wander too far out of it.
Thinking back on it now, I don't know why it took me that long to get there. You got me there, you and your class, and I'm glad I have my diaries to help me remember that journey. That's what it feels like. And on the end, I found your drawing. I was kind of scared about what would come next, and I still am, I guess, but also not so much. The drawing reminded me of you and how much you believed in me. Maybe it was just your job to do it, but then if it was, a lot of the other teachers weren't doing theirs. Anyway, you reminded me I could do… this… everything that's coming… And if I get scared again, I know where to look. I wanted to say thank you, for that, and for the last four years in your class. I'm not much of a talker, but I do my best when it counts.
I didn't get to write before because we left on our trip. Then, after we came home, I had to go to this orientation camp for my university. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, to be honest, but it went okay in the end. I made a friend. She lives in Seattle, but soon she'll be moving out to San Diego same as I am, and we've been discussing getting an apartment we can share. Once I came back from the camp, my mother told me you'd had your babies, and I knew I was long overdue to write to you. I hope everything is going alright with all of you. I guess you'll be in the hospital for a while, or they will… I'll be thinking about you and the girls and praying for your well-being.
With love,
Talia Ríos
PS: It feels kind of weird not to be doing diaries anymore. I might keep doing it anyway, to challenge myself, to keep learning…
Maya couldn't keep from smiling, looking the letter over again. It just touched her so much, every time, to see the way she could affect her students, to hear how much it meant to them especially. That was the entire reason she'd become a teacher, wasn't it? She'd needed people like that in her life when she was growing up, and she'd had them, and they'd meant the world to her. She'd wanted to be that for someone, even just one… Every year now, she was getting to see how she'd surpassed that goal, over and over again. If that wasn't a reason to keep going, she couldn't think of a better one.
Dear Talia,
This letter is making its way out to you a lot further than it might have had to if I'd managed to respond earlier. Your mother was kind enough to give me your address in San Diego. She tells me that you and your roommate are doing great out there, so it looks like that worked out since August. How's life out there? How's your new diary filling up? I'd love to see what you've been working on lately.
For my part, as you can guess, I've been in over my head in baby land. Not that I'm complaining, of course. I'm right where I want to be with these girls. They still feel so small, coming on three months, but more and more they're starting to feel like their own people. The way things are going, it seems like all it will take will be the blink of an eye and they'll be running all over the place. I'm actually looking forward to that part, but then again there's really nothing like having them around when they're this small. We have so many pictures already, videos enough to last us for hours on end, and then the drawings… I had one sketchbook for Marianne when she was a baby, that was easy. I wanted to do the same for the triplets, sure, but how was I going to do it, right? I couldn't just have the one book for all three together, but then, shouldn't I?
So, what did I do? I ended up with four books, one for each of the girls and one for the three of them together, and the pages are already filling up, what with me being at home all day… Between those sketchbooks and the others I've been adding to lately, it's probably the most I've gotten to draw in a while. It takes me back to when I was in school, when I'd only just moved to Texas. Oh, I just kept going, and going, and I can still look at those old pages and remember what was happening, what I was feeling. Between work, and home, and music, it's been really good to dive headlong back into creating like this.
All this to say how happy I am to hear about you looking back through your diaries, wanting to keep doing them. As I've said, I would love to see some of your work from time to time if you'd be interested to share it. After four years of following students' art from week to week, it feels so strange not to find it waiting for me in one of those boxes. You may have been one of the more reserved and quiet ones out there, waiting your turn, but you know I always looked forward to finding out what you had in store for me every time. Keep it coming, okay? Anytime.
With wishes of inspiration,
Mrs. Friar
The last letter was read over, folded, and sealed up in its envelope. With a sigh of satisfaction, it was placed on top of the stack. Maya picked up the stack, straightened it up. She'd hand them all over to the mailman in the morning and they would fly off in however many directions it would take before they reached their destinations. With this long overdue task done, she made her way down the stairs to see what everyone else was up to. She'd been hearing enough from up here to guess that there were more people in the house now than when she'd started with her first letter.
X
"Why's there a box of cookies next to the tree?" Ella asked when she came through the door with Tori balanced in one arm.
"You can't look at it!" Marianne came hurrying to her sister.
"I can't?" Ella smiled. She crouched and put Tori down to get her coat and boots off. This was never very difficult. Some kids may have been too eager to get moving, which only prevented them from standing still, but Tori would always just stand there and wait, letting her mother help her. Lucas suspected that all she was really doing was waiting. She was waiting for her mother to finish removing her outdoor things and ask if she was still cold. No matter what she'd respond, Ella would take her in her arms, give her a good warming hug… Tori couldn't get enough of that. When she got it this time, like every time before, she kept clinging to her so that she'd keep holding her, and so she did.
"It's a secret," Marianne informed her big sister.
"Alright, if you say so," Ella smiled. She looked over to their father and he gave her a good 'I'll tell you about it later' nod. "How did it go today? Your thing, with your team?" she asked him.
"Pretty good, yeah," Lucas replied. "Finished everything we set out to do, faced off with the guys…"
"And Auntie," Marianne added.
"And Auntie," Lucas chuckled. "And the two of us took care of a… project…" he went on, turning a look to the four-year-old, who confirmed this with a nod even as she fixed her father with a near perfect Maya-like squint. This had to be their secret, he had to remember. "How about you two, how did it go?" he redirected away from the fairy box, knowing that today was important for his daughter and granddaughter, too.
They'd been playing it by ear since Halloween, since Tori had been introduced to her father and her aunt. They didn't want to rush the two-year-old and overwhelm her. It was one thing to be presented with this young man and be told that he was her father, but she had to get to know him, to trust him, and for her mother… Ella had to get to know Theo Petrelis again, enough to trust him with her daughter, their daughter… The revelation of Nika's pregnancy had sort of sped a few things up, but as Ella had been telling her parents, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. At least, it had gotten them to start the conversation.
They'd had two more meetings before today, both times with the Petrelis siblings joining the Friars for dinner. They were still sort of awkward, all of them together. They would have plenty to talk about, with the triplets, and the horses, and preschool… But there were the things they weren't talking about, not really. They would ask Nika how she was doing, naturally, and she would answer, vaguely. She'd gone to the doctor, everything looked good… She still didn't know what she would do about the baby, if she would raise it or not, and it was very clear that she wasn't ready to talk about it, so they weren't forcing her to, but they would have to figure it out… sooner or later.
And then there was Tori. Both times she'd seen Theo and Nika, she'd had the same response. She was clearly curious about the both of them. She would look at them when they'd be at the house, but she was still locked in her shy phase with them, only talking briefly when spoken to. She was warming up to them, but she wasn't there yet. Today though… Today, Ella had committed to the four of them, her and Tori and Theo and Nika, going to the park together. The hope was that, in reducing the numbers down to this small family unit of theirs, Tori would feel better at ease and open up to her father and aunt.
"It was good, yeah?" Ella breathed and nodded, turning to Tori, still snug in her arms. "Did you have fun at the park today?" she asked her.
"Yeah," Tori smiled, brightening up at the memories that her mother brought back. She went on to relay her account of the day, rattling off what her vocabulary could provide. Her favorite part of the outing was when she'd gone on the swings. "Papa push up! Up!" she zoomed her hand along, showing the motion of the swing. As great as it was to hear that she'd enjoyed herself, the part they retained most of all was the name she'd now granted to Theo. By the look of surprise on Ella's face, Lucas guessed this was the first time she'd used it at all. It might have made her nervous, once upon a time, but it didn't now. It made her… happy, and that happiness seemed to reverberate back on to itself. She was happy to be happy that her daughter was getting to know her father.
"Hey, guys!" Maya started down the stairs, Emma and Eliza following along and all three of them carrying one of the babies. "I thought you were coming back with the others," Maya looked to Lucas. She'd definitely been aware of their presence earlier, but they'd had their thing to do, and she'd had hers.
"Yeah, well, we had to take care of a couple of things before dinner," he explained, tapping the top of Marianne's head. She squeaked at this before dashing over to the bassinet, waiting for her sisters to be deposited there one by one.
"Things… You guys definitely played with the ball, what else?" Maya wondered.
"A secret," Ella told her mother before sparing a smirk to her little sister. Marianne giggled.
"Secret?" Maya turned to her, slipping right into the mischief. She bent toward her, whispered. "Do I get to know what it is?" Marianne hesitated, looked at the others in the room and pressed her lips together before turning back to her mother. "Later? Just us?" Maya asked. She nodded. "Looking forward to it."
"Hey, got a tiny assignment for you," Lucas spoke quietly when they managed to step out into the kitchen, just the two of them. "If you can take up the role of a Christmas fairy…"
"Here I thought you already knew I was one," Maya squinted at him. "What do you need?" He gave her a quick rundown of Marianne's question, and his solution, down to the card hidden away in the tin box which would soon be spirited away by Rosa and Jenna. What they needed now was the fairies' next move. "Oh, you leave that in my little hands…" she wiggled her fingers at him.
"Magic hands," he smirked, catching hold of them. "Got all your letters done?"
"All done and ready to go," Maya confirmed. "Running low on supplies, I know someone who'll be happy to hear that."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
