February 13th 2022
Chapter 44
Our Inspiration For Support
"Alright, what's it going to be? It's a big decision, but you've got this…" Lucas declared, employing his most serious of tones as he stared across the small table. Sitting in chairs because they weren't too big for them the way he was, Marianne and Tori contemplated the array spread out before them. Finally, Tori pointed. "This one?" Lucas asked, picking up her selection. "The pizza?" he turned the plastic shape around. Tori nodded and smiled brightly. "We're putting pizza in the soup?"
"Yeah!" Tori told him, melting into giggles.
"Well, that should be interesting," Lucas shrugged before handing it to her. "Here you go, into the cauldron." Tori took the 'pizza' and deposited it into the big bowl, there to join fruits, vegetables… a milk carton… "Sheriff, care to stir?"
"Okay!" Marianne took hold of the big plastic spoon. It bordered on oversized, enough for Lucas to have called their bowl a cauldron. She grasped it with both hands and pretended to exert great effort in mixing up their ingredients. "That's enough now," she finally declared, letting out a big breath and wiping at her forehead with the back of her hand.
"I do it," Tori pointed to the spoon.
"You want to stir next?" Lucas asked, and she nodded. "Alright, then it's your turn to pick an ingredient, yeah?" he turned to Marianne. The contemplating resumed, only to be interrupted by the sound of the doorbell upstairs. "Oh, alright, you keep thinking, I'll be right back," Lucas stood back up. As he went toward the stairs, checking the baby monitor and finding that the triplets were still asleep up in the nursery, Marianne declared that what their soup needed now was an egg.
Maya was out in Houston with Ella, and here he was, surrounded by the little girls as they waited for the two of them to return so that they could have their big Ella Day dinner. It was a perfectly relaxed afternoon, and the last thing he expected was to be visited by a crying, pregnant teenager.
"Nika? Hey… What are you doing here, what… Are you okay?" Lucas asked, motioning for her to come in.
"Is Mrs. Friar here?" she asked.
"Uh, no, she's… Well, right now she should be on her way back from Houston with Ella," he replied after checking his watch. She looked like she wanted to turn back around and leave. "You're clearly upset about something. Can I help?" he slowly asked. Nika stood in silence for a few seconds, sniffing back tears, breathing deep.
"I was… a-at the mall, because I needed to find… new clothes," she explained as she opened up her jacket. Much as the shirt she wore had once been big enough to hide the fact that she was pregnant, it had clearly reached its limits once she neared on seven months, because it now contoured her belly enough as to make it obvious. "This boy from school, Ronnie… real jerk…" she muttered under her breath. "He saw me, he… took a picture with his phone. They're all going to know now…" Her crying resumed anew, turned into sobs.
"Okay, hey…" Lucas approached her, put his hand at her arm. The moment he did, she took the two steps needed before she could lean against him. He closed his arms around her, rubbed her back for reassurance. "Look, there's nothing we can do about this Ronnie guy now. He's going to do what he's going to do. But one, he won't just get away with it without consequence, okay? And two, the best you can do now is just… take control. It's your story, not his. No one gets to… co-opt the narrative. This feeling right now, the panic, after it passes, you'll figure out what to do. You're not alone. Okay?"
It took a little while more of him holding her, but finally she nodded, started to pull away. Even as she did, her belly still so close to him, he felt something and looked down. The baby was kicking. Nika's hand went to rest over the spot where they'd both felt it.
"He does that a lot around this time. It's like clockwork," she sniffed, watching her own hand follow the curve, her thoughts turned to her unborn child.
"It's a boy?" Lucas couldn't help but ask. She looked up at him and nodded.
"I wasn't sure if I wanted to know, maybe… maybe it would have made things easier not to know, but then I was in there for my appointment, and the doctor asked if I wanted to know and… I said yes. Now I'm kind of glad I know. Helps me think about his future, finding him his family."
"That's good," Lucas smiled at her, hopefully passing on encouragement.
"Did they call you? Do they have anyone yet?" Nika asked, looking small as she stood with her fingers knotted together.
"Not yet, no," he replied. "But they will call. Maya's been keeping in touch, okay? We're in this with you." She'd asked them to help with the process. She didn't want to impose, didn't want to make it feel like she was dumping this whole responsibility on them, but it was far from that. He and Maya were more than happy to help.
"Yeah… I-I know, I just… I keep thinking about it, about who it'll be, what kind of family he'll have. My family…" She stopped, took a breath, and another. "My family looked perfect to anyone who saw us. Strangers, friends, even the aunts and uncles, the cousins. They had no idea what it was really like for me and Theo, or if they did… they didn't care. They just looked the other way, or worse they saw nothing wrong." She was crying again. Lucas took her hands in his, giving her what small tether to the present world he could give her. "I need to know that whoever gets my baby is not going to be like that."
"They won't be," Lucas promised.
"You need to make sure, okay? Really, really sure. Two parents, one parent, I don't mind… just as long as they love him like I do, love him so much that the idea of losing him…" She squeezed his hands, took another deep breath. He let her keep going, let her pull herself together. "I haven't changed my mind, that's not what this is, I swear, it's just…"
"He's almost here. You can feel him now," he filled in for her. She nodded. "Do you have a name?" he asked. She looked at him. "Whether his family chooses to keep it or not, that'll be up to them, but to you he can always be…"
"Anthony," Nika spoke, surprising herself as well as Lucas, like the response had been little more than a spontaneous realization. But it sounded right. Her tears were no longer falling, and she managed a small smile.
"Well, there you go," Lucas smiled back.
"I was thinking… If I write him a letter, would they give it to him? Like… when he's grown up, if he wants to know where he came from, if he… if he wants to find me? Maybe he won't want to, but if he does… I'd like to make sure that he's able."
"I think that should be feasible," Lucas nodded. "My uncles have adopted four children, my friends adopted two… If you want to talk to them, ask them anything, I can put you in touch."
"Yeah, Lara and her siblings…" Nika nodded, thinking of her classmate. Lucas, for his part, thought of how Ella and Lea had been brought together in friendship for a similar sort of connection. Maybe something like that would happen for Nika and Lara… If she had her, and Maggie in the same deal, her return to school might not be so bad.
"Daddy, we're hungry."
They turned their heads and spotted the little girls, freshly out of the basement's playroom. If Nika needed something to cheer her up after her run in with Ronnie the jerk, the appearance of her little niece happily dashing toward her was about as effective a remedy as they could hope for. Tori came up and held out her arms, and Nika picked her up.
"Hi, honey," she smiled.
"Auntie sad?" Tori asked, reaching out and touching her face where it was wet. Nika looked at her for a moment.
"Yeah… I am," she admitted. "But you're here, so now I'm… less sad."
"Daddy," Marianne tugged at Lucas' hand, and he looked down at her. "We need the special cookies," she whispered.
"The GiGi cookies?" he asked, and she nodded. "Pumpkin, I don't think we have any left." But she nodded, and she hurried to stand by the kitchen counter. She pointed up to one of the cupboards. Lucas went and opened it. "In here?" She was trying to climb up the counter, so he lifted her up. Now that she was within reach, she easily dug out the hidden tin from behind a stack of plates they only used on holidays and other special occasions. "Your mom's been holding out on us?" Lucas joked, putting her back on her feet.
Marianne brought the tin over to Nika, held it up to her. She explained how they were special cookies, that they would make her feel better, and the way Lucas saw it, they might have already done that just by being offered to her by the four-year-old blonde.
Just then, cries from the baby monitor rang out. The triplets were awake. Lucas excused himself and headed up the stairs.
"Alright, what's going on here? Hungry already? Or did one of you leave me something?" he asked the crying girls, all the while trying not to picture some kind of shell game where the shells were diapers and the hidden prize… He checked on Lucy's as he picked her up. Nothing. He set her down next to Kacey before picking her up. "Winner, winner…" his face twitched from the smell. Keeping her near, he scooped up Remy, checked her out… "Double draw… One of you is gonna have to wait."
"I can do one." Lucas turned around. Nika stood in the doorway, followed just a couple seconds later by Marianne and Tori, the latter with a cookie in hand.
"Yeah? Alright, just… here, this one's Kacey," he passed her over. "You want to hold Lucy?" he turned to Marianne, and she went to sit in the rocking chair. Soon, she had Lucy in her arms, and Lucas went to start on changing Remy. Nika was halfway done with Kacey already, the baby looking a lot more cheerful than she'd done a minute ago. "This isn't your first time," Lucas noted.
"Got lots of cousins," Nika shrugged, paused. "Had… Probably won't be seeing much of them again," she reflected.
"You never know. The ones you're missing right now, if they're worth missing… Sooner or later, you'll all be making your own lives, your own choices, and when you do…" It was a worthy notion, and she looked reassured by it. "Hey, where's Theo right now?"
"Working until six. Why?"
"Today makes one year since Maya and I adopted Ella, so we're doing a dinner for her… You should stay, call him over to join us when he can."
"Oh, I don't know if…" Nika hesitated.
"I know it was rough at first with the three of you, but you're doing better, aren't you? I think… I think she'd be happy to have you there." Nika considered this, looked back to Kacey, all cleaned up and at ease in her arms.
"I'll text him… Thanks."
"You're welcome," he nodded as he picked Remy up again. "And you are all good to go, kitty cat." She gave him a good smile, and he kissed her cheek.
"I hope… he gets a family like yours," Nika spoke quietly. Looking at them, Lucas had a good feeling she'd said these words to Kacey directly.
"He will," he replied anyway. Nika nodded. She would take that promise to heart. It would keep her going in the weeks to come, the closer she got to the birth of her Anthony.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
