February 15th 2022
Chapter 46
Our Inspiration For Family
The closer they got to Maya's return to work, the more important those days at home had been getting, for all of them. Both she and Lucas were particularly focused on being helping hands to their helping hands once they became in charge of Triplet Daycare. They wanted to make it as easy on their families as possible to either look after them at the house, or take them to their homes, or out and about… The easier it was for them to find something or put together what they'd need… what they'd all need, Maya and Lucas included, the easier it would be to have peace of mind.
"Is this ridiculous? Are we ridiculous?" Maya sighed as she lowered herself to sit on the nursery floor. Lucas turned toward her and let out a chuckle at the slightly exasperated look on her. "Hey," she pointed a finger at him in challenge. He raised his hands and came to join her on the floor.
"Not ridiculous," he insisted. "Just… trying to bring order to chaos."
"Yeah, for the next eighteen plus years," she laughed, and he showed his agreement by tapping her foot with his own. "Might get easier once they're walking… and talking… and able to take directions…"
"So somewhere about three to six years from now," Lucas suggested. "Maybe they'll take after Marianne…"
"One can only hope," Maya hummed, stretching over to look into the crib. "Pretty please, little butts?" she crooned. Lucas tried not to laugh. "I get to give them whatever nicknames I want, okay? I won't even parade those out to embarrass them when they're teenagers… unless they try our patience," she whispered.
Baby prep aside, they had a few other things to see to before Maya went back to school. Some were within their control – like what she'd be doing with her siblings later that day – and some were in the hands of others. Thankfully, one of them was finally making strides.
They hadn't told her yet. Maya had called her on the pretext of discussing quiz team matters, and she'd agreed to come over. When she arrived, Maya and Lucas brought her to the kitchen.
"The others aren't here yet?" she asked, seeking her teammates.
"The others aren't coming," Maya confessed. "This isn't really about the team. I just didn't want you to have too much… anticipation… rolling through you while you came over." Nika looked confused for a few moments, and then… surprised, anxious.
"You have… people? His…" she looked at herself, hands flexing at her sides. She wasn't exactly wearing form-fitting clothes, but she was clearly not going out of her way to hide her shape anymore.
"It's up to you. If you find anyone you feel good about," Lucas told her. She hesitated. He hadn't forgotten their conversation, the day she'd come looking for Maya and found him instead. "We'll look at them together, we'll share our opinions, but ultimately it's your baby. Your choice." She took a deep breath and finally nodded.
"Okay…"
They sat together, the three of them around the table. Eliza and Emma had gone out with Marianne, at their sister's behest, so they could have this time, just them and Nika. Neither Maya nor Lucas had looked at any of what they'd been sent yet, not without her there. They figured that, this way, they would be able to express their opinions as they came to them. They had five profiles, hopefully the only ones they'd need but just the first ones if they needed to keep going. They wouldn't stop until they found a family for baby Anthony, one Nika felt good about.
As they got started, it was hard not to think about Zay and Nadine, and Mike and Keith… They'd put together profiles like these throughout the years when they'd gone seeking to adopt their children. Lucas had vague memories of his uncles' first go around, eventually connecting with Lea's birth mother. Later on, he'd gotten to hear about the stress, the frustrations over what to include in their profile, how best to show why they'd be just the parents someone would want for their child. All Lucas remembered of the time itself was how he'd written a letter, spelling out just how awesome his uncles were. According to them, it had been just the thing Mike and Keith had needed to get out of their own heads and figure out what they wanted to say.
"When we wrote our letters, for Zay and Nadine…" Maya told Nika, indicating herself and Lucas, "We just wanted to give them… the best chance, you know? We knew who they were, they'd been our friends since middle school and before, a lot of formative years, everything after that, too, but… How do you shrink that down to a page or two, right?"
"But that's a good thing," Nika decided. "It means they mean a lot to you."
"Yeah, they really do," Lucas agreed with a smile.
"If this one isn't good, don't let it discourage you, okay?" Maya lay her hand on the girl's arm as they pulled the first profile open on her computer.
"Might need a couple more pep talks," Nika awkwardly admitted.
"Got you covered," Maya gave her a good grin.
The first profile didn't send Nika running for the hills, so that was something. Here was a couple, a husband and wife from New Mexico, one biological child, looking to adopt. Maya and Lucas let Nika take the lead as she browsed through letters, and pictures, a video from the family… She looked tense, but knowing about her concerns, they had to guess that she had a lot on her mind. She was afraid of getting it wrong, of handing her son to people like her own parents.
"What's your gut telling you?" Maya asked her as she sat back after finishing with the profile.
"They sound nice, I guess," Nika shrugged.
"Let's keep looking, yeah?" Lucas suggested.
"Uh-huh," she mumbled and opened the next one.
Maya turned a look toward her husband over the teen's head, and he was thinking the same thing. This is exactly what she'd needed them for. On her own, she would get stuck in her own head too much, wouldn't she? She didn't want to ask her brother, they knew, because she felt she might take her cue from him too much, and that wouldn't do. She'd come to them because they were adults, and they were parents… They were her ideal. They half expected her to suddenly come around and ask them if they would take the baby, forcing them to reason that, surely, she would see that they were already in over their heads with three babies without adding a fourth, no matter how much they would struggle to tell her no.
The second profile was quickly set aside. Nika didn't feel right about it and, frankly, neither did Lucas and Maya. The third felt better than either the first or second, which was a relief as it helped to raise Nika's spirits again after the dip of profile two. Two would-be-mothers from Georgia… They had no children as of yet, had recently been married, but they were eager to start a family. They had both been adopted themselves, and they wanted to provide what their own parents had provided for them. To look at everything in their profile, it seemed as though it was a couple of great lives they wanted to emulate on to a new generation.
"If it's between one and three…" Nika shook her head.
"You want to set aside number one then?" Lucas asked her. She thought about it for a moment, looked at the screen as she recalled the couple. Finally, she nodded. "Alright."
"Doesn't mean I've made up my mind on three, but…"
"Of course," Maya assured her. They moved on to profile number four.
This one gave her pause. A single woman from Minnesota. On the one hand, everything they saw about her made her sound like just the kind of person Nika would want, and with how invested she became in the profile, there was no doubt to how she felt about her as a prospective mother to her Anthony. But then… She was single, and the problem could have come from an uncertainty that she'd be unable to handle the needs of the child on her own, but no… That wasn't it, not even a little. It was the idea of the… unknown variable. Nika worried about what might happen if someone else came into the picture in the future, someone she had no way of knowing about, who might not be someone she'd want near her boy.
Admitting that, she'd left herself open to a new wave of feelings, that thread still making it so hard to think about letting him go. She knew it was what would be best for him, but at the same time she'd think of Ella. She had not given Tori up, had never even considered it. She'd struggled, but for her daughter she'd dealt with that struggle, and she'd made it through. She was doing great, and so was Tori… Sure, they'd had help, but wasn't she also surrounded by much kinder arms now? She had her brother, she had her friends, she had the Friars… Couldn't she keep her son, shouldn't she?
"This might not be helping, but it's just… Look, no one can know what will happen, to any of them. She might find a really good someone someday, or she might continue to raise him on her own. And the couples, well… they might end up separating, or… being separated…" Lucas slowly explained, catching looks from Maya that he read as 'okay, I trust that you're going somewhere with this, but get there quick before she panics.' "All you or anyone out there has to go on is the present, right here. We can't judge a future that hasn't happened yet, just… this," he indicated the laptop, where they could still see the woman, sitting in front of her house with her dog. Nika looked, too. Her lips twitched into a small smile again. She liked her a lot.
"You want to look at the last one?" Maya asked. Nika took a breath and nodded.
The fifth profile was very good, too, and it only added to her realization that she wanted all these people to have their wish granted but could only do so for one or two of them. A husband and wife, over in Louisiana. Three children already, one each from a previous marriage and one they had adopted together. They had both grown up wanting a big family, but unfortunately the woman had been sick after having her daughter and could no longer bear children. It had been a difficult loss on the one hand, but she and her husband here never saw it as a stop to their shared dream. Their children didn't have to share their blood to be taken into their hearts.
"Alright, maybe you should think on it for a couple of days," Maya suggested. "We'll keep looking at them, too, okay?"
"Whoever I pick, I get to meet them, yeah? Or talk to them…" Nika asked.
"You will," she nodded.
"I don't want to wait a few days, I'll just end up… turning in circles, you know?"
"Then we keep looking right now," Maya nodded, and Nika turned to her backpack, sitting on the floor at her feet. She pulled out one of her notebooks and a pen. "Pro-con list?" Maya guessed.
"Sort of… Notes, mostly. It just helps me put things in perspective."
"Sounds good," Lucas nodded.
So, they went back through profiles three, four, and five as Nika's pen filled one sheet to each potential family. It had been the right call, all the way. It helped to steady her into a place of familiarity and structure instead of feeling adrift. And by the time she would leave the Friar house, a choice would be made. They would see about organizing a meeting. Everyone was nervous, hoping it would all work out alright, but they would tip on the side of optimism.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
