February 26th 2022

Chapter 57
Our Reach Toward the Future

Every year, it was like a buzz. It started low, just loud enough that you started to wonder if the time had come. Then, it would start and get louder… and louder… and then there'd be no doubt. One look at the senior class and they would know: the letters were starting to arrive. Joy and sadness, relief and disappointment, confidence and frustration… They'd be all over the place, and the best that Maya and the other teachers at their school could do was be there to either congratulate or reassure them, all the while still trying to teach their classes. Some students would almost check out once they had their letters, like they figured that these last few months meant nothing now that they had their next step lined up.

Maya had seen this dance so many times, and she had rolled with it every time, but this year… This year was different. The difference here was that, among all those bundles of nerves she called students, one of them was her daughter. Ella was waiting on her letters, too, and her parents… Oh, her parents were just waiting to find out what their girl had in store for her future. She hadn't told them anything, kept it all so close, insisting that they had to wait, and they would, of course, but also… They really wanted to know.

The last few mornings, since the buzz had settled in the school, had started roughly the same way. Maya left home with Marianne, dropped her off at school, picked up Ella, picked up Nika, and made for the high school. As soon as Ella was in the minivan, she wasn't exactly questioned, but Maya would just end up trying to figure out, from context clues, whether or not she'd received any news. Showing that maybe she'd been among them long enough to pick up more than a few traits from her adoptive parents, she'd shown herself very skilled at deflecting the attempts. In the last few days though, Maya had picked up a notion, not just from the car rides but from the days at school, too, like maybe Ella had received one or more letters… but she hadn't opened them yet? Maya didn't know how many applications she'd sent in, so she couldn't say how many responses she was waiting on. Maybe she was waiting until she had them all? That sounded like something she'd do…

As it turned out, she'd guessed her daughter's process just as it was. She found this out that morning, her third Tuesday back. Right when she appeared, exiting her building, there was something different in the way she carried herself, like there was both a weight lifted and a new anticipation in her. When she climbed into the front passenger seat and buckled up, she let her mother know that she and Tori would be at dinner that night. Maya was glad to hear this, as always, but also curious. Any particular reason? Ella's voice said no, but her face suggested otherwise.

So, they carried on through the day, as they would. They picked up Nika, headed to school, and classes started. All through first period, Maya would sneak looks to her daughter, like a challenge to make her break, but she held strong, making her both proud and impatiently eager. At lunch, she told Lucas about their added dinner plates, and they spent a ridiculous few minutes debating 'the big news,' because of course neither of them was fooled.

Finally, classes ended, and Maya and Ella made their way back to the house, there to be reunited with Tori and the triplets, today in the care of Pappy Joe and Patty, the senior Friars having swapped out days with the elder Friars. According to them, Remy had looked just this close to giving crawling a go. There'd been a scramble for cameras, with Patty being the much more adept of the two, but the most they'd managed to capture was Remy looking at the camera with something halfway between a smile and confusion, while her great grandparents piled encouragement on. Also in the frame, they could see Kacey, maybe waiting to see what her twin would do and considering her own options, while Lucy… Yeah, she was just doing her own thing, as tended to be her way.

"No rush, alright? None of you," Maya told Remy when she picked her up and turned her smile over to her sisters both in the play pen and carrying on their game of 'kicky leg race,' as they'd come to call it. "If you wait and do it while your dad and I are here, we'll make it worth your while," she whispered and kissed the side of Remy's head. "Your dad works with horses every day, play your cards right and you might get an actual pony…"

Lucas arrived with Marianne before long, and the story train pulled right in. They tried to keep everything for dinner time, but Marianne was so eager to talk about what she'd done at preschool that day that she was hopping about, looking like she had to go to the bathroom. So, while they were getting everything ready, she just stood there and talked, and talked, and talked… They listened and smiled all the while, their daughter's energy so infectious as it was.

On the plus side, with these stories already aired out, by the time they made it to the table, the way was open for the thing they'd been waiting on all day, today and the last few days. They couldn't even pretend like it wasn't right there on their minds anymore, and Ella was very aware. Oh, she was loving this. But she also wanted to wait. Yes, she wasn't hiding the fact that this was The College Thing, but that was all the more reason to finish their meal before they dug into this question. Maya and Lucas could agree on that argument, so they waited, just a little while more. After dinner, before dessert, that was the deal.

"Daddy, why is everyone weird?" Marianne curiously asked as they all sat back down, having cleared the table. The babies were in their seats in Dot's table, Tori and her young aunt were in their seats but eyeing the dessert back on the counter, and Lucas and Maya were waiting while Ella returned with her schoolbag and now fished through it.

"We're always weird," Lucas had to say, pulling a few chuckles from his wife and eldest daughter. "A little more tonight, I'll admit, but only because your sister's got something to share with us." Marianne turned from her father to her sister with big eyes full of expectation.

Now, Ella took a deep breath. As much as they'd been looking forward to hearing the news, they looked at her now and understood they couldn't possibly have been as excited at her. She'd been keeping her plans a secret all this time, and they weren't sure why exactly, but they chose to believe that she'd had a good reason. All this waiting, and now it was over… They could almost see her heart beating out of her chest.

"I… I never knew what I wanted to be, when I was little," she started, eyes dipping momentarily to the small stack of envelopes she'd placed on the table. They had all been neatly slit open before, when she'd first looked to see what they said. Just looking at them, Maya and Lucas could both presume none of them were rejections. "I can remember, since I was maybe five or six years old, my parents would talk about the future, my future, and it sort of felt like they already knew what they thought I should or shouldn't be, so… I guess I never really thought about anything beyond that. It wasn't until after I had to leave that I actually admitted to myself that I'd had no say, and I would have done whatever they wanted me to do like it was somehow my idea," Ella went on, and her parents as they sat here, her new family…

What they had ever seen or heard of their daughter as a child had come from pictures and stories before they'd ever been in her life. There was nothing they could do to change it, much as they would like to, so there was no reason to try.

"That's kind of why I didn't say anything about what I was going for until tonight," Ella revealed. "Not that I thought you'd try and influence me in any way, that's really the one thing I knew for sure," she promised, and they nodded and smiled. "It was more for me, to just… make sure wherever my mind went, I could say for sure that it was about nothing else than heading in the direction I wanted to be in."

"That's good," Maya nodded.

"I did explore more than one option, in case it didn't work out with my top choice, and… well, I got into all of them," she smiled, nudging over all but the bottom envelope toward them so they could have a look. The one she kept was purposefully upside down, unlike the rest, so they couldn't even see what school it was for. Marianne and Tori both got up to come and see the discarded envelopes as they were briefly inspected. "I think part of me knew for a while what I wanted to do, there was just… the whole thing growing up, like I said, and I just wasn't realizing what was going through my head at first. Even when I started thinking about it, I think I was worried that I might have been… doing it for all the wrong reasons, so… I took my time with it, until I was really sure."

When she slid the last envelope over, the way she breathed out… Oh, she'd tried not to get her hopes up, in case she was rejected on her top choice, but now that she'd been accepted, it was such a relief… if relief came with a rapid heartbeat from anticipation. Ella watched her parents as they flipped the envelope over. The first part had been halfway guessed, through process of elimination. They knew she'd applied to their university, over in Houston, and it hadn't shown up in her alternate schools. This in itself was already wonderful news. She and Tori would be two hours away, living with Sophie and Chiara, but as they could attest from having been on the other side of this set-up, two hours in a car was better than being too far for casual visits. Now that they knew their girls were remaining in Texas, they breathed a little easier.

They asked her if they could look inside the envelope now, and she nodded. Maya pulled out the papers, unfolded them, and set them on the table, so she and Lucas could both look at the same time. As reactions went, Ella would be able to say that she got exactly what she'd imagined and hoped for. It wasn't a loud outburst because it didn't need to be. Instead, as they discovered their daughter's plans for her future, they were just… inescapably touched. They believed her when she said that she'd made this choice for herself, but it didn't change the fact that, as of the coming fall, she would be embarking on a years-long journey, at the end of which she would be in a position to work alongside her father and follow in his footsteps.

Maya turned a smile toward him, the look on his face as he took this in and lifted his head again… Lucas never shied away from his emotions when they demanded to come out, and this one, oh… It was a big one. He could barely speak when he asked Ella if he was reading this right in a small 'yeah?'

"Don't worry, I'm not coming for your job," she half raised her hands as a way of bringing a bit of levity. It made Lucas laugh and he stood up, coming around the table as she rose, too, so he might hug her.

"You can do anything you want," he promised her. The way she squeezed him back, her response was easy to get. Because of you, I can.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners