March 29th 2022

Chapter 88
Our Summer of Vacation

Among the many reasons why Maya and Lucas had both wanted and needed to take the previous day for a bit of relaxation, there was the fact that they had just attended a wedding two days ago, yes. But there was also the fact that the following day, today, they would be tackling a very likely stressful activity: going on a plane with not just one baby but three. They had not done it yet, not with the triplets, but knowing their daughters as they did, they could imagine very well what they – and the other passengers of their flight – would be in for. It would probably be just as well that they'd have nearly a week after that to recover before they did it again to return home. It would be worth it though, wouldn't it? A family vacation! Maya, Lucas, and all their daughters, sunny days, swimming…

Ella had hesitated about coming. On the one hand, of course, she wanted to be part of this, to go on summer vacation with her parents and her little sisters. But she'd had her trip with her friends, and she was moving to Houston very soon, and she was already having to figure things out with her and Theo and Tori, how they would work things out once they weren't living in the same city anymore. They had gotten to a point where she trusted her ex with their daughter, enough that she had debated with her parents if the two of them could maybe work out some sort of shared custody scenario. This was huge for her, considering how terrified she used to be that she'd somehow lose her daughter if she let him back into their lives.

She hadn't told Theo about any of this, not yet, but then Lucas and Maya had suggested something to her. What if she came with them and she left Tori with Theo while they were gone? They would be able to see how it all worked out, for all of them. She'd taken Tori along for her first trip, so it would balance things out if Theo got to have her for the second, right? Ella was on board with the idea, and so was Theo, so it was decided. They framed it – for Tori's sake – as their vacation, the two of them and Nika. That wasn't to say she wouldn't see anyone else in those days, no. Theo and Nika both had jobs, and the grandparents would all still be available to watch Tori when needed.

"How'd it go?" Maya asked Ella when she came back down from dropping Tori off.

"Good, it was good, I… I was probably more upset than she was," Ella admitted with a small smile which both of her parents understood. She had never been away from her daughter for as long as she would be for the next several days, and it was going to feel like a lot. They'd gone through some of that when she had been away earlier that summer, though they couldn't say that they had experienced it as far as their little ones, and even so, they could not have known exactly what it felt like to Ella herself. "He's so excited to get to do this," she went on to tell them. If anything would reassure her, beyond the fact that she felt able to do this, it would be this awareness in her that there was her friend, Theo, as she had known him before everything had been thrown off balance. She had him back, and they could make this work.

With this settled, it was off to the airport for the rest of them. It was an easy reflex they had all taken on in the last several months when they'd all be together. Maya, Lucas, and Ella could each grab one of the babies, while Marianne would go and keep hold of either one of her parents or big sister's hands. With the addition of baggage for all of them for a week away, it was absolutely a heightened difficulty, but then they had been handling the care of all these babes for near on a whole year, and they had done just fine. So long as they could keep that in mind, they could do this, too.

Oh, they let out a breath of very deep relief by the time they got to take their seats, but they'd made it. Now came the next hard part: the actual flight. Some of that stress was diffused by the reactions they got out of the other passengers and the flight crew. There were definitely those who looked at them like they already dreaded the next few hours, imagining that it'd be nothing but a chorus of wailing children and complete chaos. Others were drawn under the spell of the presence of triplet baby girls, as they would. Seeing the mix of those two extremes made the whole thing kind of ridiculous, and they were fine by that.

As far as the actual flight, well, it wasn't a complete collapse of order and peace, so that was something. They tried to get the girls in a good place before the plane actually took flight, which was to say that they tried to get them to fall asleep, but that didn't end up working out so well, and then all it took was Lucy crying for the twins to wake up again and find not only that their sister was in distress but that they were realizing some discomfort of their own, and suddenly there was the chorus. Thankfully, it didn't last too long. Nearly eleven months' experience with them under their belts, they knew what to do. It could have been that it wouldn't have worked, what with the novelty and the confusion brought on by the plane, but they got lucky. Once they had them quiet again, they devoted all their energy toward keeping everyone in this mood for the rest of the flight. The brief turbulence didn't help, about three quarters of the way through, bringing even Marianne's voice into the mix, but they had some allies nearby, ready to jump in and help get everyone reassured.

At long last, they landed, and the Friars were very glad to regain both land and fresh air. As soon as they could, they brought the girls outside. Lucas went ahead and retrieved their baggage, picked up their rental, and got everything over to the hotel before coming back around. In the meantime, Maya and Ella allowed Marianne and the triplets to enjoy the sunshine, the good breeze… Now, they were ready to kick off their vacation.

"Who's that?" Maya beamed when she saw Lucy pointing her finger beyond them and looking very happy all of a sudden. She'd looked, confirming that Lucas was back from the hotel and Lucy had spotted him first. "Who's that? Is that Daddy? Dada?" she asked the girl in her lap, brushing back her hair and kissing the top of her head.

"Da!" Lucy confirmed, making her mother beam. "Daaaaa… dada!" she went on, reaching her hands toward Lucas as he came up to the bench where they sat.

"You missed me? Did you miss your dada, bun?" Lucas asked, taking her up in his arms. The way she burrowed herself in his hold, there was no mistaking it. "Look at you, first at something," he told her, expressing what he and Maya were both thinking. She might still not have started to crawl or do anything to get her closer to walking yet, but she'd said her first word, and neither one of the twins had done that before.

Now that Lucy had done it, Marianne spent the journey over to the hotel, and the wait at check-in, and the settling into their rooms just intent on getting Kacey and Remy to speak, too. She gave it that same energy she'd been giving about getting them and Lucy to crawl, and her parents and sister would smile between themselves as they'd listen in. She didn't succeed, but she was not discouraged. It would happen. They only had to be patient… and keep trying… which Marianne would absolutely do.

"Here, pumpkin, come take a look," Maya quietly called to her daughter, and she hurried along toward her, standing by the balcony door. She took her out there, to take in the view from their room.

"Wow…" Marianne breathed. "It's like a picture but it's real," she declared, and Maya laughed.

"Yeah, just like that," she agreed.

"We gotta draw it!" Marianne almost bolted back into the room in search of materials, but Maya held on to her, laughing again.

"Easy, hey, we've got time for that, I promise. Okay?" she asked, and Marianne soon relented. She seemed to relax back into her mother's hold as though thinking 'on second thought, this is kind of nice right here, drawing can wait.' "Do you remember when we went to Australia, to see Georgie and Toph?" She did, though only a little, and Maya suspected a lot of this had to do with pictures, and her travel calls with the old couple, and her Georgie box.

When they'd gone out there, it had been their first sort of big 'summer family vacation.' The way Maya saw it, and as she'd long told Lucas, when she'd been growing up, she'd had this entire image in her head of what family vacations were supposed to be like. She never really had them, and she'd wish that she did, so it had become an item, on her sort of… family wish list, in the back of her mind. She wanted them all to get to go places together, whether it was in Austin, or further out in Texas, across the country, or beyond… She wanted their children to have these memories, these experiences. Were they absolutely vital to someone's life? No, of course not. But it was something she wanted for them, and he wanted it, too. Who was to say what their little girls would or wouldn't remember until they were a little older? For now, they'd just have to tell them the stories, to remind them. Already, they'd be able to say that this was where and when Lucy had said her first word, and said it plenty of times…

"Dada!" she squeaked when Lucas hopped back into her line of sight, from their room's bathroom. He grinned, retreated back out of sight, then poked his head out… "Dada!" Lucy called, while Kacey and Remy laughed and pointed at him. Now he was compelled even further. He hid, and he emerged… "Dada!" He hid… "Dadaaa!" Oh, now she almost sounded distressed. She didn't want him to keep going away. He came back out in earnest now, crouching by the big bed, where the girls all sat.

"No, hey, I'm right here, it's okay," he laughed, to show her that it was indeed okay. He held her foot, and she held out her arms to him, even as her sisters crawled on closer, on either side. "Oh, they're gaining on me, what can I do… I know…" he spoke 'dramatically' as he reached out his arms, locking them around the trio and pulling them to him. The girls squealed and giggled, and suddenly he was on his back, toppled over under the triple 'attack.' Calling on Zay's style of antics, he played up the narrative, which only amused the girls even further.

"Dada…" Lucy spoke again, and he smiled up at those three little faces staring down at him.

"Need a hand?" Ella's face appeared above them, smirking.

"I've got this, thanks," he assured her.

"Well, Mom asked if we should go out to get something to eat, walk around for a while and all that." Lucas looked back to the girls. He could probably have spent the entire afternoon like this with them, but yeah, they'd come all this way…

"Alright, let's go… I might need that hand after all."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners