May 24th 2022

Chapter 144
Our Joy For Girls

What had the potential to turn into a very crowded sleepover ended up being a lot more manageable, and Lucas was glad. Oh, he wouldn't have minded having all the kids at the house at once, running around and having fun together, but he was also thinking about Maya and making sure that what had happened at school didn't happen again. So, when it boiled down to Marianne being joined by Winnie, Harper, June, Lily, and Tori, he had one goal in mind: He was going to go all out and give them the best – not at all chaotic – sleepover their young minds could conjure up.

Ella and Tori had arrived the previous evening. Lucas had quickly turned his attention on to his little granddaughter, the better to allow her mother to go up and see her mother. Maya had taken up residence at his desk in their room – freely given – to start and tackle the first box of the recently delivered sketchbooks from the school. Stella would make her debut as her substitute on Monday morning and would pick up the boxes ahead of heading into the school. Maya had not said so aloud, but Lucas had a good idea that the thought of possibly feeling faint again had made her weary of too many stairs, which had caused her relocation from her preferred spot up on the second floor. He wouldn't call her on it, only aid her in feeling at ease.

When Tori had gotten her turn at going up to see her, she'd had this apprehension in her, like she'd been asked to be careful around her grandmother. But then she saw her there, sitting in the swivel chair, and oh, how she brightened. Maya echoed her expression, too, holding her arms out for her to come over. She didn't have to be asked twice.

Now, on Saturday morning, the plan had originally been for Lucas to take Marianne shopping, the better to grab supplies for the weekend for herself and her friends and their sleepover, before going to pick everyone up and bring them home. But he hadn't counted on the Ella variable. Her big sister was in town, and for that Marianne very much wanted for the two of them – and Tori, of course – to go and do the shopping part. He really should have seen that coming, and if he didn't realize that – he did – then he only had to catch the smirk on Maya's face. That was fine, naturally. The whole point of this sleepover had been to lift Marianne's spirits, to keep her from worrying so much about her mother. If going out with her big sister was going to help achieve that, then he wanted her to do it.

With that, he took off in Maya's minivan to pick up their small guests. The first stop was the Abernathy house, as June lived the furthest out from them. When he arrived, he found the five-year-old ready and waiting, just as on past sleepovers at their house, with a bag nearly as big as her by the door while she stood there, squeezing her favorite doll, Cindy. It would be good and tucked in her arms when she went to sleep that night, as it had been since she'd gotten her for her fourth birthday. The state of the doll – overall well cared for but clearly worn in places – said a lot about June as a whole. She was a lively and curious little thing, but not so much as to get carried away. She was a crafty one, growing up around her mother, and that had been one of the first things to bond her to Marianne, that, and the love for horses. Jenny Abernathy didn't just fix shoes and boots, she was a proper artist in what she did, and that bonded her… to Maya. The two of them had been talking about teaming up to redo her website together, especially now that Maya would be home, on leave.

"Alright, Miss Abernathy, got your luggage here," Lucas lifted the bag – adding on the sounds of strain, the better to set the redhead giggling – before turning back to her. "Cindy's ready to go?" he asked, and she nodded. "Well, then, let's go," he nodded. June hugged her mother and Jenny gave Lucas a nod of thanks as she set her down, on her way to follow him.

Next stop were the Graysons, and with how Marianne counted Winnie as her very best friend, Lucas felt by now as though he could do the route from their home to Lauren and Winnie's with his eyes closed. He'd told Marianne as much once, as a joke. She'd stared at him with such wide eyes before launching into a speech spilling over with everything she knew of safety, things they had been teaching her as she grew. He'd had to promise to her that he would keep his eyes open, and to this day he wasn't sure she'd ever understood that he'd been kidding. All this aside though, he arrived at the building – eyes open – to find his next pick-up just as ready to go as the last. She was waiting outside with her mother, big smile on, curly pig tails following her giddy toe bounces.

Both Lauren and Maya had commented on something recently, and truth be told he'd noticed it, too. How could he not? He would see the way Winnie would be around him, and he'd be unable to miss it. She'd started to look to him like a father. Her own was not in her life anymore, hadn't been for about four of her five years alive, save for very brief and underwhelming visits, which her mother was convinced were little more than 'flashes of guilt,' which would be satisfied by those brief hours they'd spend together until the next time he remembered he had a daughter. It was all fine now, and Winnie barely seemed to grasp what it was all about, but she wasn't so little anymore, and it was bound to come together sooner or later, so how would that affect her?

And in the meantime… In the meantime, Winnie had Annie's dad, right there, picking her up from preschool, taking her home, where he would play with the two young friends, and she'd have dinner with them… Their home was as good as hers, too… If she was upset about anything and he'd be there, he would help and make her feel better, and she'd hold on to him… He understood, and he took that role as seriously as anyone would expect him to. And Maya… When she'd pointed out Winnie's link to him, she hadn't even had to fill the rest of it in, the thoughts that would be in her head, the memories. She'd looked to Lauren Grayson like an echo of her own mother, to their two families as an echo of her mother and her and the Matthews. If that was so, then that would bring him in line with Cory Matthews, wouldn't it? He'd always known how their old teacher had been important to Maya, growing up, but now, with Winnie looking to him… He understood it more than ever.

"Guess what!" Winnie told him as he helped her into the minivan.

"What?" he replied, clipping in her seatbelt.

"I'm going to get a kitty!"

"You are?" he asked, as though he didn't know, as though this very kitten didn't presently reside at Sullivan Stables, one of a litter born to Mariko's cat. He'd put out feelers, at her request, to see if anyone he knew might want to adopt one of them, and Lauren had been a taker. "I bet you'll take really good care of it. Do you know what you're going to call it?"

"No, I have to see it first."

"Makes sense… Alright, let's go get Lily."

Priya's daughter had been left in the care of her mother's boyfriend that morning, and so Lucas came to find her outside her building, crouched down alongside Teddy Hart-Lane and staring into the grass. When he came over to them and asked what they were up to, Lily shushed him and pointed, so Lucas crouched, too. Following the four-year-old's thin finger, he discovered what had caught her attention. Figures. It was a snail, shell, and all. She was becoming quite the bug lover these days, which had been challenging her mother's position, somewhere between wanting to encourage her curiosity and wanting to keep said curiosity from invading their home. Teddy had likely earned several points for pointing out to Lily that outside was the little creatures' home, and that was where they needed to be. So far, she hadn't tried to bring any inside.

"We'll just take a picture, yeah?" Teddy suggested.

"Okay!" Lily declared, satisfied.

"You know, you could print those and put them in a book," Lucas added. Ooh, she liked that. She turned to Teddy, and he smiled.

"I think I know just the one. We can do it when you get back," he offered, and with a big nod she moved and pounced for a hug. "See you tomorrow, kiddo," he told her after pressing a kiss to the side of her head. She responded to this by grasping on to his shoulders and pushing herself up to kiss his cheek. As she stepped back and moved to follow him, Lucas could just see the look on Maya's brother's face… He'd gotten so much more than he'd ever expected to get when he'd first seen Priya through her store window, and he cherished every bit of it.

Their last stop was the closest one to their destination. The Beaumont house was not exactly walking distance for Marianne now, not unless she herself was carried along the way, though Lucas suspected that, in years to come, his daughter and her friend Harper would be able to make that trek very well. Right now, she was still only five, waiting on her front lawn under the watchful eye of her grandfather, chasing around the family dog. She still looked as though she was riding the pride wave of the previous afternoon, at green group, when she'd finally allowed herself to be raised on to horseback… and everything had been fine. He'd managed to record the moment for her family, a couple of pictures, too, and it easily made the list for one of those days he'd remember if he ever looked back on the after school program.

He shared those pictures with Harper's grandfather, as he recounted the girl's 'first ride,' and his chuckle was one to draw Lucas' curiosity. He'd never met the man up to that day, but it didn't take long to guess he was a rider, too, or had been, or that he'd done at least some of that riding out at Sullivan Stables. The more he talked, the more it felt as though he had seen him before. He knew that his mother had known him and his wife for a long time, though she'd called them little more than acquaintances, explaining how Lucas had never met the man, but still there was something in his smile he was sure… Then it came back to him. The archive, competition photos, articles… This was Lee Beaumont, and he didn't know how it had taken this long for him to make the connection. If he had to explain him to Maya and how he fit in, he'd tell her that Harper's grandfather was the Bobby Davis to his mother's Nellie, at least back in the day… Always trying to one-up each other, always at the top of their riding game.

Lee Beaumont had not needed to make those connections, even as they were first meeting. He knew just who Lucas was, and once that look of realization had hit, it had made the man laugh and give him a nod.

"I think we've both been happily married long enough for me to say your mother was once about the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. Of course, she met your father, and that was a done deal, all for the best," he explained, a spark in his eye to suggest he was thinking of his own wife, maybe recalling the first time he'd seen her… Now they had children, and grandchildren, including Harper, who idolized him so much that she'd ended up spending three afternoons a week at Sullivan Stables, conquering her fear, until she could ride a horse, just like her Poppy.

With Harper joined to the other girls in the minivan, they drove on, following the short distance home. Hearing the four of them back there, cheerfully eager for the sleepover, Lucas had to smile. These girls were his pumpkin's dearest friends, and they made quite a group already, small as they were. He didn't know where life would take them, but for their sake he hoped it would take them there together.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners