June 7th 2022
Chapter 158
Our Love of Togetherness
The Hart-Lanes deciding to stay in Austin a few more days was one thing, but then there were the others, the locals. Most of them either had work or school on Monday morning, so they went off to their own homes, as originally planned, on Sunday evening. The only one that remained other than Abigail, James, Wyatt, and Maisie was Winnie. It would be easy enough for her to be dropped off with Marianne at preschool, and it did feel right, didn't it? This whole weekend had been inspired by her.
So, after a much quieter Sunday night at home, Monday morning rolled around. Lucas took off with the preschoolers, while Maya was left with a most special set of companions for this day with the triplets. As much as she had loved the sleepover, as she always did, she'd have to admit that this day had been the most special. Wyatt and Maisie spent most of it playing and running around with the triplets, and Maya loved to watch them so much. Like with any of their out of state family, she'd always tried to make sure that her daughters got to interact with them as much as they could, but the effort was mutual. They would have their regular calls, always video if they could, and then every now and then they would send small videos to one another, showing what they were up to on any given day. For that, the triplets, like Marianne before them, never ended up down this path where encounters weeks and months apart from one another meant something like a reintroduction. From the moment they arrived, it was just exciting. They were here!
Lucas was in very regular contact with home that day, either calling or texting at least once every hour. He'd do his best to sound as though it was a casual call, a simple check-in, but he wasn't fooling anyone, especially not his wife, and he probably knew it. Officially, the baby was due the next day. They had never made it this far into a pregnancy. Marianne had been born a couple of weeks ahead, and the triplets, well, they'd stayed in about as long as they were going to. With this one, they were stuck between wondering if he or she would actually be born on that date, like they'd been told, or not. If it was going to be before, well, it would be today or nothing, and then if it didn't come tomorrow… who knew? How late could a baby be? Maya was not looking forward to finding that out, so she was putting all her chips on tomorrow, Tuesday…
"Teddy was born six days after he was due to arrive," James told her, and Abigail gave him a look. "But Emma, she came right on the day, so you know, you just have to… you just have to wait and see," he slowly nodded. His face had the expression of one who'd realized his mistake and did his best to pull it apart. Maya smiled to herself, trying not to think of another week of waiting.
"Thanks," she told James, and he nodded before moving off the couch for a bit of play time with the granddaughters.
"Look, just forget about the date, yeah?" Abigail took up the charge now, and Maya agreed with her. "This one's going to come when they're ready, yeah?" she asked, setting her hand to her stepdaughter's belly. Maya covered it with her own and smiled.
That night, Marianne was so disappointed at the prospect of having no more sleepover buddies that she insisted on setting herself up with her sleeping bag over in her sisters' room. The triplets were very intrigued at this, but they also loved that 'Annie' was there, so all was well. Their parents had a wager to see whether any of Lucy, Remy, or Kacey would have moved, to another's bed or down with the sleeping bag, by the following morning.
They wouldn't have believed it if they didn't see it with their own eyes. Everyone had gone to sleep at the regular time, guests or not, but then Maya woke up again. She woke, feeling discomfort, which was hardly out of the ordinary at this point, and looked to the clock to see it flash with the time. It was 12:01 in the morning, one minute into Tuesday. She saw this even as she felt… You can't be serious…
She sat up, waited. She knew better now than to just assume that it was the real deal this time. This could be another false start, just her head and her body conspiring to play tricks on her again because of all this talk of due dates. She wasn't going to ring the alarm just yet. She kept an eye on the time, but she didn't do anything more, not yet.
Lucas woke up seven minutes after she did. They had both honed their light-sleeper skills by now, and his might have been at their sharpest when they were this close to the end of this pregnancy. He woke up alert and saw her sitting there…
"Maya?" he asked.
"Yeah?" she quietly replied.
"Are you…"
"Still trying to decide if I am," she reported. Lucas crawled over to come and sit next to her. The look on her face said everything her words didn't, and that seemed to say she definitely was in labor. She looked at him. "12:01," she told him, and he frowned, not following at first. He looked at the clock, which now glowed with 12:08. "That's when I woke up, when I started to feel…" she gestured at herself. He blinked. "Yeah," she laughed.
"What do you want to do?" Lucas asked. Like so many other steps throughout the last few months, this felt like a whole other thing than the other two times they'd been expecting. Marianne had been born right here in this bed, after Maya had gone into labor in the bathroom, in the middle of their Halloween party. And the triplets, well, their birth had not involved labor, only them heading to the hospital on the selected day so they could be pulled from their mother's belly. This one had been as easy and direct as it had been unpredictable. Either way, it was up to Maya to call the shots.
"Just… just stay with me right here for a bit, yeah? We'll wait and see what happens, and then if we need to, we'll go."
"Okay, sounds good," Lucas agreed. He held her hand, and for a few moments they sat there in silence. She looked at him.
"Please say something. This, the silence, it's too much."
"Right, sorry," he straightened up, thought of what he might say. "What do you want to do this summer?" he asked. "Probably won't go off on some big trip with Tiny still all… tiny," he reflected, ending with a smile that made Maya laugh.
"Probably not, no," she agreed. "We could go somewhere a little closer and stay there a while though. In Arkansas with Charlie and David and the others, or we could go to Tucson with everyone there, or we could go to Betsy and Sasha's… Although that might mean a plane with this one…"
"We could just drive there, too," Lucas suggested. Maya looked just a bit doubtful. "Like the big New York to Austin drive you did."
"Two days on the road with all of them across the hall and a two to three-month-old? You are brave, Dockleberry," she laughed. "If we're going to do that big drive, wouldn't it be better if they were older, and they could actually remember it?"
"Alright, that's fair," Lucas admitted, and Maya nodded. "Okay, well, how about we split it, half and half between Clutterbuckets and Harts."
"Four ways," Maya countered. "Can't forget the Friars and Sullivans."
"No, we can't," he agreed. He leaned forward and lightly kissed her. When he pulled back, she had a different look than she'd done when he'd gone for the kiss, which told him… "I don't think this is the false one this time." She hesitated, like she was looking forward to it being real so much that she didn't yet dare to believe it, only now she might not have had a choice.
"What do we do about all of them?" she asked him, gesturing around to indicate the others. Their four girls across the hall, her four siblings upstairs and her stepparents… "I don't want to drag the girls out of bed and just have them sleeping in the waiting room, but…"
"We don't know how long this is going to take, it's better that they just sleep and then they'll wake up, have breakfast, and they can be brought out to join us at the hospital."
"Yeah, okay, sounds good," Maya breathed. "Go let Abigail and James know? I'll start getting dressed." He looked like he wanted to stay and help, but she sent him off anyway. She could still do this much by herself.
So, off Lucas went, carefully but hurriedly up to the second floor and down the hall toward the guest room, where he knocked on the door and quietly announced himself. A few moments later, James came to the door. Abigail was halfway out of bed as well, and so Lucas explained the situation as it was. They understood, and they were on board with the plan. They would get back to bed soon, but they still took the time to go downstairs and see Maya for a minute. By the time that they arrived, she was already dressed. She'd decided not to even bother with shoes and kept her slippers on.
After hugs and a few words, the stepparents retreated back upstairs, and Lucas hurried to get dressed. Abigail and James would grab a few things and return to settle in the master bedroom for the night, at their stepdaughter's invitation. It was better that they be close to their granddaughters when they'd wake up.
"What are you doing?" Lucas asked when he saw Maya pulling at the sheets.
"Making the bed for them," she shrugged.
"I think you can leave it."
"To my own surprise, I'm not sure that I can. It won't take long," she promised, then paused. He came to her, expecting a new development. Maya looked up. "I think Eliza is up… and there's Emma, too… They must have heard their parents go by."
She was right, and soon they were coming down to see her, too. They spotted her efforts and insisted on taking care of the bed for her before returning upstairs. Lucas had finished getting dressed and was now doublechecking their bag before they could leave. They were good to go. Maya started down the stairs after Lucas had gone ahead to get the car started, knowing better than to argue when she told him she could get down on her own. He came back after stowing the bag and nearly ran into her on the way out the door.
"Honestly, if you're going to be this jumpy, maybe I should drive," she teased, and it was all he needed to pull himself together.
"Think I have it covered," he promised, and she smiled, motioned for him to lean to her. She kissed him this time, and as they looked to each other, they finally felt sure.
This was going to be it, this would be the day when their Tiny was born, due date correct and all. They wouldn't have the waiting room full of people waiting the hours, but they kind of liked this version, too. They liked to imagine what it would be like, as everyone near and far woke up on this Tuesday morning to be surprised by the news. There was no telling whether any of them would get to make it to the hospital before the baby was born, but for everyone's sake they hoped that whatever message their families and friends would find upon waking would tell them that the newest Friar had arrived, in the early hours of this new day.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
