June 15th 2022
Chapter 166
Our Steps Toward a Birthday
Did Lucas have some highly specific notion of how his birthday might begin? Yes, he did, very much so. Did he mind that? Not one bit. Even if he didn't already know that his daughters would want to do a repeat of what they'd done back on their mother's birthday, he'd definitely know that Mischief Was Afoot. Marianne may have been getting better – better but far from fail proof – at pretending like nothing was going on, but her little sisters were another matter. At nearly two years old, the triplets were still new adepts to the art of sneaking, so that went about as well as one would imagine. They knew that they were going to do something secret for their father's birthday, so whenever he'd come near them in recent days, they'd get these big goofy grins and giggles going, which would usually prompt their big sister to try and get them to stop.
Of course, because he was, as Maya called it, 'King of Girl Dads,' he would display his own 'superior' skills and act as though he saw and knew nothing. He wasn't about to ruin the surprise, not when it was as much fun for him as it was for them.
Finally, the morning came when Lucas Friar was to awake to his thirty-fourth birthday. It wasn't as though he hadn't been awake on his birthday yet, not when he had his youngest baby girl right there in the room, not yet a month old. Little Mackenzie – or Mackerel, as she'd been called at some point – had already wished her father a happy birthday by spitting up on him after he'd taken up burping duties. He didn't know what had compelled him to do it, but over the last week he'd taken up the habit, whenever Maya would bestow another name-derived nickname on to their daughter in his presence, he would then go ahead and tell her about the word in question. Last night, that had meant telling her all that he knew about the fish. He'd used his best tour guide voice, and it had gotten the baby right back to sleep. Maya had comically praised his talents; she'd been barely a breath away from falling asleep at that point.
When he actually woke up to stay that way, it was with a feeling as though he'd been buried under something… something that moved… and giggled… He opened his eyes and saw everything at once. He saw that someone – Maya clearly – had lightly deposited the baby high on his chest, enough that he only had to tip his head forward just a little to kiss the top of hers. Mackenzie slept, entirely unaware of anything else. Meanwhile, Marianne was right behind her on top of him, while Lucy was on top of her, and Kacey and Remy were on his arms, heads at his shoulders on either side.
"Morning!" Marianne grinned, the proud instigator of this wake-up call, as Lucas would come to learn. On her back, Lucy held her finger to her lips. They had to be quiet! There was the baby! Not to worry though, because she and the twins, like their big sister, had been learning sign language from their parents and their Aunt Dora and Uncle Sam since they were babies. Marianne had been showing them how to sign 'happy birthday, Dad' all week, so all she had to do was start to do it, and right away Kacey, Remy, and Lucy all did it, too.
"I can't say thank you that way, can I?" Lucas asked with a smile. He wiggled his wrists as best he could, both of them stuck under a couple of his daughters, which got the twins wriggling and laughing, though only Kacey relented in removing herself from his arm. Remy just held on tighter. Everyone took a look to see if Mackenzie woke up, but she just went on sleeping. Sitting up next to her father now, Kacey reached down to lightly brush at her little sister's back and approached to kiss her small hand. "Well, thank you very, very, very, very much," Lucas nodded to Kacey, Remy, Lucy, and Marianne in turn.
"What about her?" Marianne indicated the baby. She'd counted.
"Very much," Lucas added with a tip of the head to her; she was right, of course. "Now, where's your mother?" he wondered.
"Making breakfast," Marianne informed him.
"Right, right. Is it your job to keep me here or can we go down?" he asked them, and no one seemed to know. "I think that means it's okay then."
"Wait," Marianne raised her hand in a 'stop' motion. "I'll check," she started to get up, only to remember… "Lucy, can you get down?" she asked.
"Nuh!" Lucy let her know, holding on.
"Okay, it's okay," Marianne insisted and, carefully, she climbed off of Lucas and over to the mattress, where she could tip her little sister down. Once she was free, she got off the bed and hurried out of the room. While she was gone, both Kacey and Lucy appeared to decide that all this free space needed to be dealt with and piled back on to their father.
"Yes, yes, I am your prisoner," Lucas smiled, which made them laugh.
They were free to come down, as Marianne returned to report, though there was still the very important matter of how he would accomplish this. If it wasn't for the baby, oh, he could have collected all three small girls in a heap of a hug and gotten out that way, but that was clearly not an option now. However, he could appeal to their desires, and as soon as he told them what they'd be having for breakfast – because if he couldn't guess on his birthday, then no one would – those firm holds started to loosen. One arm came free, and another, and as he used these to hold on to his youngest, he was able to get up the rest of the way and incite the others to do the same.
"Come on, come on!" Marianne told the triplets once they'd all four of them reached the bottom of the stairs. She ran off toward the kitchen and they ran right after her, squealing and shouting and laughing.
"Just you and me there, huh?" Lucas looked to Mackenzie, who'd finally woken up and was now blinking her eyes and gripping at his shirt. "Alright, let's go see what they're up to in there."
They may not all have been there in body, but even through a computer screen that showed Ella and Tori back in Houston, all of his daughters were there to sing – or attempt to sing, or drool on his shirt – Lucas a happy birthday. Maya led this collective effort with such a grin on her face, one hand on her phone, to record the whole scene, the other carrying a large, colorful, and home made birthday hat, which she planted on his head before stretching to kiss him on the cheek. When they saw the hat had reached its destination, the four girls in the kitchen hopped around and cheered; they'd helped to draw on the hat, all of them.
After her own most recent birthday four months back, Maya had commented how birthdays, even their own, when surrounded with small children, was a new favorite of hers, and seeing all this today, Lucas had to agree. To others, it could have all felt too loud and all over the place, but then that was just their life, wasn't it? The two of them, all their girls, and the dogs, and their continuing rotation of Hart-Lane college lodgers… It wouldn't have felt right without all of them there.
"Is it okay if I leave the hat here?" Lucas asked Maya when he passed her the baby before going upstairs to change.
"Let me think about that…" she 'pondered,' smiling.
"All those horses, the stables… It might get dirty, or damaged…" he pointed out, loud enough so the girls, right behind him, would look up.
"No!" Marianne gasped, and the triplets echoed her. Maya squinted at the birthday man. Oh, that's just rude. He tipped his birthday hat to her, and she pointed at him.
"Oh, no, no, not this time, Lucas Thomas Friar," she whispered, and he smirked.
"Did I lose my Huckleberry privileges there?"
"Little bit, but I'll let it slide because it's your birthday and all," she informed him before returning to a normal volume for the girls. "The hat stays here… until tonight," she turned the last part toward him, and her mock stern tone faded as he leaned over to kiss her.
Getting out the door was particularly complicated today, as the triplets kept crowding around their father's feet, for double, triple, quadruple birthday hugs and kisses. They were all so caught up in their merry morning that they didn't want it to end. Once he managed to get out the door with Marianne, he could hear them crying, and that nearly made their big sister turn back, preschool be damned.
"Don't worry, your mom's got it covered," he assured her. "You used to cry at anything when you were that small, do you know that?"
"Did not!" Marianne insisted.
"You once cried until you were red in the face because I threw out an empty box of cereal," Lucas told her. "You once cried, snot all up in your face, because I wouldn't let you pick up the dog's poop with your bare hands," he went on, and she looked like she didn't know whether to be affronted at the suggestion or just laugh at the thought. "I can keep going if you want me to."
"Okay!"
Just like that, the entire ride from home to preschool became a greatest hits compilation of all the ways that tiny Marianne had cried or thrown a tantrum for the silliest of reasons. Actually, about halfway there, he started telling her stories from his own childhood that he remembered his parents and Pappy Joe telling him about. Maybe it was that today was his birthday, but it felt good to look back, especially because he got to share it with his daughter and hear her laugh until he had to take a break and let her catch her breath.
"You alright back there?" he asked her, and she nodded. "Good." When they reached the parking lot, he checked his phone and smiled. "Look at this," he showed her the screen, and she saw the picture that Maya had sent him, showing that the triplets had indeed gotten over the fact that they'd left and were now dancing along in front of their morning show on the television. "Everything's all good," he told Marianne, and she nodded. "Ready to get in there?" he asked.
"Yeah, come on, we have to get your cake!"
"I get one this year, too?" he asked, smiling.
"Yeah, I asked Miss Alma again. She said not to tell the others, or they'd all want it, too," she explained, her face showing that she didn't get why they'd want that, though she'd still do as she was told.
"Well, if everyone did it, they'd need a lot more cake, wouldn't they?" Lucas explained, and after thinking about it, Marianne agreed. "But I still get mine," he leaned forward and whispered, and she matched his mischief with a nod.
So, into the preschool they went, and as she'd done the previous year, Marianne ran to find her teacher, so she'd be handed the cake in a paper bag that she brought her father. When he received it, Lucas thought of the fact that their very short lived tradition was now at an end. She'd be off to kindergarten in the fall. Already… Now he wondered what they would do on birthdays…
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
