July 8th 2022

Chapter 189
Our Evolution of Legacy

Up until the night just before the retreat was to open, they were looking to kick things off with an 'empty house.' No dogs yet in need of their services, and that had been just fine. Generally speaking, for what they were setting out to do, the lack of guests might feel like a good thing, though all those involved would know better than to presume that just because they didn't have them didn't mean that there were no animals out there who'd been put into bad situations. People had been made aware of them and they would reach out when needed.

It was one of Lucas' former co-workers, from the days of his residency, who called to him, asking him if it was still too early for them to take a dog in. By all accounts, the facilities were ready to take him in, even if they hadn't had their opening just yet, and there would be no one around… More importantly, he just couldn't turn this call away, especially not so close as they were to the next day. Could they have waited until morning to bring him in? Probably. But when he'd been told about the pup, all Lucas could do was react as the passion for his profession demanded. He would figure something out.

He told as much to Maya, and to Ella when she came around after having just finished putting Tori to sleep. They would still be with them tonight and the next night, and then it was back to Houston before Ella started school again. What were they going to do?

"I can go with you, we'll get him settled in, and…" Ella suggested.

"There won't be anyone there to keep an eye on him until morning. We can't just bring him to a strange place, lock him in, and leave him on his own," Lucas reminded her, and she sighed. He had a point. "Look, don't worry about it, I'll stay with him."

"All night?" Maya asked him. "Do you plan on sleeping at any time?" She knew as well as he did that he would probably not, with the way he was heading into this.

"What if we sort of… tag team it?" Ella tried again. "You take the next few hours, then I'll go and take your place for a while, and then Bishop will probably be there early, won't he?"

That was the best plan they were going to have, and Lucas knew better than to try and take it all on by himself. So, he called his old friend back and asked him to bring the dog out to the ranch if he could; he would meet him there. On his way, Lucas put a call in to Bishop, letting him know about what was going on, so he would be able to plan his morning in consequence. He would call him again an hour later, after he'd arrived, when he'd received the dog and gotten a look at him.

When he walked up to the building, his heart felt sort of restless, but not in the way it used to when he would walk near the fence. This was no longer an empty space, empty memorial, full of dread even for those who had no concept of its significance. Now, while there was a sign over the door that identified this as the Friar Sisters' Dog Retreat, there was also a small plaque, explaining about what had taken place here, so many years ago, and what it meant now to have this building here. It said that they remembered and would remember the past… but they were also moving forward.

He unlocked the door and walked in, and still the bad feelings never connected with him, not the way they used to just by standing outside. Instead, what he felt was… them… Simon and Marianne Sullivan, the young couple with a dream. He could just about pinpoint the spot on the floor where he knew that, underneath the new structure, buried back in the ground, was his grandparents' old 'piece of themselves' box, complete with new additions from their daughter and her family, her brother's family, and her son's. Being here felt like healing an old wound, and wasn't that kind of what the retreat was about, too, in its own way?

Before very long, their first guest was brought to the retreat, and Lucas got to work. It took him right back to those days at the animal hospital, days like the ones where he'd met Thor, and Sweetie, and of course Honey Bee and her box siblings… This little guy had been seen to at the hospital, but he was clearly in need of some peace, of reassurance, and that was what they would give him. Lucas stayed with him until about two in the morning, at which point Ella showed up and took over. It was the first time she got to see the completed work on the retreat, and she was as amazed as her father had been. Lucas stayed with her and the dog for a half hour more before finally leaving them and heading home, with the promise that she'd call him if there was anything. She would be fine. A few hours later, even as he still slept, she would return to her parents' house for a bit more shut eye, leaving Tori to be taken in charge by her grandmother. She'd actually been brought down from the second floor to stay in the big bed with Maya when Ella had gone out, and that was where she woke up.

"Nana?" she asked, in a little confused voice.

"Good morning," Maya smiled, and the girl came to squeeze herself in her arms, where she was received with a laugh. "Your mom brought you down here to me because she had to go somewhere before," she explained to her. "Now she's sleeping again, and we have to leave her be, okay?" she asked, and Tori nodded. She looked over at her grandfather. "He's sleeping, too, let's not wake him, okay?" Maya whispered on, with a suspicious eye in case he might have been faking. But he was still properly asleep, so they were in the clear. They got out of bed, and Maya took the baby before they left the room.

At breakfast, there was some confusion as to why it wasn't all of them there, why Lucas and Ella were still upstairs, sleeping. The triplets especially were seeking their father, had their sort of morning routine with him, enough so that Maya had to go and bring back one or the other when they'd try and go back upstairs to find him. Finally, they were told about the dog up at the retreat, and how their father and their aunt had been looking after him, which was why they couldn't be here now. They needed to sleep some more. To no surprise, Marianne was immediately curious about the dog and wanted to know everything about him. Maya couldn't help her, only knew very little, but that would be alright. She would get to see him soon, and that kept her motivated until they'd get ready and go to the ranch.

When Lucas did come along, he was bombarded with several more questions from the five-year-old. Was it a big dog or a little one? Did he have a name? What kind of dog was he? Was he okay? He was a relatively average size dog. He didn't have a name when he'd come into the hospital, but they'd taken to calling him Sparky. Of his old life, they only really knew what his condition could tell them, but they could easily say that it had not been a good and friendly one. Lucas explained all this to the girls, as much for Marianne as for Tori and the two-year-old triplets. He would not tiptoe around subjects like these. It was important for them to know these things, to understand them, and shying away from them would do no good.

"Hey… Are you going back to sleep or are you up now?" Maya quietly asked when she stopped to check in on Ella's room and found her daughter awake in bed. Ella held up her hand, two fingers. Up now. "Okay, well we're about to leave, but we can wait a bit if…"

"No, it's okay, I'll meet you there," Ella promised as she sat up and yawned into the back of her hand. "Where's Tori?" she asked, even as the girl ran past her grandmother, into the guest room, and up on to the bed, making both women laugh even as Ella got hold of her daughter.

After that, it was clear that the four-year-old would not make the trip with them. She would come in when her mother did, so in the meantime Lucas and Maya and the five little Friars took off for Sullivan Stables.

"Mommy?"

"Yeah, Annie?"

"Are they going to change the name for the retreat if we have a brother someday?" Marianne inquired. Maya and Lucas shared a brief look and a laugh.

"I mean, I guess they would?" Maya told her, turning another look to her husband. Lucas just went on smiling and nodded. "But that's 'if,' of course. Then again, the way things have been going, who knows, huh?" she added the last part quietly, and Lucas knew very well that she was trying to get him to break and laugh. She nearly got him, but he kept it together. Who knew, indeed…

This day would not be unlike the day when they had opened the archive. It was a different kind of opening here, sure. There wasn't anything for people to see except the building and its one occupant who wasn't exactly 'ready to mingle.' But they still had people who wanted to come around and see the place, who were happy to know that it existed. The extended Friar and Sullivan families were in attendance, and they had people like Carson, like Juliet, and Donna, who had either been around way back when the old stable had been destroyed and Simon had been killed, or had been of the ranch for long enough that they had known Marianne the first, known the history and the significance of this place. Now they got to see the long delayed transformation, and it meant something to them, too.

The Friar sisters, soon all six of them present, got to take pictures in front of the building, with Ella in the back, holding Mackenzie, Marianne at her side, and the triplets in front, and soon they would have one of those on display inside the retreat, and in Lucas' office, and back at the house, and at the grandparents and great grandparents' houses… They would take a new one, every year at this time, almost like a new class photo, showing them as they grew. Once it was done for this very first year, the big event finally got to happen: they got to go inside and meet Sparky. Most of the guests who came didn't get to do that, but in they went, along with their mother and father.

"We have to be quiet, okay?" Marianne whispered to the triplets, who all nodded. Remy plastered her hands over her mouth, just in case.

Bishop was not of the small gathering outside the building. He'd been in here, ever since he'd come along to replace Ella in the early hours, allowing her to head back to her parents'. The two of them would get to work closely together, in the years to come, they both knew, as she continued her studies toward getting to work at the ranch in earnest. To Lucas, the thought of his old classmate becoming like a mentor to his eldest daughter felt like a strangely unexpected dream, and he couldn't wait to see what would come next for them.

The triplets did very well with the dog, even as Sparky showed himself to be keenly receptive to the presence of the small girls. He wasn't nearly as closed in or fretful as he had been with other strangers. Had he lived with children around him? Who was to say? What was important was that their being near him today seemed to do him good, so they spent the better part of that afternoon playing with him. The best part was when they finally got to take him outside, after most of the guests had gone away.

It didn't take long for both Thor and Sweetie to know that there was a new dog on the premises, and they had been sniffing around outside the retreat earlier, mingling with the people gathered there before finally just lying down and resting near the building. When they'd finally emerged with Sparky, there the dogs had been to meet him. He'd been shy at first, uncertain, but it hadn't taken all that long before he started to tag along with the others. They were suddenly like the ambassadors of Sullivan Stables, there to show the newcomer 'see, this is a good place, you're okay here.'

Once the girls got in on this, it was just even better. Lucas watched them all going along, Ella by his side. Sitting outside the retreat, Maya was at her sketchbook, immortalizing the scene as she had done for so many years of her life.

"I think she would have really loved this, yeah?" Ella asked her father, and Lucas smiled. Truth be told, he almost had tears in his eyes, thinking about it, thinking about his grandmother, and his grandfather, too. They really, really would have loved this.

"I think she would have loved even more that this was your idea," Lucas tipped his smile over to her, and Ella smiled back, just as proud of this accomplishment as he was.

"I can't wait to be back here for good," she sighed, then laughed when she saw Tori's little run spin. She'd been watching a lot of figure skating videos lately, wanted to learn to skate and everything.

"That makes two of us," Lucas nodded, knowing that Maya would count herself in this if she'd heard him, but she was very much focused on her image of the dashing girls and dogs. Sparky still remained stalled and uncertain in places, but then he was clearly keeping close attention of those around him and of all the things he was, scared was not one of them, and that was already something.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners