July 26th 2022
Chapter 207
Our Haunting of Rooms
It had become very clear to them on Friday night how their Saturday morning would begin. They knew even as they were putting their firstborn daughter to bed that her anticipation had now reached fever pitch and would only keep climbing from here on out. It was to the point where they wondered if they would be awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of her trying her hand once more at moving the furniture all by herself. For that, they had no doubt that she would be up bright and early on Saturday morning… and that the two of them had better do the same, or she would come and wake them herself. When she did, it was anyone's guess whether or not it would coincide and clash with Maya's ongoing efforts to keep the new pregnancy a secret.
After that first day with the nausea, and the class smell incident, everything had started to feel very familiar, in the sense that she would wake up in the morning and feel not only nausea but an imminent… expulsion of said nausea. When she'd woken up on Tuesday morning and she'd felt it coming, she'd had a very strange sort of pause in the hall, thinking about Marianne's room being right across the hall from the bathroom, and knowing she'd probably hear, and the next thing she'd known, she'd gone barrelling down the stairs to use the downstairs bathroom, making it just in time. It had been an automatic reflex every day since and was again on Saturday morning. For that, when Marianne and her excited little self did get up and go seeking for her parents, she found only her father, in the midst of waking himself up, rubbing at his face with his hand as he yawned.
"Where's Mommy?" Marianne asked, already coming up and climbing on to the bed, walking across the mattress to approach Lucas. He didn't even have the presence of mind to come up with anything more than…
"Downstairs," he told her. He did have the presence of mind, when she looked about to climb down and go seeking Maya, to grab a hold of her and pull her giggling self down where he could embrace her. This would be a much better alternative to her finding out one day early… and in that way. "You know, I think something special is supposed to happen today…" he pondered with an exaggerated tone and got such a grin in response. Even as he did, something caught his eye among the rows of baby teeth. "Make that two somethings." Off her puzzled look, he pointed at her mouth. "Looks like one of your teeth is getting loose there," he pointed, and in the next moment, as Marianne responded by sticking her little fingers to feel at her mouth, the digits hit right where he'd been looking and inadvertently knocked the tooth free, and it came off.
Her reaction of surprise was matched with Lucas reaching over for some tissues, the better to salvage the tooth and see to any bleeding. He was still at it when Maya returned upstairs and stepped into their room. It took her a moment to understand what was going on, but then Marianne proudly showed her the tooth, which Lucas had left her to hold in one of the tissues.
"Wow, big day for you, pumpkin," she laughed, deciding that her emotions were solely the work of her first baby girl losing her first baby tooth.
Oh, was Marianne giddy about that gap on the bottom row of her teeth. She kept feeling at it with her tongue, and she showed it to everyone she saw that morning, parents, sisters, aunts, dogs… It was enough that until they made it to breakfast – which made her laugh again because of the sensations brought on by the tooth gap – she appeared to have forgotten all about today's other and pre-existing special event. Not to worry though, as it quickly came back to her: Today was the day when Mackenzie Friar would be moved into the green room to stay with her big sister. Once she'd remembered, her focus was unmatched. They'd told her they would do it in the morning, that way it would be done before they went to lunch with their extended Turtle friend circle, and went on some last minute pre-Hallowannie errands, and did a few things to set up ahead of the next day…
It was very important to Marianne that she got to do as much as she physically could herself in the reorganization of her room and subsequent transfer of Mackenzie's things into her room. Lucas and Maya were both more than happy to enable this. While the triplets had been taken up on a visit to Sanderson Farm along with the baby, they got to work. Lucas took great pleasure in showing Marianne how the crib would be taken apart enough to transfer from one room to the other before being put back together again, especially for the look of deep concentration she'd have on her face the entire time.
There was a strong compulsion in both the parents to laugh as they went through this process, thinking about how they were removing the baby things from their room, and regaining the space to be their own… all the while knowing that only a few months from now they would be at it again, pulling one of the extra cribs back up from storage to house the new baby, their little Lucky… They did well enough as far as hiding it from Marianne as they went through the process of getting Mackenzie's things situated in the room, though part of that may just have been that their daughter was too excited to actually notice how her parents were being 'weird.'
"There, what do you think?" Maya asked, when they added the finishing touch: the new painting. Lucas came down from the ladder and took it away before pushing the crib in its proper position. He'd been very mindful of putting up the canvas and securing it so that they never had to worry that it might somehow fall off and come down on their Macadamia…
"It's so nice, Mommy," Marianne looked up to Maya, beaming around that hole among her teeth, which made her mother laugh even more. "Can we go get Mackenzie now? I want to show her our room."
How could they have said no to a request like that? Off they went to retrieve her little sisters, and again her lost tooth story would be shared with the Sandersons, who asked if she would put her tooth under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy. She knew all about this, thanks to her friends and fellow junior Turtles who had already gone through this and told her all about it, and it was not to worry: Her tooth had already been slipped where it belonged as she'd gotten dressed before the whole room shift.
Even before this day, Maya and Lucas had joked about how they weren't sure that they'd actually pull it off. The way they saw it, Marianne was bound to wake up when either one of them attempted to retrieve the tooth and swap it with the surprise. Really, the thing that might do them in was just how they'd already pictured themselves like some spies, with the theme to Mission Impossible playing, which then threatened to get them laughing when they'd actually do it. And that would be the thing to give them away.
The Friars returned home, and once they had made it up the stairs, Lucas agreed to pass Mackenzie into her sister's arms. Marianne was very adept at holding the baby now, even as she'd grown to be half a year old, and she carried her down the hall, with the triplets trailing after her like they had no idea what was going on, but they were intrigued. When they guessed where they were going, they dashed on ahead, giving no heed to Marianne's call for them to wait. She didn't really mind all that much, so she just went after them, focusing on her baby sister.
"Look, Mack, look," she pointed up to the open door, where a plaque had already indicated that this was her room. Now there was a second one along with it, showing that it was also her room. They went in, and she carried Mackenzie around, showing her everything and telling her how excited she was to make this their room now, not just her own. She kissed her little sister's cheek, and Mackenzie smooshed her face against hers, which was as good as a kiss in her book.
The day carried on, with lunch, and errands, and the evening routine, and all the while the excitement continued to flow. The switch had been made, sure, but now came the equally important step of this switch: nighttime, bedtime… and the bonus Tooth Fairy watch. After checking that her baby sister was asleep in her crib, Marianne returned to her bed and confirmed that the tooth was there and secure for retrieval before she actually climbed in and allowed herself to be tucked in.
"What if the fairy can't get my tooth because it's under my head?" she asked her father.
"Well, it's up to you. If you want, we can put it right here instead of under your pillow," he pointed to the nightstand. "The fairy will still come, I promise." Marianne considered this for a moment before reaching under her pillow and retrieving the bundle. She set it where he'd pointed, then stared at it for a moment. This didn't work… it was missing something. Oh! She knew! She got right back out of bed and moved out of the room. Lucas trailed after her. When they passed the nursery, where Maya was looking in on the triplets, she saw them pass and gave a curious look to her husband. All he could do was shrug and follow their firstborn.
The excursion took them all the way down to the basement and the playroom, where Marianne dug around among the toys before she found what she was looking for: the star bowl. It was actually a mold to play in the sand, but here it was. She took this and then it was back up the stairs, once, and twice, back to her room, where the bowl was placed on her nightstand, upside down, with the bundled tooth underneath.
"Looks good," Lucas nodded with a smile. From here on out, this would be the bowl's new purpose, which would in time mean they'd need more of these bowls, he ventured, once they had more than one little girl losing teeth at the same time.
Maya would get to play the role of the tooth fairy that night. The benefit of the sisters sharing a room now was that, if Marianne did wake up, Maya could tell her that she'd been in to check on Mackenzie and, at the same time, she'd had to see if the fairy had passed yet. This time at least, it all went off perfectly. Both girls were asleep, and the tooth was retrieved and 'paid for.'
"She looks so happy back there," Maya reported as she returned to bed. "Got that little smile plastered on her face in her sleep like…" she imitated her, and it made Lucas chuckle. He put his arm around her as she settled in, and as ever his hand came to rest over her belly, barely a curve as of yet. Even if, technically speaking, Marianne had been born in the evening, it was only a small detail compared to the fact that the moment had finally come. When they'd wake in the morning, it would be their daughter's sixth birthday. It could have made them feel like time was impossible to hold on to, but then they knew that all too well. Instead, they chose to look to it from the perspective that… time was life, and life was so very good for them to witness and partake in. Even now, they lay together, aware of the new one growing inside Maya, and it was just as precious now as it would be when this one went and started losing its baby teeth. And onward, and onward…
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
