August 2nd 2022

Chapter 214
Our Dreams For Art

Whether or not they had seen the parade and the performance became the big question of the day, and every guest who would arrive would be asked it by the six-year-old as she stood at the ready for any coats to collect or dishes to carry to the kitchen. Thomas and Melinda had absolutely seen Haley's performance, as much for their own affection toward the girl as for their awareness that their granddaughter was bound to ask. Pappy Joe and Patty had not seen it, as they'd been on the road from Houston early that morning so they might visit a friend before heading to the Friar house. But they would watch it later. Remy stared at her great grandfather when he came to say hello, like it almost didn't make sense that he was here when she'd just seen him on the television not too long ago…

"Uncle Sammy! Did you see it? Did you? Did you?" Marianne asked as she skidded up to him the moment he came through the door. It didn't matter how tall she was getting, she would absolutely hop into people's arms, expecting to be caught, and Sam was one of those people.

"See what?" he played innocent. This got him a look from both his niece and his sister. Marianne's went somewhere along the line of 'I don't believe you' and Maya's, as she went on hugging his Francesca, went more like 'you know that wouldn't even have fooled her when she was like three.' "Oh, the parade?" Sam asked, now going as though he was only remembering. Marianne giggled, Francesca, too. Maya rolled her eyes, but she still smiled. "You know what, actually, I did. We did, right, Frankie?"

"I like the big, big balloons!" the four-year-old mimed with her arms out wide, legs going, too, like she wanted to pretend that she was one of them.

"Yeah, but you're not full of air, are you?" Maya asked.

"More like chocolate, so I wouldn't try and fly her around right now," Sam smiled at the 'who me?' look on his daughter's face.

"Where is this chocolate and can I have some?" Maya looked to her niece.

"I licked the bowl!" Francesca informed her, pointing to the pie in Dora's hands.

As Francesca followed her mother into the kitchen, where Dora went to seek her cousin, Maya turned to her little brother, himself now empty handed, too, the better for her to hug him in a delayed greeting. When they pulled back, Sam had a curious look.

"Is it my imagination or…" he asked, only to have his older sister reach over and press his mouth shut with two fingers.

"Whatever you're imagining, keep it to yourself right now, okay, Sammy?" she whispered, and he nodded before pulling her hand away. He allowed himself a small but very giddy smile, and it made her laugh as she nudged for him to keep moving and go say hello to everyone else.

He certainly had plenty to be thankful for this year. Oh, like his sister and brother-in-law, the top of that list was and would be his wife and daughter, but beyond that… Beyond that, there were two very big, life changing kind of developments happening around him. The first of those was that he'd sold his debut graphic novel.

Maya could still see him, from years ago, working at his art, and one of his greatest loves from the start had been to create his own comics. He'd worked on those, here and there throughout the years, and it had been… maybe not a secret, but a private passion project for him to make something bigger. As he'd told it, he'd tried his hand at it before and it had never panned out, so he'd… Well, he hadn't given up, but he'd definitely hit pause for a bit.

It was her, and Cara, the three of them and how they'd worked to mount their musical and get it out there, who had gotten him to push further, to really try more than ever to make this happen, and now it was happening. Sam showed up on Thanksgiving with a small box filled with copies he'd received ahead of release, so that his family would get to be the first ones to see it. He hadn't told anyone that he'd be bringing these and, now that he knew – or imagined – that something else might be going on today, he had this look to him like he considered not opening the box, for fear of one or the other of them to feel upstaged in any way. He wanted his sister to have her shot today.

"Samuel, you give me that book right now or I'm releasing the toddlers on you," Maya 'warned.' He gave her a look as though to point out the 'weakness' of her threat. Why wouldn't he want the triplets to gang up on him? "Just hand it over," she squinted at him, and he raised his hands in mock surrender before opening the box and presenting her with her own copy.

"You promise not to look at the note inside until later, alright?" he told her.

"Why, are you going to make me cry, Sammy?"

"Wouldn't be hard right now, would it?" he teased before disappearing in haste to pass the other copies around.

"What's that?" Marianne appeared even as Maya was still peeling the sticky note with her name on it, the better to see the cover properly. She showed her, and Marianne gasped and came closer.

Comic Peter's gift to Lucas, to her really, had been a revelation for the girl. She'd seen comics before, how could she not, but it wasn't until that one that she'd really started to get curious about them. Naturally, this had made it so that, over the past half a year, Lucas had taken his daughter to the store several times. They would go once a month, usually with Dylan and Nicky along for the ride, and they never left disappointed or empty handed. Her collection was still small, but it was growing. It didn't matter that she couldn't read very much yet. Her thing right now was to sit with the issues at her desk and examine the art in all its details. She wouldn't even really pay much attention to the words yet; she would get her own impression of what was happening in the story itself. They had to wonder what she would think once she could read the words, and if the real story and her story differed greatly.

"Can I look at it?" Marianne looked up to her mother hopefully.

"Tonight, at bedtime?" Maya suggested, and this was acceptable. "Do you mind taking it upstairs for now?" She did not mind at all, and so she zoomed off up the stairs.

There were plenty more copies in circulation down here, as others received theirs and started looking at the front and back of it, flipped briefly through the pages, passed it to someone else who wanted to see… Maya would never have denied him this moment because of her own news. She was so ridiculously proud of her kid brother and what he'd done. This one book felt like the culmination of so many things, their family coming together, losing Kermit, Sam living with her and Lucas, him and Dora getting together, the yearly 'comic days' when he'd come to her class and work with her and the kids… And he'd been getting great feedback so far, so who knew? Maybe it would only be the first one of several more.

"We could totally have a shelf now, call it the 'our people write books' shelf," Maya told Lucas, which made him chuckle. "We've got your book, and Franny and Kayla's two, and now Sammy's… Ree's autobiography…" she counted off.

"Marianne's bedtime storybook," Lucas added, and she pointed at him. Yes, that one, too, good point. "Better put that shelf where she can reach it then because she's going to need that book," he reminded his wife. Another fair point.

Their firstborn continued to use her drawings and her tales of the secret magic fort, as defended by her and Winnie, back at the preschool. With time, the stories and the drawings had evolved, and they now featured many more characters inspired by Harper, and June, and Lily… She would continue to tell stories to the triplets, and especially to Mackenzie. Maya and Lucas had more than once been awakened by the baby's crying in the night, only to hear Marianne's voice on the monitor, sleepily telling her little sister one of her stories. It would put teller and told back to sleep, and it kind of worked wonders on their parents, too.

To see how he looked at the graphic novel, Maya smiled. Lucas had always had such a special bond with Sam, even before he'd come to live with them but especially in those four years and onward. Marriage may have been the thing to make them brothers officially, but they were already that to each other before. Over the last few years, the joke had then become that they were both brothers and cousins, with him marrying into the Cassidy family. Still, before all of that, he'd been in their care from the age of fifteen, so in a way he'd landed somewhere that was for the most part like a little brother but also skirted on the edge of feeling like a son, which he had helped to raise for those four years while he was in college. And now here he was, with this book he had published. Lucas never shied away from showing how proud he was of his people, and he was very proud of Sam.

"Hey, what's up with them?" Sam came back to his sister. She was sitting with Mackenzie in her lap, while Jax was up with his front paws on her knees, the better to allow the baby girl to laugh and pet him. Maya followed her brother's gaze over to where Emma was with her friends, and then Eliza over with Ella and the triplets. Neither of them was being disruptive in any way, could have been perceived to be enjoying a normal day with guests at the house, but then that was easy when they were nowhere near each other, and Sam had seen just as plainly as Maya had done that this was done intentionally.

"I really have no idea," Maya confided in him with a shake of the head. There was little for her to tell, but she told it, recounted how Emma had spent the night at her friends', that she hadn't planned to come over today until Maya talked her into it… Sam didn't like this any more than she did, but he was in the same position as she was. What could they do if they didn't want to talk?

"I could try…" Sam suggested, looking to Eliza especially. He'd known her all her life, would have maybe been able to get to the bottom of it.

"Just let it be for today," Maya quietly pleaded. So long as nothing happened, it was better that they let their little sisters work things out themselves. After today, when all had been said and done and the guests were gone, that would be another matter, but for now…

"Alright… alright, yeah," Sam finally agreed. He didn't like it, but he agreed. "Cara and Mateo will be here soon, picked up Teddy and Priya on the way," he reported. "What do we tell them when they get here?"

"Same thing I told you," Maya could only shrug. Even if there was no blow out from Eliza or Emma, they couldn't deny that their mood had a way of seeping out and touch others. It wasn't so bad as to ruin the entire day, but still… Ah, well, if there's one thing we're not lacking today, it's good news and things to be grateful for. We got Lucky, we got the parade, we got Sam's book, and then there's the musical…

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners