August 14th 2022
Chapter 226
Our Celebration of Returns
A few days had gone by since their return from Arkansas, and this morning it was back out of the holiday bubble for good, back to work, back to school… Everyone was looking forward to that, some maybe for different reasons than the rest.
Emma had not wanted to tell anyone but Maya, not yet. Yes, she'd made her decision, but it was still fresh, and she wanted to live with it for a bit before 'opening the floodgates' that would come once she told everyone else, her father and Abigail especially. She'd told Maya, for the simple reason that she needed to tell someone closer than a friend, and she'd been the first one she'd thought of. It wasn't lost on Maya that, up until very recently, it would have only been Eliza she'd open up to. So, this thing between them, whatever it was, was still going on.
It didn't get much better once Eliza did find out, two days after they'd come home. They were deep in the pre-back to school, all of them. Sure, only Emma and Eliza were kicking off a brand new semester, the others carrying on the ongoing year, but then the two of them had gone to the university bookstore, and they'd brought Marianne with them because she wanted to go with them… At some point when they'd been out there, the whole thing had come out, and it had been a struggle not to let things get out of hand with their young niece right there with them. They couldn't spare her entirely, and when they'd gotten home, Marianne had run to her father, so upset… After that, there'd been no stopping the secret coming out all the way, across the house and all the way back to Tucson.
That had gone about as well as they'd figured it would. It might have been easy for Emma to shut out any arguments with her parents back in Arizona, with them far off like that, but she couldn't do that to them, and that meant a lot of emotional, complicated calls back and forth. After each one, she'd gone and found her big sister, either sitting with her or joining her in whatever activity she was in the middle of. Maya would be there for her, all the way, of course she would. Still, she could also see Eliza seeing them, feeling that same gap between her and her sister and best friend. She was trying not to show it, but she was aching; how could she not? She'd been splitting her nights, sometimes staying at Ben's apartment, sometimes Ben spending the night at the house with her… To his credit, his priority in all this was clearly Eliza and bringing her comfort as she needed it.
"It's ridiculous how much I'm looking forward to school today…" Maya sighed, waited… "Isn't it?" she asked, looking down. She was sure that Lucas was hearing her just fine, but as he was presently in his morning conference with their unborn child, his attention was slightly divided. "Hey, I'm up here, too, you know? I'm going to start poking you soon," she 'threatened,' and he laughed, turned his eyes up to find her finger hovering at the ready.
"I don't think it's ridiculous," he promised, hands half raised in surrender. The finger retreated. "So long as you won't think it's ridiculous that I'm going to miss just being home, all of us."
"Never, ever… I love your brand of ridiculousness, Huckleberry. One of the many reasons I married you." He smiled. "And there's another one right there."
The morning drop-offs were back, right down to Lucas driving Maya to the high school, where he helped in bringing the diary boxes… even if they were empty at the moment. The teasing he got for it was to be expected, and it would keep him in smiles all day whenever he thought about it.
If Maya was happy to be back at the school, it was nothing compared to being back and seeing all her students come along, telling her about what they'd been up to over the break. There were a lot of the old standards. Several had gone on a trip, either to some sightseeing locale or to visit distant family. Some were a bit pouty at being back and would need a few days to warm up again, while others were just so very eager to get back into the day to day again. Some had tales of messy family gatherings, funny stories about whatever they'd gotten to do… Plenty of those tales would be there for her to see with her own eyes in the pages of their diaries; it was always a very interesting week when she got to look at those.
At lunch time, knowing that she would come, Maya excitedly went and pulled the other item which Lucas had carried in for her that morning: Jenny's canvas. She had hesitated for a while about how big she wanted to make it. She wanted it to feel important when they saw it, but didn't want it to be too big either, especially since Maya had offered to buy it for her. Now, when she came around with her lunch, ahead of her friends, she saw the blank canvas and smiled at once.
"This is the one you wanted, yes? You're sure?" Maya asked, and Jenny nodded.
"Yeah, it's just what I need… Thanks, Mrs. Friar."
"You are so welcome. Have you decided which picture you want to do yet?" The printed photo was produced, pulled from her bag, and when she saw it, Maya nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, that's definitely the one."
Andrew and Laura Marshall were never the popular kids themselves back in high school, him constantly mocked as the 'school paper nerd,' and her the former librarian's daughter, who'd spent many an hour in the library, shelving books for her mother, because nowhere else felt so welcoming to her. That was where they'd met, him doing research, her always willing to help him. That was where they'd fallen for one another. They'd been married barely a year out of high school, and two years later, along had come their one and only child, the great joy of their lives. In the photo, the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, arms around their one and only as she stood before them, like a diagram of a family tree, two branches joined and from the middle…
Both parents were photographed pressing their faces to either side of their daughter's head, and everything about them in that immortalized moment told the world that here was their daughter, and it didn't matter that she'd been born in a boy's body. She was still their baby, and their love had only grown for knowing her for who she truly was. In the middle, hands clasped over her mother and father's arms as they were wrapped around her, Jenny Marshall's smile was a thing of glory. Whatever life had to throw at her, the one true certainty she could cling to was that her parents had her back, always. If ever there was an image worthy of that blank canvas…
"I want to do it right," she told her art teacher, looking upon the object leaning against the wall. The way she had her hands clasped together, she reminded Maya of Stella Buckley in full shy bird mode. 'I want to do it right' got to sound a lot more like 'I don't want to do it wrong.'
"Look, if you're not sure of how it's going to look, maybe you need to practice first," Maya suggested. "Sketch it with a pencil, do it with markers, try it with paint, but on a different surface… That canvas isn't going anywhere; you can take your time. Take the rest of this year, take all of senior year, too, if you have to. It can be a graduation present, from you to them. It's all up to you. In the meantime, whatever you need to get you there, I will help in whatever way I can."
"Sometimes it feels like I'm going to sound like a broken record, but… Thank you, Mrs. Friar," Jenny told her.
"Well, just so you know, it doesn't stop making me get all teary eyed no matter how many times I hear it, so…" she gestured humbly before reaching to her face. "These days, it's full on tears," she laughed, and Jenny understood.
Even as she ate her lunch with Nika, and Lara, and Maggie, Jenny could be seen working away at her first sketch attempt of the photo. It was a very notable difference, to look at the work she'd put in back in freshman year compared to now, when she was actually making an effort. She was by no means a top artist in any of Maya's classes, but she wasn't bad either. And with practice… and some focused guidance, not unlike what had once been done with Talia Ríos, Maya didn't see why Jenny couldn't rise to the challenge and create something she would be proud of.
"Is it true?" Nellie asked, that afternoon, when she and Gracie came dashing to find their big sister after the last class of the day had ended.
"Is what true?" Maya asked back without stopping as she picked up after the recently departed juniors.
"Is Emma really leaving?" Gracie asked, clearly upset at the thought. Maya stopped, looked at them both. It didn't matter that they shared no blood – neither did Maya and her – or that her connection came of the Hart side, which was only truly connected to them by the link of their big sister. Emma and the rest of the Hart-Lanes were as siblings to the little Hunters and vice versa. They loved one another, so this news could never have found them indifferent.
"Where did you hear that?" Maya couldn't help but wonder aloud. Both twins opened their mouths to reply, then stopped and looked at each other, which was enough for a hypothesis to form, one that began and ended with 'they were in contact with a Hart-Lane about her upcoming birthday when they heard, so they can't bring it up because of a surprise.' For all their sakes, she decided to abandon her question and instead answer theirs. "She might, but she might not," she told them.
"What does that mean?" Nellie asked.
"It means that… she intends to, but she could decide to stay, too. Whatever she decides, it won't happen until this summer, okay?" It wasn't a complete fix, but it was better than nothing. Better than that, if their eyes said it right, it was an opportunity for reversal. She might be convinced to stay… "Whatever you're thinking of doing, just…" Maya pointed at them. They nodded; they understood. They would be careful.
Henry Hillard was picking up his sister and her friends to drive them home that afternoon, so Maya offered to not only drive the twins home but also stop to pick up MJ and Haley on the way. Maybe it was the talk of this Emma situation, but she wanted to gather up her little Hunters, maybe take them out to Nando's for… something, anything, so they could hang out a bit. Sure, they'd all been in Arkansas together for a week, so they'd seen plenty of one another back there, but could there ever be enough?
"Do me a favor, don't bring up the Emma thing with them right now? Please?" Maya looked to her sisters in the back of the minivan as they pulled up to the middle school to get MJ.
"I promise," they both said, if a bit reluctantly.
"When can they know though?" Nellie asked, and that was kind of the thing, wasn't it? It didn't matter if they were told now, or in a few days, or a few weeks. It would still hurt when they found out. Maya sighed.
"Let Emma decide, okay?"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
