August 21st 2022

Chapter 233
Our Hearts in Progress

The longer Maya was a teacher, the more her eventually former students would grow and become their own people, adults, with their education wherever it took them, and burgeoning careers or sometimes just dreams of one… Some had been getting married, engaged to be, and it could only be a matter of time before they started having children. For all she knew, maybe some of them had and she simply was unaware. But the longer it went, and the more happened… It would blow her mind to get to see it all happen, it… it felt like a privilege.

That was never so true as with those students she'd formed her tightest bonds with. There were always some of those, every year, weren't there? And one of the very first of those was her shy bird… Stella Buckley, no longer a fifteen-year-old girl with paint on her hands and a voice prone to whispers. She was twenty-three now, and though she continued to be an artist and continued to carry an edge of that apprehensive fragility in her, she had come so, so far in the years since she'd first come into that ninth grade art class. Maya continued to feel this pull in her heart when she saw her… She was so proud of who she was becoming. She'd taken her by surprise when she'd revealed her intentions to become a teacher, but then she'd seen her in action and… yeah, of course she was going to be a teacher.

And she was a homeowner, with her boyfriend, French musician François Lejeune, aka The Young Frank. The two of them had bought themselves a fixer upper, and they had been working away at it for some time. François had been on a sort of sabbatical from his music career in that time, a need to just find himself again after the headlong rush that had been the start of his then teenaged career. For that, he'd been able to dedicate many hours more to the project even as Stella went to school, after which she would join him in the work. The Friars had helped here and there in the process, wherever they could and were needed, though they hadn't been there in a few weeks, since the majority of the work had been done and it was really coming down to decoration. Stella and François wanted this part to be a surprise, for them to see when it was all done. And now that moment was coming.

The house was completed, and Maya and Lucas had been invited to dinner. They'd debated bringing the girls, who had been welcome, of course, but in the end decided to leave them behind. Ella would be there with them, and they would have themselves a sister evening, so what could be better than that?

Pulling up to the house, Maya's immediate feeling was just that… most people would look at this house and think it mostly looked like any other house, but she was sure that she could have picked this one out as being Stella's even if she didn't have the door number or had never been there before. There was something to it that felt inherently Stella-like, and it made her smile.

To know Stella Buckley, to really know her, was to understand that she lived in duality. There was the Stella that most people would see, and there was the Stella that those she trusted and cared for would see… so long as there was no one of the first category around. She came alive in a whole other way when it was just those of that latter side, and it was a joy to behold. She'd once told Maya how, when she and François had first met, properly met, it had been like nothing she'd ever experienced, that whatever mask she carried into the world had fallen from her face. She had always only ever been herself when she was with him, and it wasn't intentional, it just happened. She remembered how she'd then find herself to be alone again, and she'd start to worry and think that she needed to pull herself together, that it was going to be too much, but then she'd see him again and it would be just as before, every time. It had taken a while – but not too long – for her to realize that this was the opposite of a problem.

Oh, how he'd loved her, practically from that first time they'd met. He'd been so drawn to her, in a way that defied words, which was saying something, for him at least, hailed as one of the greater young songwriters of his time. It was in being with her that he'd come to realize, to admit to himself, that he needed a break from being out there, performing, touring… to just be a young man for as long as he needed to be. The way he saw it, if he never went back to being a singer, if he was only ever a man, with the woman he loved at his side, living a life that made him just as happy if not happier… then he had nothing to be sorry for.

"Hey, Mrs. Friar, Mr. Friar," Stella beamed when she opened the door to find them there. They had told her that she could call them by their first names by now, more than once, but she continued in this way, and maybe by now they had decided to leave it up to her. Maybe one day she would feel comfortable with the fact that they were all adults, and friends, but for now she was at ease with remembering that here was her former teacher and her husband, so who were they to force her to do anything else? She stepped aside and welcomed them into her home.

Maya was reminded, and later she would know that Lucas had been, too, of when they'd moved out on their own, not to the shared house in Houston, though there was a bit of that as well, but to their house out on the lane. By now, having lived there for a decade, it was so lived in as to make one forget that there had once been a day where the house had been empty, after Lucas had secretly done his own bit of 'fixing up.' They had both lived out of their parents' homes for four years by then, so it wasn't as though they'd gone from one to the other, but this had felt different than going to Houston for college with their friends. This was to be their home, from top to bottom a representation of who they were and what they needed and wanted, before that definition had a chance to change, to evolve along with them. Back then, they couldn't have guessed how toys could become such a prevalent feature. Books, and blankets, and little socks that seemed to get everywhere except where they belonged… In a few years' time, when their girls were grown, the definition would change again, and they just might lament the loss of that era in their home.

Stella and François were only just beginning, and they were both still a couple of kids, excited to share the fruits of their labor, their home together. Maya had to press her lips together so not to smile too big of a smile, feeling that excitement coming off of them, and if that wasn't enough to contend with, she had to see how Lucas was taking it all in, still lost in memories of when they'd moved into their house but also of the work he'd done, on this couple's house as much as theirs. She could almost hear him think to himself 'oh, yeah, I tore down that wall that one Saturday.' She would have loved to tear down a wall, but she'd never gotten the chance.

In time, they all came to sit in the kitchen and dinner was served. The kitchen was one of the best rooms in the house. Stella had long learned to cook and bake at her father's side, and she'd carried this here, shared it with François, who had done the same with his mother. They loved nothing more than to make their own comfort dishes for the other, a swap of cuisines.

"I was wondering if I could use your studio for… I'm not certain how long it will take," François requested of Maya, and she quickly became intrigued. Had he been writing again?

"Of course," she told him. "Drop by any time. I can get you a key if it will make things easier."

When Lucas asked if he planned to make a new album, François explained that he wasn't sure yet. He had been writing, here and there, all through the process of redoing the house. It had all been quiet, only Stella knowing about it, and he still didn't know what he would do with what came out of it, but he liked the idea of having this collection of songs he could always look back on, knowing that he had made them as he and Stella were creating their future together. She'd already nicknamed it the House Album, and now he couldn't get the possibility out of his head. Maya and Lucas both understood that compulsion in their own way.

Stella still had another year to go after this one before she was through with her degree. Her education had never by any means been a straightforward path, between being home schooled through middle school, and then going to high school, and then starting college but stopping when she came to realize that the path that she'd chosen wasn't the right one, going and traveling with François instead for some time before returning to Austin, settling into this house in need of much, much love, before finally deciding to be a teacher. Even then, she had taken things down a side path again when she'd gone and done her field work when she did and how she did it. Now, she wasn't even done with her studies that she already had people out there just waiting for the chance to hire her, and Maya couldn't have been prouder.

The big question now kind of had to be whether she'd actually take the offer when it came. Especially now, with François working on music for the first time in a long while, they had to wonder if life would go and take her away from Austin again. It was a question they had addressed in the past, and the answer then was still the answer now. There was no way of knowing what the future held until it happened, but they would work it out when the time came.

"Is Mr. Day going to be able to sub for you this time?" Stella asked, like she'd been thinking about it for a while and wondering if she might be able to replace her again if she was needed.

"Yes, he is," Maya revealed with a smile almost apologetic. Oh, her shy bird was eager to get back in front of a class and going back now would have meant seeing a lot of those same kids she'd taught the previous year. "I haven't figured out the exact timeline yet, although after last time, I did feel the need to be cautious, start earlier than later. Right now, I'm thinking end of March at the latest."

They could not have come for a tour of the house and not seen Stella's art room. She kept this for until after dinner, showing that she knew herself – and her former teacher – by acknowledging that they could have ended up eating cold if they'd gone in there before they'd eaten their meal. It was the right call, as they spent a solid half hour in there and could have stayed even longer. Maya had a feeling that it wouldn't be long now before there was paint on the young woman's hands again.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners