August 24th 2022
Chapter 236
Our Hearts in Youth
Lucas had been sure that he would find his daughter a little bummed out when he picked her up from school that day for blue group. Lauren Grayson had called him earlier to let him know that Winnie was home sick today, so he wouldn't need to pick her up and take her to the ranch. Sure, Marianne would still have her other friends, both at school and at the ranch, but Winnie was Winnie, and being without your best friend when you expected the opposite, especially now, could be upsetting.
Harper and June were already gone by the time he made it to the school, and there was Marianne, waiting for him, with her bag in her arms, ready to go. They were soon headed back to the car, hand in hand. She'd surprised him by asking about how his day had gone before he got the chance to ask her, so he chuckled and started telling her about all that he'd done at the ranch, both as part of his regular daily routine and for the upcoming ball. Oh, how deeply she had been looking forward to the ball. She'd gone so far as to ask her mother if she would paint her nails, because this felt like a day where she would want them painted. Maya gladly accepted, as she would.
When they climbed into their seats, him in the front and her in the back, he had just finished telling her about working with Khalil and Phoebe, and how they had asked to adopt Milly and her puppies. Marianne was very glad to hear this and Lucas suspected this was in part because if they got the dogs, then it meant that she would still get to play with them as they grew up. He didn't mention anything about the baby, of course, but the memory did make him smile.
"Can I put your bag in the back?" he asked when buckling her in, but Marianne shook her head. She wanted to hold on to it. "Alright, just don't go swinging it around or anything," he joked and, off the squinty look she gave him, he waved his arms around in demonstration, which made her laugh.
When they finally took off, on their way to Sullivan Stables, it was her turn to talk to him about her day, and she did so, though as always, this was what they would call the abridged version. She wasn't going to tell her whole day story now when she'd get to tell it at dinner, with him and her mother and her sisters all together. Sometimes she couldn't help herself and she would talk and talk as they drove along. That never stopped her dinner telling from being just as energized and captivating.
Today, the abridged version felt doubly so. She didn't have a lot to say, which he suspected had to do with the lack of Winnie. He told her how he'd spoken to her mother earlier and assured her that Winnie would be alright. In all likelihood, she would be back at school the very next morning. Marianne easily accepted this, and she didn't seem all that disturbed about any of it, so again Lucas found his expectations challenged. She didn't look distressed in any way, she looked… distracted, off in her own world. That wasn't the unexpected part. Marianne was very much like her mother in this way, and he'd been familiar with Maya's inspiration daze long enough to spot it even in this miniaturized daughter form. This one felt different. Coupled with the way she kept her bag hugged almost protectively in her arms, he had to wonder…
"What do you have in there?" Her head turned back to look at him almost at once. Ha… "What's in your bag that's so important right now?" Lucas asked, now that she was fully paying attention to him.
"Nothing," Marianne replied, not the slightest bit convincingly. He gave her a look in the rear view mirror. Now there was her mother's face staring back at him, like all those features she'd gotten from him had been pushed to the back, and all that remained was pure, undiluted Maya.
"Is that right?" Lucas challenged with a small smile. She was clever enough to know he saw right through her innocence play. Whatever this was though, it was clearly precious or special enough that she felt strongly about protecting it. "Does this 'nothing' belong to you?" he asked. She nodded. "Promise?" he asked.
"Promise," she replied.
"Alright, then," he told her. Nothing to worry about. "But it's a secret?" he asked. She wasn't sure. "If it's yours, then it's yours. I'm just curious, that's all." She considered this for a moment.
"I can show you when we get to the ranch," she suggested. That could work.
The rest of the ride was given over to the radio and singing along to the music. One of Maya's songs played as they were arriving, so naturally they had to let it finish before the car and the radio could be turned off.
"I told them at school that Mommy writes songs on the radio. Some of them don't believe me," Marianne told Lucas as he came to unbuckle her.
"Well, you don't owe them anything. That being said, proof is very easily accomplished, so you say the word, yeah?" he gave her a smile and she nodded with that same smile returned to him. Now there were his features come to light. "So…" he leaned against the open doorway. "Do I get to be let in on the secret of the bag?" he asked.
She was actually shy about it. He didn't know that he'd ever seen her being shy. It was a strange realization, to think back on his baby girl's life, all six years of it and him having seen her through it all, and know… she had never been shy, not like this. Apprehensive, yes, but only where it made sense to be. This spoke of a different kind of feeling, of something that felt new and uncertain to her, enough so that she might have feared its reception from others, like him. She opened her bag, and she reached inside to take out her sketchbook – never left home without it – before pulling out something she'd tucked between two blank pages.
It didn't take long for him to recognize it for what it was, even if he hadn't actually looked at it head-on yet. It was a card, a piece of paper folded in two and again, drawn over in markers by a child's hand, another child's hand, not Marianne's. And there were hearts on it. A Valentine… She held it up for him to see and he pointed and looked at her. May I? She nodded and handed it over so he could have a closer look.
There were two figures on the cover, all surrounded with hearts of many colors. One was understandably meant to be Marianne. She was even wearing the same clothes as she wore in life that day. The other was a boy, dark-skinned, smiling… Going by how he'd drawn Marianne in the day's clothes, Lucas recalled having seen this shirt on one of the boys. Even before seeing the scribbled names inside, he figured out who was the artist at play here. To Annie, from Mosi. For what he'd seen and heard of the boy since the start of the school year, he was a good kid, very nice, very courteous, and just the type to make a card like this. His generous use of colors, and some star shapes mingled among the hearts – these all in yellow, like the golden star she wore around her neck – showed that he definitely paid attention to what Marianne would appreciate. Did all this make it less of a stunning discovery? Not so much…
"Did you guys all make one of these?" Lucas asked Marianne. She shook her head.
"Our teacher said that we could if we wanted to, but we didn't have to."
"Did you make one?" he asked, and again she fished inside her sketchbook, and she produced another card, one he recognized as her work at a glance. It was for him and Maya, and his smile was immediate and contained his whole face.
"I just wanted to draw," she explained. "I didn't know who to do one for in the class. But now Mosi made me one, so do I make him one, too?" Lucas stared into his daughter's inquisitive eyes and suddenly felt very inadequate to the task. It was silly, it was, but how was he supposed to face up to a six-year-old and not make it weird?
He thought of little Mosi Okafor who, like his drawing on the card he'd given Marianne, was missing several of his front teeth, not solely because he was losing his baby teeth but because of an unfortunate encounter with the ground while playing soccer with his cousins. It made it so that his speech came off with a pronounced sort of lisp, for which some of the kids at school had been teasing him. This in turn had called on the ire of Sheriff Annie, who had never suffered a bully in her young life. Was it any wonder that the boy connected with her? So, he'd made her a card. He was six, they both were. Just because this was his kid, that didn't change, did it?
"Mosi is your friend," Lucas stated, and Marianne nodded with that good, sunny smile of hers. "Then I'm sure he would appreciate a card, too."
"I can make him one when go home tonight! And one for Winnie, because she was sick," Marianne was happy to hear this. Lucas laughed.
"You can make as many cards as you like." For now, Mosi's card and the one she'd done for her parents returned to their safe place so they could get out of the car and head off to find the rest of blue group. As they walked, Marianne fastened on her bandana.
"Daddy? If I make a card for Mosi and he made one for me, does that make him my Valentine?" she asked, too caught up in looping the blue fabric around her head to see the look of 'I will never get out of this' despair on Lucas' face.
"Do you want him to be?" he asked. Marianne thought.
"He's my friend. Adam Gray makes fun of everyone when they get a card. He goes, 'is that your girlfriend?' or 'is that your boyfriend?'" she intoned in her best imitation of the boy who could apparently only ever be known by his full name. "Mosi put the card in my bag when no one was looking, I think he did it so Adam Gray didn't make fun of me."
"That was very nice of him," Lucas nodded. "I'm guessing you don't want him to make fun of Mosi either," he looked at her, and she shook her head. "Well, I'm sure you'll find a way. You can be very sneaky when you want to be," he squinted, which made her giggle. "As for the other thing… He's whoever you want him to be, so long as you both know what that something is, yeah? Otherwise, someone might get the wrong idea."
"Right," Marianne nodded, taking this in. Lucas couldn't help but chuckle. She was so precious sometimes; he couldn't keep up.
"Do you know if Mosi and his family are going to the ball?" he asked her, and she smiled and nodded.
"I told him about it," she replied, then, in a serious whisper, "But not Adam Gray."
"Good call," Lucas whispered back. "So… maybe Mosi might like to dance…"
"I don't think he knows how," Marianne reflected, only to smile again. "But I can show him!"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
