September 7th 2022

Chapter 250
Our Realizations of Life

The accident that had very nearly claimed the life of Bobby Davis had caused many waves in many places. In his home, at his school, with all the people who knew him and cared for him. This included everyone up at Sullivan Stables. It may not have happened on the property, but it was near enough to it that, every day as he arrived and left, Lucas saw the place where it had happened, and he couldn't help but think about the accident. He wasn't the only one. Bobby was one of them, one of their best young riders, and he'd been through something so terrifying...

For as much as they all still thought about him all the time, life went on at the ranch, as it had to. The horses were all still there and in need of their usual care, and the dogs as well, then all their riders, and the after school program, the XCs, the business and event attendees, the archive, and of course the film crew.

They were in the midst of filming the end of the season at the moment, and there was some amount of secrecy going on, even from the people who worked at the ranch, suggesting some big plot twists or cliffhanger that they did not want to see spoiled. The more the series had been gaining notoriety over the last couple of years, the more they'd had to deal with what it entailed. In their case it was people trying to come on to the property to see what was going on in that part of Sullivan Stables, the better to put it out there for all to see. The production team had been keeping an eye out to prevent it from happening, but it didn't always work; the people were crafty that way.

With this season ender, Lucas knew, they had gone the extra mile to throw people off, to send them sniffing elsewhere, the better for the very important secrets to be protected. He of course had the privilege of having access to any part of the property at all times, but he would still do his best not to see anything he shouldn't see. Was he at times encouraged by his wife to go and find out anyway? He was, constantly, receiving the very best of her pleading methods, but he would not fold, nor would she truly expect him to.

The closest he came to 'infiltrating' the set was at lunch, where he had taken up a habit of eating with his mother-in-law when she was both present and available. Katy would be delighted just to hear anything about her granddaughters and her eldest daughter, but she also wanted to know how her son-in-law was doing, too. Over the last couple of weeks, the other topic that came up, because it was bound to, was Bobby Davis.

The whole Davis family was close to the Hunter family, as was to be expected. Their entire connection may have started out with them being called to the ranch after Nellie and Bobby's fight a few years back, but then it had turned into Gracie and Ethan's becoming an item while their twins cycled somewhere around rivals, begrudging friends, and then proper friends who would continue to banter. Now, one of the Davises' sons was lying in the hospital after saving one of the Hunters' daughters' life. The Hunters would already have wanted to stand by their friends, but after that... They had been right there, all the way, with whatever they might need.

"Maya went out to see him yesterday," Lucas told Katy.

"I heard," she nodded. "I figured she'd go, sooner or later."

"Yeah..." Lucas sighed. Without explanation, he'd understood where some of his wife's fears had come from, and he couldn't do much except to stand by her side, ready to talk if she wanted to but otherwise staying out of it.

Whether she realized his internal thoughts or not, Katy soon directed their conversation down another road, this one banking much further onto the happy side. She wished to discuss her youngest granddaughter's upcoming special day. It was coming up fast now. Even as they were counting down the weeks and preparing to welcome their lucky seventh, their tiny sixth was just days away from squaring up against her very first birthday cake.

They all wanted to make it a great one, naturally, but some of them also wanted to keep Maya in mind and not go too over the top and end up getting her labor started earlier than it needed to. She didn't want that either and she appreciated their concern, but that wouldn't stop her from giving their baby girl a great day worthy of her funny little self.

"What do you think her... opinion is on clowns?" Katy asked with a grin very like her daughter's, which made Lucas laugh.

"Mackenzie? She loves them, not a problem. No, the real problem if you bring a clown around is the triplets."

"All of them?" Katy laughed. "Since when? I thought maybe Lucy..."

"No, surprisingly, she was fine with them before. It was Kacey who was afraid of them. And then the Oswalds had a party for their grandson, hired a few of them to come around. So, they were out there, and meanwhile I was playing basketball with Marianne. The triplets were just there, playing around with the dogs, and a couple of those clowns saw us. They both meant well, they did, but then they thought of coming to say hello, do their act..."

"Ah..." Katy understood, stopped herself laughing as best she could, in solidarity to her granddaughters. She could guess how that encounter had ended though, and how could she not laugh?

"We've done our best to bury the story, hoping they'd come around after a while, so..."

"No clowns, got it," Katy nodded, matter settled. "Probably for the best. Shawn might have taken up the idea to make himself the clown, and the last thing we need is for them to be afraid of their grandpa..."

"We wouldn't want that," Lucas agreed, though he would later admit to Maya that he'd spent several hours imagining what her father would look like as a clown. She'd doubled down and sketched it, turning it into a double act by adding Riley's father into the picture, because how could she not?

It was blue group day, so when the time came, he set out and went to collect Marianne and Winnie from school to bring them over. Once they were united with the rest of their group, Lucas left them briefly in the hands of his co-monitor to go check on something, which took him past one of the stables. He happened to look inside, and there he spotted something that made him stop all at once. It took him a second or two to realize he wasn't seeing what he'd thought, because that would have been impossible, and the answer instead was very easy to find. He'd seen a boy standing inside, leading one of the horses from the stalls, and he'd believed that it was Bobby, which couldn't be, because he was in the hospital... But then that only meant that this was...

"Ethan?" he walked over to him, and the boy looked up.

From afar, it would be so easy to mix them up. They were identical, down to their hair, and they may not have gone around dressing the same, but they had a similar enough style that they could not have been differentiated this way, unlike the Hunter sisters. But then you'd see the expressions on their faces, the ways they carried themselves, and the differences would be there. Bobby was always the more mannered and organized one of the two, while Ethan was the looser one in both respects. Of course, these days, more than anything, he looked like what he was, which was a boy whose twin was in the hospital after a terrifying ordeal.

"Hey, Mr. Friar," he greeted him, even as the horse reacted to his presence. This was Jewel, Bobby's horse. They had all been doing their best to look after her since the accident, and it seemed that they weren't the only ones. "I was just..." Ethan gestured to the horse.

"Of course," Lucas assured him, gestured for him to go on, so they left the stable together, with Ethan leading his brother's horse. As they went, Lucas spotted Gracie already out there, with Hopper, Nellie's horse. She'd be off at the hospital by now, with Bobby, and here were both their twins, spending time with their horses.

"They know we're not them," Ethan reflected as they walked along. "But it's the next best thing, right?"

"Right," Lucas nodded. "Have you guys been doing this..."

"We try and come every day or two," Ethan revealed, and Lucas was amazed to think that he hadn't noticed until today. Now that he knew, it was to wonder that he hadn't guessed they'd do something like this before. Either way, he appreciated this gesture, and he knew that the others would, too.

Lucas had a feeling like it might be a while before Nellie rode Hopper again, like she'd gotten it in her head that she couldn't ride, not so long as Bobby couldn't either. If that was the case, then Ethan and Gracie would get to play substitute twins for a while.

On his way back to find the blue group, he crossed paths with the yellow group, and one of them split off from the others to go up to Lucas.

"Mr. Blue guy, sir!" he called, and Lucas turned not so much for having figured himself called out but by curiosity at the words. The boy was speaking about him though, taking the blue bandana around his wrist as an indicator because he didn't recall his name. There was a strong pull for him to say, 'Call me Lucas, Mr. Blue guy is my father,' but he resisted, instead going with...

"Rafa, right?"

"Yeah," he nodded, adjusting his yellow bandana, which he had tied twisted around his head. He was twelve years old, one of their oldest and on the verge of aging out of the program, which Lucas soon learned to be his issue.

"You work here, right? You don't just do this," he pointed to the bandanas again.

"Yes, I do," Lucas smirked. "What can I do for you?" At this question, the boy straightened up, giving the very best he had in him to look mature. He was neither tall nor short for his age, just average sized, and the success went about the same way as he made his request.

"You can give me a job," Rafa nodded. Lucas blinked, surprised.

"A job... working here?" he had to ask. The boy nodded. "What kind of job are you looking for?"

"I don't know, anything to do with the horses. You don't have to pay me that much, and I'm good at doing things, nothing is too gross or boring. Please?"

"Don't take this the wrong way or as me saying no, but you're twelve. What do your parents have to say about this?"

"It's just my mom. And I'm sure she won't mind. She loves that I come here, she says that way she knows where I am after school and I'm in a good place." And he wouldn't get to come back next year...

"And you feel the same way," Lucas guessed with a smile.

"I love it here," Rafa confirmed. "Please?" he tried again.

"Is your mom picking you up today?" Lucas asked.

"Our neighbor, Mrs. Garces. Her daughter is in red group."

"Okay, well... I'll make a note of calling your mom so we can talk about it. For now, better get back to your group. Sound good?" It did. "Great. My name is Lucas by the way, Mr. Friar if you prefer."

"I'll tell her. Thanks, Blue guy!" the boy ran off, and Lucas chuckled.

"Take care, Rafa."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners