October 2nd 2022
Chapter 275
Our Flight Through Diaries
"Is he going to be back soon?" Marianne asked, walking into the kitchen to find her mother looking over some papers at the table, with baby Aubrey sleeping against her chest.
"Should be, yeah…" Maya replied without looking up at first, then, when a thought struck her, she turned to her daughter and smirked. "You guys are all stuck at the window back there, aren't you?"
"No…" Marianne replied after a moment of reflection, though her little smile betrayed her.
"Up until you came out here, there were five of you back there but now there's not?" Maya amended, which made her daughter laugh. "What do you have there?" she asked of the thing she held in her hand. It was soon revealed to be a piece of yellow construction paper, semi neatly folded in half, and drawn over by her hand. She could already tell that it was a birthday card and, minding the date…
"It's for Megan," Marianne came up and showed her the cover. It showed the newly three-year-old girl herself, surrounded by balloons in the shape of flowers. "But look," she opened it for her so she could see the other part.
Marianne had written her name, showing as ever her excellent handling of letters. Underneath, there were her sisters' names, four of them at least… if they could call them that. Each of Kacey, Remy, and Lucy's names were printed, the letters here not so neat, or even, but entirely legible… individually. They had all done it, and to no surprise, Marianne had been the one to help show them how. Underneath, there was a sort of squiggly swirl that invaded in part over a couple of the other names, and she took this to be the work of one-year-old Mackenzie.
"I wanted to write it for her, but she said, 'my my,'" Marianne explained, and Maya smirked. That was Mack code for 'by myself,' as in 'I can/I want to do this by myself.' Her Grandpa and Nana Hunter were always amused to tease about how their funny girl was tapping into her mother's genes very, very early.
"Well, you could write her name," Maya offered, indicating the baby. Without another word, Marianne started to sprint off, then came back and grabbed the card before going again.
She'd barely left the room that the triplets 'sounded the alarm,' letting her know that Lucas was returning. After settling Aubrey down, Maya went to meet him, to help with the boxes. It was that time of year again, and he'd gone to collect on her new batch of diaries and gold markers, the better for her to start the process of identifying them. She'd already been looking at her lists right before he arrived, and while she was not stuck at the window like her daughters, she'd also been very excited to get started.
"You know, for a second there I thought I'd made good time, but apparently not?" Lucas joked, indicating the watchers at the window as Maya grabbed one of the boxes.
"I'm not actually sure how long they've been posted there, to be honest, but the important part is that you're back now, yeah?" she smiled, cranking on the sweetness to make him laugh before starting back toward the porch steps.
"I can take one," Marianne offered as she came to stand right outside and looked from her mother over to her father.
"You think so?" Lucas asked her. She nodded. "Come here, we'll see," he accepted her offer with a challenge. She came up and he took one of the boxes from under its handles, so she could grab on to those. "You ready?" he asked. Another nod. He had his hands right under the box when he let it go, just in case, but she didn't drop it or fall. It was definitely heavy for her, but she was holding steady. "Must be all that practice you got holding your sisters," he laughed. "Same rules: Watch your steps, especially if there's stairs." She nodded, and she was off, proudly carrying the colorful box.
It was inevitable, the older the girls got, that they would be curious about the happenings in their house more and more. Those boxes had been a part of their lives for as long as they'd lived, and while they had never been a part of this point in the process, they had learned through their big sister. So now, when Maya settled in at the table to do her thing, Marianne was there, of course, but so were the triplets and Mackenzie. Did they want to help, too? Yes, they did, even the one-year-old who possibly nodded to match her sisters.
"What do you think? How should we do this?" Maya turned to Marianne, her usual buddy in this activity. The pondering face returned, and then she came up with a solution.
Soon, they had themselves a bit of an assembly line. Lucas was there to 'supervise' and help where needed. Marianne still had the elastic bands, mostly because – as she reasoned – the others might have been too small and at risk of snapping themselves on the fingers by accident. She would also be in charge of receiving the completed senior diaries and placing them back in their box as they went. Kacey would have the juniors, Remy the sophomores, and Lucy the freshmen. Mackenzie sat in her big sister's lap, with the many gold markers set before her. When it would be time to attach one, she would grab it and hand it over with a call of 'go,' as in 'here you go,' and would be thanked graciously each time, making her squirm with pride. Unconventional as it was – but wholly necessary as far as Maya was concerned, if she expected them not to lose interest, she would alternate, doing one from each class in turn, rather than tackling a whole box at a time.
"Do you want to do the XCs first?" Lucas asked, looking upon Aubrey. Like last year, he was looking after the baby as they went through all this, and once again he had to think how, last year, that baby had been Mackenzie, who now stood brandishing a marker like it was a magic wand.
"Yeah, let's do that." She grabbed a book from the freshman pile, and Lucy perked up, knowing that was her pile. Just like last year, with Britt and Raj, they had a senior and a freshman. "Matthew Cullen?" she read the latter's name, and she briefly had to chuckle, even if she'd looked the lists over before. They would have two Matthews this year. It wasn't the first time she'd had two kids with the same names in the same year, but it was the first time one of those was her brother. Even if it would just be for a year, at least he already went by MJ, so…
"Matt, yeah," Lucas nodded. "Haven't actually had a chance to get to know much about him yet, it was all a bit last minute." This she knew. She'd vaguely been aware of one of their original choices having to back out due to a family situation. "He's from New York, actually lives somewhere around where you did, I think. No horse of his own, but he's been taking lessons since he was ten."
"Nice," Maya smiled, immediately inspired by this tiny bit of information. The note was written, the name added, before Mackenzie gave her first marker, and the elastic was added on by Marianne, and the book was then handed to Lucy, who brought it to the freshman box. One down, so many more to go. "And our senior is… Lupe Acevedo," Maya checked her list.
"From Santa Fe, eighteen years old. She's actually been out here a few times, competing with her horse," Lucas told her, and now she knew why the name had sounded vaguely familiar. When she asked where she'd be staying, even as she was about to say she hadn't asked where Matt would be staying, Lucas had a sort of 'about that' look on him. "They're both staying at my uncles'," he revealed with a nod. Maya blinked, surprised.
"How did that even…"
"Well, both Lara and Lydia put in to be matched at first, and Lydia really wanted it, but the kid who cancelled was a sophomore, so we matched Lupe with Lara. And then when we went to bring on Matt, the freshman, it was still Bishop looking after things, and he didn't realize… It all worked out fine, I mean my uncles are happy to have them both, it was just unexpected, so they've been having to scramble to get ready for two new teenagers instead of one."
"Right…" Maya nodded before getting to work on Lupe's diary.
From there, the rotation continued in the direction they'd been going, which took them from eldest to youngest rather than the opposite. After Lupe from Marianne's pile, it was a junior for Kacey, and a sophomore for Remy, and then another freshman for Lucy, and onward, each pile shrinking ever so slowly.
Her sisters were juniors this year… She'd like to say that it would be the first of their years together where she'd be there from start to finish, but that wasn't even true, was it? She'd still be on leave through the start of this year, at least through September. She would go in on the first day, with the introductions, and the tales of summer, but other than that, Barton Day would still be on the job. Maya took comfort at least in the fact that from then on, knock on wood, nothing would keep her away.
And when she looked to the sophomores… All she could see was the name that wasn't there because it was on a different list now. She knew that everyone would be alright in the end, or at least she sincerely hoped so, but still… It would be hard, especially for those two. Maia Bennett was moving onward, while her enbyfriend Ash Bell was a freshman once again. Maia at least would have Angel, who had become friends with her and Ash after the latter had helped him reach his musical goals. She hadn't been able to attend their performances, but she had seen a recording, and she was in awe. It gave her flashes of Joey Garcia coming out of his shell as he'd once done, and now he was out there, a Broadway star…
And Ash wouldn't be alone either. Like she'd told them, there were at least a few of the new kids who Maya knew already and could see as potential friends. Tre's brother and Rolly's stepbrother, Lamar Whitley would be around. The third and final Sullivan-Reyes girl would be coming along, Lydia Hypnoteyes stepping in while her little brother would still be years away. And there was her Matthew, Matthew Jonathan Hunter. She still felt a jolt thinking about it, and of all the new kids she'd lament not getting to know directly in the very beginning, he was the top. In his case, it wasn't so much getting to know him as a person – she'd known him since he was no more than a moving little shape on a sonogram – but as a student. It had already been monumental when the twins had started here, but it felt almost more so with MJ, maybe because he was younger. Thinking of that, she wondered how she'd feel, not too long from now, when Haley would be in her class…
Several of their small assistants eventually got antsy and bored after a while, so it was down to just Maya, Marianne, and the baby, as Lucas went to play with the others. For that, they went and finished off the piles class by class instead of doing one from each. Even if it was more efficient this way, she was still very glad that they'd gotten to do it the other way, with everyone. Maybe in future years, they'd get to try it again and last longer… In time, they could be a well-oiled diary prepping machine.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
