October 5th 2022
Chapter 278
Our Flight Through Triples
For a while there it got to feel as though they were not meant to give their girls what they wanted. They had asked Kacey, Remy, and Lucy if they wanted to do something special the night before their third birthday, and after a huddle – they had discovered huddles and they loved them now – they had pronounced themselves. They wanted to go camping, the whole family. Each for their own reasons, neither Maya nor Lucas felt at ease with taking them all out to the site, and they might have had to say no and ask the triplets to pick another activity, except they'd found an alternative: they could just make their own camp site out on their land. They had their own campfire nearby and everything; they all loved to go sit out there throughout the year and they were very good about following fire safety rules.
The triplets had found this satisfactory, so they had been preparing for their 'trip,' none of them aware of the turn in the weather forecast… which soon brought them rain, and more rain, and the rumble of thunder. There was no way they were going to head out there, all of them, not in this weather. Maya and Lucas were practically dragging their feet as they went to find their daughters to tell them the bad news. But this worked in their favor in the end. Neither one of them wanted to disappoint the triplets, especially on the eve of their birthday, so they were both trying and trying to find a solution, an alternative to the alternative. And then it came to them.
They clued both Ella and Marianne into the new plan, and they were very happy to play into it. While Ella returned to keep an eye on her little sisters, Marianne helped their parents as they transformed the basement's playroom into their new, indoor camping site. They already had glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, so all they had to do was add everything else underneath. The great big family tent managed to fit in, and they installed the sleeping bags along with everything else they might have brought in, too. They strung up lights, constructed a couple of trees, and a campfire where the flames might have been fake but, in the low light, would be bright and moving. Marianne thought about finding sounds like in nature that they could play over the little speakers they had in there, and they got on that. By the end, they were all so satisfied that it was difficult not to rush and bring the others down already.
They made it through to evening though, and after dinner, and bath time, and PJ time, they finally sprung their surprise on the triplets. They had already seen the rain, though they clearly didn't see this as a dealbreaker right away, not until Eliza and Emma came home, saying how they were really glad to be inside again, like being outside was terrible. They'd looked to their parents then, six round blue eyes in alarm. But they had nothing to worry about…
The basement – no, the camp site – was waiting for them, and when they saw it, there was no doubt in their mind that it was as good as the outside one, maybe even better. They got to sit around the 'fire,' and hear and tell stories, and sing songs… The smores may not have been made over a roaring fire, but going by those sticky, smiling faces… and sticky hands… they had been just as good. Eventually – after the fire had been 'put out' – everyone went to their sleeping bags, or in Aubrey's case, their portable crib. Did it slightly break the fantasy when she woke up in the middle of the night needing to be fed or changed or just comforted? A little bit, but it all still worked out better than they'd anticipated, most of all as they woke up the following morning.
August 18th… Three years onward for those tiny babes who had become Kacey Angela, Remy Susannah, and Lucy Elizabeth Friar. Maya and Lucas both remembered how much of a miracle it would feel like that they just got to hold one of them in their arms, and then all three. They all used to fit there, just so, and it was there on both their arms if they needed to be reminded. Nowadays, their girls had grown so that they couldn't so much be held as one as they would go and pile themselves on top of whichever unsuspecting parent they found first. That morning, they just went ahead and plopped in on top of their parents' sleeping bag, until it was impossible to make much sense of all the limbs and the faces as this one tried to kiss that one, and this one rolled over to hug that one… It was a mess, and it got everyone laughing enough that soon enough the whole tent was awake. This liberated Maya and Lucas to rise and see to the baby, as the triplets went around to see their other sisters, and their niece, all the while talking over one another to proclaim that it was their birthday.
They all knew how old they were now, and they showed it by holding up three fingers each, every time they talked to Marianne, or Ella, or Mackenzie, or Tori…
"It gets even better," Ella told the three of them, drawing their curiosity. How so? "Well, there's three of you, and you're all three," she illustrated, holding the same number of fingers on either hand. "Three times three! That's huge!" she told them, with appropriate enthusiasm. The way she said it, that made perfect sense to them, too, and they soon were hopping around, holding up three fingers not just on one hand but both now.
The camping trip carried on, basement or no basement. Could they have gone outside by now? Probably, although even if it had stopped raining, it didn't mean that everything would have dried up. They still wouldn't have gone though, would they? The girls were loving the transformation, and it was one of their favorite things to do now to play pretend. Their imagination had been copiously fed for all their lives, by their parents and by their big sisters. So, when breakfast appeared at the basement door in the shape of some bags from Nando's Diner, they didn't question it. They all sat around the re-lit campfire, and they ate.
When they were done, they wanted to put on their bathing suits and go swimming in the lake. There hadn't actually been a fake lake constructed in the basement, but you wouldn't know that by looking at the triplets. So, Lucas went to 'check in the car,' and climbed up to retrieve everyone's suits. They had to take this all the way, didn't they? When he returned, everyone went ahead and got changed, after which they looked again to the birthday girls, waiting for their cue to follow. But they only stared back at their parents, waiting.
"Uncle Keith said not to go after eating," Lucy recited dutifully when they were asked if they were ready.
"That's true, that's so true," Lucas pulled in his smile, even though it felt fully in his chest. He looked at the time. "A few more minutes and we should be good."
Did they all look very silly, moving around their basement in their bathing suits, pretending to swim and play in the water? Yes, extremely so, but that would have been the business of anyone seeing them from the outside, and that didn't happen. Where the family was concerned, it was too much fun to care. Maya, Lucas, and Ella each took turns at times picking up one of the girls and holding her horizontal in mid air so she might make her legs and arms go like she was actually swimming. When they stopped, they insisted on being wrapped around in their beach towels and sitting around the campfire again, so they could have songs like before. They wanted both their parents to play, so they had two guitars going together.
After the songs, the triplets declared that they had dried up enough, and now they wanted to go hunt for treasures in the woods. These 'woods' turned out to be the playroom itself, which made for some very lucrative discoveries, like blocks, and dolls, and plastic fruit, and art supplies, and books…
"They're not going to want to leave here all day, are they?" Lucas wondered quietly as he and Maya observed the hunt, sitting around the 'campfire.' By his smile, she could guess that he was no more bothered at this prospect than she was. If their daughters wanted to stay in this imaginary place of theirs straight through to bedtime, until it was no longer their birthday, then they were more than happy to oblige.
"What are we going to do about lunch?" Maya pondered. She had Aubrey in her arms, facing out in the same direction as she was looking, so she could see what her big sisters were up to. Ten days shy of three months, the baby looked intrigued. There was no one she looked to more, aside from her parents, than her sisters. They were the brightest parts of her world, as new as it was.
"I could probably go and forage us a thing or two," Lucas suggested. Maya snorted, bent to kiss the baby's golden hair.
"The things you find in the woods, huh, Lucky?" she shook her head, tipping her youngest so she could see her face. Aubrey reached out her hands to catch her face in her small fingers. "Maybe he'll find us some pancakes…" she whispered.
"Might even find some syrup," Lucas' voice sounded at her ear, just before he kissed her cheek and headed up the stairs.
"Oh, please go dressed like that," she called after him before returning to Aubrey. "Then we might get some free potatoes on the side."
The hunt was good, and the bounty was better. In time, their campsite was bolstered with the arrival of visitors, who were welcome to pull up a log by the fire. Aunts, and uncles, grandparents, and great grandparents… They brought dinner and were regaled with tales of the Friars' day in the woods of their basement. As luck would have it, they had their own campsites. Unfortunately, they were too far away, and when evening drew on, they had to go, to return to their own tents, so that it was down to the young Friars again. They had one more swim in the lake of arms, and then it was time to go to lie down in their sleeping bags once again.
"Good night, little butts," Maya whispered as she looked at the three of them, their bags so close together that they looked melted together.
"Happy birthday, cub… kit… bun…" Lucas told them as he leaned to kiss them in turn. Satisfied by this, Kacey, Remy, and Lucy settled down, closed their eyes. Just as they drifted to sleep, there was Kacey turned to face in, Remy on her back, and Lucy facing in as well. Neighbor and neighbor, they had contact, like this was the best way to go together, never leaving one another's side, as they found their way to the land of dreams.
When they would wake again in the morning, they would all be back in their own beds, upstairs, like their day at the campsite had been little more than a very beautiful dream. The triplets would go scrambling down to the basement, only to find that the playroom was just as it normally was, no tent, no trees, no campfire… But they knew it had really happened. They remembered. They'd only just come home again.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
