November 12th 2022

Chapter 316
Our Shock of Frost

By the time when morning would roll around on the day everyone that either worked at or attended school in the Friar house was due back, the world beyond their windows would look a lot more like what they were used to. There were still remnants of that frosty white period, though they were fading fast and not looking likely to stick around. But those last few days, the first days of January… Oh, they had squeezed every bit of magic left in them that they could get their hands on. And those days had had plenty left in them to give.

Already, the first day of the brand new year had turned into a very unexpected engagement party for Ella and Taylor. Maya and Lucas both suspected that the two of them would have liked to maybe keep the proposal a secret for a little while and then announce it on their own terms, but then the clock had struck midnight, and the Dixons down the lane had lit fireworks, which woke up Tori from where she'd slept in Taylor's lap and, not long after that, the girl had spied the sparkling ring on her mother's finger. She'd made such a fuss over it that, in no time, others around them noticed, too. There'd been no coming back from that.

Everyone had been thrilled for the two of them, but then there were none so happy as those closest to the happy couple. Marianne had gone at a run to see her big sister, and she'd been in awe of the ring, yes, but it might have been a random rock compared to the thought that, in Ella marrying Taylor, Marianne would get… that she and all her little sisters would get something they had never had: they were going to have a brother! This thought in turn had lit up a thought in Tori, and they were sure they knew the moment she understood… He was going to be her father, her second father, for real! The way she looked at him when she figured this out… It had pulled tears from Taylor, none more than when she'd hugged her little arms around his neck. To Ella, at his side, it had been a moment that could not have left her indifferent either. To her, it was the realization of something she had long felt to be impossible, for her not to remain on her own in raising her daughter, for her to find someone she would feel safe in bringing into Tori's life. She might have loved Taylor more now for knowing it.

This was not to discount Theo's place in their daughter's life, his and now Lea's, who was well on track to becoming Tori's second mother if things kept up as they'd done, which they all felt would be so, but then it had always been Ella on one side and, when he'd come back into the picture, Theo on the other. She'd been on her own… She wouldn't be anymore, and that made all the sacrifices worth the pain they'd brought. Theo, Lea… They were both of them happy for Ella and Taylor in equal measures, a mark of how well their relationships had grown over the past few years.

Something else happened that very same day, even as Maya was on the phone with Chiara so that she and the rest of the combined family, Ella and Lea's hosts for the past two and a half years, might try and make their way over to Austin if possible. She didn't tell them why she wanted them to come, said it was an impromptu 'Snowed In New Year's' gathering; it would be much more fun if Ella and Taylor got to tell them in person. Already, they'd played this same card with Dylan, and Kyle, and Phoebe, and Mr. and Mrs. Munroe, and they could not wait to see the looks on their faces when they heard of the engagement.

The home phone had started to ring and being right next to it Maya had excused herself from Chiara to pick it up. Her immediate thought at hearing Siobhan Hughes' voice was to wish her a happy new year, and ask after her house, knowing she'd had some issues at the height of the storm. But then Siobhan wasn't calling to speak to her, not today. She wanted to speak to Miss Marianne Friar. Maya called her down, handed her the phone with a drum at her heart, wondering if this would be good news or bad news. She watched her daughter, gripping on to the phone with both hands like she always did, and in no time, she knew… it was good news.

They would not soon forget Marianne running around the house, first searching for her father so that she might tell him the good news that she would be playing the young Cosette in the Silvan Hughes Theater's production of Les Misérables, and then proceeding to go and tell every other person in the house, as though they hadn't already heard her loudly announce it to her father.

As parental pride went, between one daughter's engagement and the other's casting, Maya and Lucas were both wholly beside themselves on January 1st.

Right from the morning of January 2nd, they would wake up to the sounds of Marianne, over in her room, quietly singing her song to herself and, they suspected, to her little sisters. They listened to her run through the whole thing, which she'd already learned by heart, over the baby monitor, and they both knew with absolute certainty that, when they'd see her singing that song on stage, on premiere night, they would find it very difficult not to turn into absolute wrecks, crying until they couldn't see their baby girl clearly.

In no time after this, they'd been made to understand that Marianne had gone right into practice mode. They lost count of how many times she sang the song throughout that day, and into the next one, too. They understood why she wanted to do it, that it was very important to her… They also understood that it would start to feel repetitive to everyone else. Hopefully, she would get it out of her system soon, or they would bring her to understand that there was a time for practice and a time for just existing, away from the musical. She would have plenty of chances to practice at the theater, once they figured out the schedule for all that, and costume fittings, everything… just not right here and now.

Luckily, a distraction came along to stall Marianne's non-stop rehearsals when, in late afternoon that Friday, the doorbell rang and brought about the introduction of Charlie Olsen, Randall Clutterbucket, and their respective families, right out of Arkansas. They may have been two days late for a countdown to midnight, but unexpected as the visit was, it made up for that and the break of tradition brought on by mother nature. It wasn't the same as when they went out to visit the family, with the town square in all its splendor, but then they had plenty to show for themselves, didn't they? The house was still in its fairy-brightened splendor, and they had the skating rink nearby… They spent a few hours there, amused by those surprisingly skilled skaters and those who were either learning or putting on skates for the first time in far too many years.

They had two great nights with the family in town before they had to start on their way back home, and that was already better than they could have imagined after their change of plans. That night after they were gone, after all their guests had gone, was the first time in over a week that it was just the eight Friars and two Hart-Lanes, like usual, and though that was hardly what would constitute a quiet evening, where they were concerned, it kind of was. Bath time, and PJs, and combed hair, and just a bit more play time until it was finally story time, kisses, and good nights, working their way up from the baby to Mackenzie, to the triplets, and last of all their eldest at home…

Marianne hadn't come down from that happy bubble of hers over the past few days, and no one was going to pull her down from it, although she definitely had her concerns, which she expressed to her father when he came to tuck her in.

"I don't know if I can tell people at school," she confessed, playing with the end of her braid.

"About the musical?" Lucas asked, and she nodded. "Why not? Because they might make fun of you?" he guessed, and her concerned little face said it all. "They can't make you feel bad if you know there's nothing to feel bad about. You wanted this, right? You want to be in the musical?" he asked, and her nod was solid. He smiled. "Then you've got nothing to worry about so long as you remember that. Okay?"

"Okay," she replied, concern erased.

"If anyone wants to get a rise out of you, just remember: You know the truth. Just… maybe don't go around out there… practicing," he suggested, and she laughed.

When Lucas told Maya about his conversation with Marianne, she breathed out. She'd been worrying over it, too, much as she tried not to. The thought of any one kid out there trying to steal their baby girl's joy… She could already see Adam Gray continuing in his reign as early contender for the class bully award and trying to take Marianne down a peg or two just because she'd gotten this part. Oh, she wished nothing more than for that boy to break from that attitude, but she had no control over that and, as of yet, nothing was changing.

"She'll be alright," Lucas declared, and Maya looked at him, her eyebrow clear there on her face even if he wasn't looking at her at first. "She's got her friends, and she's got us." Maya let out a breath. She could only hope that he was right.

Now here they were, back to school day, back to work… The mornings always started early, but that had never been a problem, not to them. Maya had been born an early riser, and Lucas would say he had become one by association over the years. They would get everything done that they could get done before the girls started to get up, and then it would be on to seeing to their morning routine. Breakfast, and teeth brushed, clothes, and hair done, bathroom stop before they went, because there was always at least someone who needed to go mid-ride if they didn't…

"Marianne, it's your turn for hair!" Maya called out as she helped Remy down from the little stool and watched her go off, shaking her head to set her pigtails whipping around just as she liked them to.

"I don't want to tie it up," Marianne let her know as she came out of her room across from the bathroom. Maya smirked, seeing that she'd put on her gift from Randall's daughter, Regan, who'd taken a detour along with her father before she and her cousin, Kyleigh Hinton, and their families had continued on back home to Louisiana. How exactly she'd gotten her hands on a child's size Les Mis shirt, with everything else on their tortuous way from Arkansas to Texas, they had no idea, but then they had told the family about Marianne's news when they'd talked on New Year's Day, and when they'd shown up the next night, there was the shirt, and Marianne had loved it so much that she'd worn it all weekend. And now she was wearing it as she'd soon head to school.

"Just brushed then, you got it," Maya smiled. Her daughter had decided to face the unknown head on today, and she was eternally proud of her. She waved to the stool with her brush. "Come on, get up here, Rapunzel."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners