January 30th 2020

Chapter 30
Their Support of the Past

"Who taught you how to flip pancakes like that?" Lucas asked.

"YouTube," Sam smiled, sliding the just finished one on to the growing stack before adding more batter and starting over. "Cara wanted us to make breakfast for Mom and Dad one year on their anniversary, so I looked it up."

"How old were you?"

"Uh, I was like seven, she was five," he recalled.

"How many of those actually made it on the plate?" Lucas asked, laughing.

"Four out of five. After that, Mom found us out and made me promise not to use the stove without her or Dad around. They were good though, so after that she started to show me how to do more things." In a beat of silence it was impossible not to feel the memories radiating off of him, and also how much he missed his parents, his younger siblings… He'd be seeing them soon though, and that helped. "I think I heard something," he looked up. "Maybe she's up?" Lucas listened for a moment.

"Yeah, she's coming. Keep going," he tapped Sam's shoulder, moving to fill a cup with coffee just as Maya came into the kitchen and paused at the sight of them both there.

"I woke up and there was no one," she declared almost accusingly.

"A sacrifice that needed to be made if I was going to be down here for this," he smiled, bringing her the cup, which she gladly took. "I haven't figured out how to be in two places at the same time yet." Going off the look on her face, she had a very specific idea on the benefits of his figuring that one out, but then decided to hold on to it for herself while her brother was in the room.

"Well, I appreciate it," she simply smiled, stretching up to kiss him hello before moving to give a one-armed hug to her brother, standing behind him. "Appreciate you, too."

After breakfast, much as he would have liked to be there to see her off to her first field day, he had to get ready and head in to the bookstore. When he arrived, Maeve was already there, as she usually was, though they were still missing the rest of their Monday crew, Tanner and Julia. They were both in college, him in his second year and aiming for pre-med, her in her third year – with a four-year gap between high school and college – as a history major. He would be described as 'a man of few words,' while they might say of her that 'you have to get to know her.' Tanner would be the one to say this of Julia; she was married to his brother. He lived with them and their three-year-old daughter, so they would always arrive together, which they did now, ten minutes after Lucas arrived. The store soon opened, and they were off.

Mondays were generally more quiet than the weekends, though they were by no means dead either. Some weeks it could get to feel like the Mondays were busier than the weekends. This one was sort of somewhere in the middle, and morning had been passing along at a steady pace.

He was just finishing up restocking a shelf when he happened to turn his head and spot a man browsing from a nearby display table. He blinked, taken out of his previous task by the sight of this face he hadn't seen in… oh, eight years, easily. He moved his cart out of the way and almost thought he'd lost track of him, but then there he was…

"Coach Wiley!" he called after him, and the man paused and turned in search of the voice… He spotted Lucas and at once broke into a smile, taking the few steps to bring them together, where he extended his hand and Lucas shook it.

"Mr. Friar…"

"Please, I think it's been long enough that you can call me Lucas," he nodded.

"Fair enough," the man laughed. "In that case, you might as well call me Mark."

"I might have to work my way into that one," Lucas admitted.

"I thought you might. I had no idea you were working here."

"Yes, well, I'm here three days out of the week, university the rest of the week," he explained. His former coach pointed at him like he was attempting to pull something from his memories.

"You wanted to become a veterinarian, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir. Still do, working on it," Lucas confirmed, and as he did, all he could think was how much this man had played a hand in getting him here, whether he knew it or not.

Mark Wiley had been his basketball coach and gym teacher in middle school. Much as he had been doing fairly well in his other classes, he was always most at ease when Coach Wiley was around. They had gotten along very easily from the start. The man had only known him less than a year when the events had come to pass that resulted in Lucas' getting suspended and needing to repeat the seventh grade, but it had been on his word more than anyone else's that he had been allowed to return the following fall, the year Maya had transferred in from New York and their group of friends had grown into what it had become. He had never really thanked him, though he'd wanted to…

He told his former coach about how he'd been in Houston the last four years before returning to Austin over the summer, moving in with his fiancée. Here again, the coach smiled knowingly.

"Miss Hart?" he guessed, and Lucas smiled back.

"Yes, sir. We weren't dating yet in middle school…"

"No, but I remember the two of you. If I ever had to put money on something like that, there's no question. I'm very happy for you both. You tell her hello from me, won't you?"

"I will," Lucas promised, then, "I'm actually about to go on my lunch break. If you're not busy, I'd love to catch up. It's on me."

"Oh, now, I've never been known to turn down a kindness, but you don't have to…"

"No, please, I insist."

The coach continued browsing a while before making his way downstairs to pay. When Lucas clocked out for lunch and headed down, he found the man waiting for him, reading one of the books he'd bought that day. They made their way to a nearby restaurant, and after getting a table and putting their orders in, they soon ended up talking about Lucas' high school basketball days, in particular those two years where the teams had been disbanded.

"I still can't believe they let it drag on like that for so long," the coach shook his head.

"Neither could we," Lucas agreed. "We fought for it as much as we could, but it was never enough. There's some of us who never got the chance to get back out there while we were still in school. My year, we at least got to have one more season."

"You know, they approached me about taking over the position for the boys' team," the coach revealed.

"I didn't, no."

"I wanted to, might have made that you kids got to get on the court again sooner, but I had a lot to deal with at home at the time, and I was barely managing with the middle school as it was." This rang a bell in Lucas' mind, and he remembered his mother mentioning how she'd heard that Lucy Wiley had fallen ill, following the birth of their third child. He must have worn his question on his face, as his coach provided the answer unrequested. "Everyone is doing well now," he nodded, smiling as he took out his phone and showed a picture, showing Mark and Lucy Wiley, with a boy in a high school cap and gown between them, a girl just a couple years younger next to her mother, and a girl who would have to be six or seven now, in front of the coach who had his arm around her.

"Wow, I still remember them when they were little," Lucas blinked. The Wileys had been fixtures in the stands whenever they'd have a game. He'd known Brian and Alyssa back then, and up until this moment he could only picture them as they'd been at the time, not like this, so grown and looking like their father more than ever. "And…" he pointed to the younger girl, a decade younger than her sister. He'd never met her.

"That's Janey," the coach smiled. "She's 'seven going on thirty,' you might say." Lucas laughed. "I'm looking forward to watching her grow even more, maybe take over the world," the coach went on, pausing on the picture for a beat before returning it to his pocket. Something about the way he said this made Lucas think there might have been more to it.

"Coach?" he asked, and he had inadvertently hit the nail on the head with this one word.

"Not for much longer." At Lucas' surprised look, he went on. "I'll be retiring at the end of this year."

"Retiring? But you're not… I mean, all due respect, you're just…"

"Not that old?" he chuckled. "It's not a bad word, Lucas, you can say it."

"Sorry, I…"

"No, I get why it would feel like it came out of nowhere. I've gotten that expression on more than one face whenever I've told people. It's time though. I care enough about that school and those kids to know they could benefit from someone younger, in better shape than me and my bad knees. Now my hip's starting to act up from a fall I took a few years ago… No, I'm not going to drag this out until I really can't keep up anymore. I'm going to pull back, let someone else take my place, and I'm going to watch my daughter grow up. Missed a lot of her siblings, and now Brian's off in California on a scholarship, and Aly's just waiting until they put that diploma in her hand so she can go, too…"

Lucas couldn't get their conversation out of his head, even after they'd finished eating and parted ways. They'd hugged, and he'd watched Coach Wiley walk off before starting on his way back to the bookstore and up to his floor. The whole time it was as though his brain was locked on the Middle School Channel, and they were rerunning the episodes of his time on the basketball team, with Mark Wiley standing on the sidelines, calling after his players, and the team practicing with him… He hadn't seen or spoken to the man in years, hadn't been one of his students for just as long, so why would it affect him this way?

Well, for the same reason he had gone up to talk to him earlier, wouldn't it? I still forgot to say thanks…

"What's gotten into you?" Maeve asked when she saw him walk by. Lucas stopped and turned back to look at her.

"I don't know if you went to the same middle school… Did you have Coach Wiley?" By the way her face lit up at once, he had to guess that was a yes. "I just saw him earlier, we had lunch together," he revealed.

"Oh, how's he doing? Man, his kids have to be grown up now…"

"He's retiring, actually," Lucas told her, and there was the surprised face again.

"Wow…" she spoke, like she was wondering if it been that long. He had to leave her a moment later, as he was called on for help by a customer, but for the rest of the day and until he headed home, he kept thinking about the man who would always remain, no matter what, his old coach.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners