May 15th 2020

Chapter 136
Their Invitation to Recall

By the time she arrived back home at the end of the day, Maya felt weighed down, as though the day had started a bit sideways and had decided to follow that curve the rest of the way. Driving back from the theater, all she wanted anymore was to be home, with her fiancé, her brother, and the dogs. Walking in, she had expected to find Sam there, Cecilia with him, as Lucas saw to dinner as he would on Wednesdays this semester. Instead, the house was mostly quiet.

"Hello?" Maya called out, plopping herself down on the couch as she did. A moment later, she could hear barking and skittering, the promise of Trix and Lou dashing her way from upstairs, even as a little creature appeared from under the couch. "You're so sneaky now, when did that happen, huh?" Maya leaned forward and snatched up Archer, held him snug in her arms where he appeared content to remain.

"You have the look of someone who's had a long day," Lucas appeared from out of the kitchen.

"Day was long before it even started," she sighed as he came and sat with her.

"What's up?" In response, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the envelope. Passing it over, she could watch his curiosity turn to slow discovery. He saw the labels on the front, the names, the locations. He knew enough of her mother's story to start piecing things together. He took out the card, stared at the photo for a few beats before opening it to see what was inside. "Wow…"

"Yeah," Maya sighed, scratching at Archer's ears, his buoyant sort of puppy joy feeling like an essential component to her ease. She went on to tell Lucas about the incident with the vase, and the conversation she'd had with her mother. "She said she'd think it over, I don't know… if she's going to talk to Dad about it, tonight, or another day, I just… I don't know…"

"It's in less than two weeks," Lucas remarked.

"I noticed," Maya nodded. It was sort of last minute, sure, but that didn't have to be a bad thing, did it? There could be reasons, she just… didn't know what they would be, because she had zero context to work from. She didn't know these people.

"Do you think she's going to go?"

"I have no idea…" she sighed, trying not to air her frustrations out on him, even if she knew he would absolutely get that this was not directed at him so much as it was happening in his vicinity. "You know, it's like… she's put it all behind her, but all it takes is one thing to come along, and she's right back there. It's like when my grandmother and Luna showed up in Austin and she wouldn't see them."

"I remember," he nodded. Maya groaned, focusing on the dog a bit more.

"I get so worked up about it, too, so I get where she's coming from, like no matter what we do, it always goes back to that, all the messy parts of us, our families…" Lucas shuffled closer to her on the couch, a move she happily met by leaning her head to the offered shoulder, Archer still in her arms. Lucas kissed the side of her head and she just breathed, calmed by his presence.

"You want to go, don't you?" he stated what she'd clearly been failing to say with her words but succeeding in every other way.

"I can't help it. There's an opening, a little one, and I can't just walk away, I have to look inside, see what's there. Am I just asking for it?"

"I don't see how I would be able to leave it alone either," Lucas shook his head. "Are you worried about what she'll think if you decide to go and she won't?"

"I'm not going to go," Maya turned her eyes up to him. "Not if she won't. I couldn't… It'd be too… I don't know…"

As certain as she was of this choice, it was impossible for her not to let her mind wander down that road where she'd know… mostly she was just scared of how it would go, if she just went and they… didn't want her. In all these years, knowing what little she could know, there had been no other way than for her to create these people like characters in a story. In this story, her mother was the main character and everything was from her perspective, including these other characters, their personalities, everything that made them who they were. If fifteen-year-old Katy had seen them in one way, that was all she had to go on.

She didn't paint them as villains, maybe antagonists, obstacles on the road, but not bad people. A lot of them were just set in their ways, some of them had very clear ideas of what her life was and what it should become, and that vision had not meshed, and so the adversaries were cultivated. In one corner, Katy the dreamer, and in the other, Mom and Dad, with work and family as the revolving doors of means and end… She wanted something, they saw it as frivolous, unnecessary. She found ways to earn money, to pay her own way, to get better clothes, and makeup, and movie tickets, and maybe even acting classes… But every time she would be made to surrender it all, because they would not have their daughter 'chasing after trouble,' and Katy knew exactly what they were talking about.

Finally, she'd had enough of it, after she'd managed to scrounge up enough to buy a tiny, crappy little television set, because she was tired of being the girl without a television, not because they couldn't afford it but because her parents 'didn't believe in it.' She'd bought it, and she'd brought it home, and for one glorious afternoon, she lay huddled on her bedroom floor, looking at that screen no bigger than her own face. Then her father came home, and distracted as she was, Katy hadn't been able to hear him and hide it. He had taken the set, very nearly ripped the outlet from the wall, and he'd tossed it in the trash bin. The crack of the screen, that was what had decided it. She'd had enough of this, she needed to be with people who would understand her, and they sure as hell weren't here.

So the next bit of cash she'd managed to hide – all the while sacrificing other small amounts, the better to throw her parents off the scent – was put toward bus fare, to get her from Arkansas to New York. She had a plan, she was going to crash with her cousin. Betsy was eighteen at the time, and she'd made her own mad dash a year ago, for reasons Katy hadn't discovered until her cousin had managed to send her a letter, explaining it all. Her parents had found her in bed with a girl from school, and it had been… a very bad day all around.

Surely, if anyone was going to understand, it would be Betsy. So she got her money together, she made a plan. She played by the rules, just enough that they wouldn't get so suspicious, but also wouldn't be so on her case. The closer she got to her goal, the more she would count the days until she was gone. It was as though the moment she'd made the choice, the world around her missed no chance to show her she'd made the right one. This was not her place, this was not going to be her life. Finally… she had enough, enough for the fare, and food along the way, and some extra for new clothes, new everything, once she got to New York. There was no looking back. She left a note on the kitchen table, grabbed her bag, and she was gone. She traveled across the country, into the city she'd dreamed of, and she was going to stay. She was going to show them they had been wrong about her.

"If it wasn't for me, she might have gone back…" Maya frowned. "She could have made it back then, or… I'm not saying she shouldn't have had me, or the little ones now, it's just like… She didn't get to make things better with them. Maybe that's how it had to be, maybe they're exactly the people she made them out to be, I… I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore," she sighed, resettling in Lucas' arms. At her feet, she could see Trix and Lou sitting there, looking at her, like they very much wanted to get up there with the two of them and Archer.

"What did she want to achieve when she left home?" Lucas asked. "She wanted her life to matter, to be hers to create, yeah? That's what she did, isn't it?"

"The long way around," Maya smiled to herself.

She used to think so little of her mother, didn't she? She'd be sort of embarrassed by her, the way she'd behave, not realizing she was doing the best she could and then some, for her. Now, to look back on both of their lives, together and apart… Her mother was her heroine, her model for resilience. And even though she'd put some dreams aside, in favor of hard work and sacrifice, for Maya, for her siblings, she'd never lost it. She was making it happen, truly and finally. Her long delayed start was only a beginning.

"They need to see her, they need to see," Maya looked to Lucas. "Not to prove anything, but… to show them the person she's become, everything she's made of herself, including the little Hunters, and me, and her acting… They need to see it all." She paused, as he slowly nodded. "But I can't make that choice for her. And if she won't go, then I can't go either. That's just how it has to be."

"Okay," Lucas tipped his head. Maya looked back to the card.

"I have no idea who even sent it, if it was them, or Betsy, anyone. There's no note, no explanation, and…" her finger dragged along the name on the front. Katy Clutterbucket…

What was it supposed to mean? Surely, if they'd tracked down her address, they had to know this wasn't her name anymore. The whole thing was so impersonal, and maybe there was a reason for it, a good one, or maybe… maybe this was cursory more than anything, a call for her to present herself for this occasion, like it wouldn't throw everything in shambles for the long disappeared daughter of the happy couple to present herself after all this years. It could all just be adding insult to injury, but for Katy or her parents, who knew?

"Where's Sam?" Maya finally asked, noticed the absence.

"Dinner at Cecilia's," Lucas nodded.

"Don't tell him about this, okay?" Maya showed the envelope and the card. "For now, until my mom makes up her mind, it'll just be easier that way."

"Sure," Lucas agreed. "She's going to have to decide sooner or later…"

"Yeah…" Maya frowned, putting the card back in the envelope. "I should still check my schedule for that weekend, in case I need to go, and…" she turned to Lucas, who gave her a nod. He would do the same on his end.

"I can see if my parents might take Sam in for that weekend," he told her, guessing this would not be something she'd want to bring him into.

"Somehow, I don't see your mother turning down this chance to play hostess…" She didn't need to suggest how Melinda was really getting to feel that empty nest, enough to be cranking closer and closer to wishful grandma mode.

"Oh, she's definitely going to say yes, but that doesn't mean she won't reprimand me for not 'doing the courtesy' of asking her."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners