May 23rd 2020

Chapter 144
Their Time in Expansion

Maya pulled the photo from under her phone. Leaning back into her chair, she looked to all those faces, everyone gathered for the shot… The photo had been taken relatively early in the night, the better to ensure that the kids in the family would not have to be awakened in order to be featured. It was very important for the couple of the day that they had at least one image with everyone, on this day made that much more golden by the return of Katy into the fold, and the introduction of her children.

In the back, like wizened pillars, stood Tanner and his two brothers, tall as he was. The three of them had all been born a year apart from one another. Maya's grandfather was in the middle of this trio, with brother Walter a year older, and brother Carter a year younger. And then, after spending fifteen years as the Clutterbucket brothers, they had been joined by a sister, Georgia. She wasn't so tall as they were, but she was absolutely taller than average for a woman. They stood in a row in that photo, the four siblings, linked with their spouses. So here was Tanner, and his older brother and his wife, and his younger brother and his wife, and his sister and her husband.

By Charlie's own knowledge, she had told Maya that if she ever wondered what her mother's father looked like without facial hair, she only had to look to Walter, the eldest. Maya's grandfather had not had the whole beard off, to Charlie's recollection, for somewhere about eighteen years. By now, the thing seemed to invade the majority of his face, but somehow he made it work.

"Mom will tease him and say he's had it so long now he can't not have it, because his face will be two different colors," Charlie had indicated the hairless areas of the man's face, which had made Maya laugh, all the while stealing a look to Lucas to find him absently touching at his own face.

"So, where do I stand with all of them?" Maya had asked, when the new group had arrived.

"Okay," Charlie considered this for a moment, hand absently running over her belly. "So you've got Uncle Walter and Aunt Kris, and they ran the family business for years, now they're retired and Randall took over. He's not here yet. Walter and Dad, they got along but they also didn't, like Dad was all about the farm, and manual labor, and Walter was all about the business, suits and an office and all that. Aunt Georgia told me how they used to have these really bad fights, smack each other around and everything. They didn't say a word to one another for like seven years."

"Woah…" Maya breathed, a sentiment echoed by Lucas and Sam as well. "When was that?"

"The seven years before Katy ran," Charlie looked back at her. "When she left, Walter showed up immediately, helped with the search, all the way. The two of them were driving around, and then Carter went with Georgia's husband… They've stuck together ever since. They'll still have arguments sometimes, and they might freeze each other out for a few days, but it'll usually unfreeze in time for Sunday dinner."

To see how Walter and his wife, Kris, had reacted to Katy's return, Maya could see Charlie's tale so clearly. Walter did not have the physical fortitude of the years of work Tanner had put in, but he was still very solid at seventy-six. Maya could not hear what they all said to each other, but it gave her the impression of someone kindly asking after their niece's life, like nothing mattered so much as whether or not it was a good one. The past was in the past.

"And little brother?"

"Pastor," Charlie nodded, as they looked to the third Clutterbucket brother embrace his niece.

"Oh, yeah…" Maya blinked, a vague memory tugged from the back of her mind. "Mom mentioned him a few times, I just didn't realize that was her uncle…"

"Did she tell you how they got into an argument over Harry Potter?" Charlie tried to bite back the urge to laugh.

"Yeah, she did," Maya nodded at once. That was one of the stories she'd told about 'the Pastor,' without bringing up the fact that they were family. Somehow, that first book had landed in Katy's school library, the year before she ran, and she had been the one and only student who'd gotten to take it out and read it. Carter had been at the house with his wife, Martha, and their girls, and when Katy was asked about school, she'd instead gone on and on about this book she was reading. "He didn't agree with all the magic…" she recalled.

"He still doesn't," Charlie had told her. "But then, you know, even though there's that whole side of him, he's also a really good guy. I don't know, maybe old age and grandchildren mellowed him out a bit. Just don't get him started on any kind of media these days."

"So I shouldn't tell him about the band is what you're saying," Maya smirked.

"Definitely save that for a third or fourth meeting kind of thing," Charlie agreed. "Oh, also, do you already have your officiant for the wedding?" Maya and Lucas both nodded. "Oh, good, just make sure to maybe slip it into the conversation somewhere, before he gets it in his head that he'll be doing it."

"How do you slip that into a conversation?" Sam had asked, baffled, and Lucas had given him a look, while Maya and Charlie laughed quietly.

"Right, so, two uncles down, that leaves her," Maya indicated Aunt Georgia. Standing amongst her brothers, she looked like she could have been any one of their daughters. "That makes three generations of big age gaps between kids," she stated, considering her mother and her aunt, and herself and her Hunter siblings…

"Good to know," Lucas joked, looking to Maya, who was already having a similar thought.

"She was living in Australia, wasn't she?" Maya asked Charlie, piecing more old stories together with context.

"She was, yeah, that's where she met Uncle Toph. The first of the family to split out of here, and don't think that was forgotten after Katy left. Even after I was born, we'd hear about it. She left when she was in her early twenties, travelled the world for a few years before landing in Australia, and then she met Christopher, fell in love, settled down, had Kyle. That's when they finally moved back, though they'd go back a lot. I got to go with them one summer, came back with a suitcase full of new music I wanted to share with my friend, and next thing you know…" Charlie pointed to the ring on her finger, to the small girl who'd been quietly holding to her leg for several minutes, and to her belly. "Kyle stopped going with them when he grew up and met Liz, so now Georgie and Toph are back living in Australia, visiting a few times a year. You should see the house out there, it's just…" she mimed what they took to mean huge.

From everything Charlie had told her, Maya had a solid idea of how she would fare with her grandfather's siblings. The brothers would require relatively opposite tactics, where she might bring up her work with the theater, and the Stage Ready program she'd put together and helped spread across the state and beyond, or even her contract with the record company which had her songs out in the world, while she would say none of this to the other brother, where she might need to feel out how to proceed and then figure out what to say to him until she had a better idea of how he'd respond to her. And then the sister… Oh, she wasn't even worried about her, and she was absolutely correct in the end, much as she had been with the brothers.

"Goodness, look at you," Georgia had been one of the most excited people there that day when it came to meeting Maya and her siblings, and it showed right from this moment, when she'd come up and embraced Maya as one might an old friend. "You must have some of your father in there, too, but aren't you just the picture of my mama when she was young."

"Am I?" Maya could only blink at this.

"Oh, yes, come here, let's see…" she'd taken Maya's hand and led her off. Maya had let herself be led, even as she'd whipped her head back to ensure Lucas and Sam were tagging along. They very rarely split up throughout the night, the better to minimize opportunities to be cornered by any one relative. "This is her and Dad, day they got married," Georgia stopped at a picture on one of the walls. The bride and groom posed in front of what looked like this very house, decades prior. The man who would be Maya's great grandfather had clearly passed on his height to his sons and daughter, and some of those looks that reminded her so of MJ. And then the bride… yeah, she could really see what Georgia meant.

"Woah…" Maya reacted, once again finding Lucas and Sam there to echo her sentiment, although in a much more amused spirit than the last time.

"Wait until she gets a look at you," Georgia was all smiles.

"She's still alive?" Maya turned to her.

"Ninety-nine years old," a man's voice had answered this, and they had all turned to find Walter Clutterbucket standing there, looking to the picture of his parents, and to his niece's daughter. He must have seen it, too. "She'll be here soon. She lives over in a residence down in Dallas," he revealed, which made Maya turn to Lucas. She had been living in the same state as her great grandmother all these years and she hadn't even known it. When she mentioned how they lived in Austin, Walter nodded. "Your mother mentioned as much. I used to travel down that way, back in the day. Shame we never ran into one another."

"It's never too late, is it?" Maya pointed out, and it got a smile out of the man, who appeared to be the most at ease at showing genuine emotion out of the three brothers. Where Tanner was mostly reserved though, Pastor Carter came off mostly like someone who had perfected the pacifying smile, though not so much as to keep it from feeling put upon. As suggested by Charlie, Maya and Lucas had found a way, in what felt like swift tag team effort, to reveal to him the fact that they were getting married and include the fact that there already was someone very close to the family who would stand up there and perform the ceremony.

"And they're all coming?" Sophie asked, trying perhaps but ultimately failing to rein in her laughter.

"They are, yeah," Maya confirmed, setting the picture back in its place before taking her phone and the envelopes to go and sit on the beanbag, where she had another project in the works. Along with the invitations she had also asked around the family for photos that she might get, to keep and put together for herself and her siblings as they grew up. The family had come through, and she was in the process of compiling albums. Copies had been made, so each one of them might have their own, including their mother. Katy had loaned her the albums from her own box, so the contents could be included. Over time, being out here, having this family of hers just grow and grow, and maybe also having a father who had taught her to appreciate photography, she had really taken such a liking to preserving these memories in such a way, preserving and expanding as well.

"Is that everyone?" Sophie inquired, still taking notes.

"Getting there," Maya told her, looking to the small stack. "No more question marks from here on out."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners