June 25th 2020

Chapter 177
Their Joy in Dresses & Suits

"You shaved your beard?" Thomas Friar asked his son with a smile as he and his friends walked into the barbershop to find and a few of the others had already arrived. "You shaved before coming here," he restated.

"Had a promise to keep," Lucas shrugged. His father embraced him briefly, pulling back to look at him with just a bit of a tremor in his face, looking at his son and knowing he was about to get married. Lucas couldn't say just what was going through his mind, to look at this grown man he'd seen grow from a crying baby placed in his arms, but in his eyes it felt like a lot, like the whole of his world.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I don't know how to stand? I don't know how to explain it, just like… I'm sitting on the bench, waiting to be called in?" Lucas told him, breathing out. His father laughed. "Was it like that for you, too?"

"The day I married your mother was one of two times in my life I can recall turning into a nervous eater," Thomas revealed. "Not for my not wanting something but wanting it so much I didn't know what else to do with myself. I think you can guess what the other time was."

"Wow…" Lucas tried not to laugh. "How's Mom doing?" he had to wonder now.

"Well, I woke up this morning and she was in the den, looking at your baby pictures, so, you know…"

"Okay…" Lucas now imagined what this would look like for Maya, once his mother made her way to her, because of course she would be there, seeing to the one who would officially be her daughter-in-law before long. It hadn't taken rings and vows to make Maya into a daughter for the Friars, no. She had been treated as such before she and Lucas had been engaged, since before they'd even really dated.

He'd been putting off getting his hair cut the last couple of weeks, figuring it would be better for him to have it freshly done for today. Sitting in the chair, much as he vaguely listened to the conversations around him, he couldn't stop thinking about Maya, wherever she was at the moment. He couldn't tell anymore whether the frenzy he felt was his own or an echo of what she had to be thinking and feeling at the moment. Maybe it was both of them. Either way, he just wanted to be out there already, with her, and he knew there was no way she was relaxed, no way she wasn't climbing the walls at least a little bit.

X

She regretted having asked the question about as soon as the words had left her mouth. It hadn't seemed like such a bad idea to call on opinions as to how she might get her hair styled. Truth be told, she already had a solid idea in her head, had actually spent an hour or two with someone at the theater testing potential options with her until they'd landed on something she was fully satisfied to have joined to the rest of her ensemble for the day. She had pictures on her phone and everything, ready to be shown to the girl at the salon to have reproduced. And then she'd gone and asked 'what do you guys think, up or down?' and the floodgates had opened. Next thing she knew, there were voices talking over each other, and hands… hands reaching to pull her hair this way and that as she sat in front of the mirror, and she almost had to hold to the chair's arms to keep from getting pulled along with it. She would not have patience for this very long, but she didn't want to raise her voice. This was not what she wanted for today.

She was saved in the end by a mouse. Gracie had come and stood in front of her, and so in front of the whole of the opinionated bunch. Maya smirked when she raised her hand, as though she was in class and demanding the right to speak. She gave her arm a bit of a wave, too, for good measure, and finally the voices started to fade back into silence.

"What is it, honey?" Katy asked, tipping her head to Gracie.

"You're pulling her hair," she pointed out. "And you're very loud," she added after a moment. Maya seriously wanted to give her a hundred hugs. "You need to let her talk." Looking into the mirror, Maya saw several faces reacting to the fact that they had just been schooled by a seven-year-old girl, and it was beautiful. They all backed away, some moving off to get their hair done, others their nails… Maya turned back to her sister and motioned her forward until she could wrap her arms around her and kiss her cheek.

"Do you know how much I love you, Mouse-Mouse?" she whispered at her ear, pulling back to find her smiling. Maya brushed her chocolate brown hair behind her ears, looking into that little face she loved very, very much.

She could not believe that the twins were turning eight next month. They had been newborn babes in her arms a moment ago, and she'd stubbed her toe running up from the basement when they'd started crying at night. And now… now they were fully realized humans. Alright, they were still children, and they would remain that way for as long as possible, but they would speak to her sometimes and she would stop like… wow… they were bordering on eloquent sometimes.

They were both readers, and thanks to Lucas' intervention on one visit to the bookstore they had developed a habit of picking two books, each reading one of them and then swapping, which would save Shawn and Katy from having to buy two copies of every book. Nellie continued to have gymnastics class, and Gracie continued with ballet, both having dropped the pretense of carrying on with the other's chosen discipline. They still loved tossing the basketball around with their big sister, and they were getting better at handling it. Gracie had carried on her refusal to eat meat, brought on by the turkey incident of last Thanksgiving, and Shawn had continued to show his solidarity, learning along with his daughter the finer points of being a vegan. As of yet, the rest of the household was still on the fence.

"I love you, too… Superstar…" Gracie whispered back at her, like she'd wanted to match her to a nickname of her own and now she wanted to see what her sister thought of it.

Maya laughed, hugging her again. Maybe she could get through the next few hours.

"Alright," she sighed, looking back to her little sister. "Here, what do you think of this?" She showed Gracie the photos from the theater and her sister considered them with great concentration.

"Hold on," she gave the phone back and ran off to where Nellie was inspecting all the bottles of nail polish. The two girls spoke in hushed tones, and when Nellie gave a nod they both ran off to find their mother. Katy escorted them both out of the salon and Maya could only wonder what this was about. They returned a minute later, as she had shown the photos to Riley, Nadine, and her future mother-in-law. Nellie had a small square box in her hands. It had been wrapped in pink and gold flowered paper, topped with a white bow. The twins approached the chair as one, and they spoke as one.

"For you," they smiled. It was light enough as to seem empty.

"Don't shake it," Nellie warned.

"Okay," Maya laughed. "It's not alive, is it?" she asked. The twins shook their heads. "Good, just checking," she told them as she carefully unwrapped the box, opening it to find it held a pair of paper flowers. The surprise and the awe on her face was in no way exaggerated. "You made these?" she asked her sisters, who nodded in unison.

"We wanted to make crowns, like you did, the other time," Nellie explained, and Maya smiled, recalling them all being in the park, the day of Nadine and Zay's wedding. "But it was hard, and we only got one good one each."

"You could put them in your hair," Gracie stated, revealing her idea. Maya had a feeling she'd cry a few times today, and here was the first one that got her.

"That is a fantastic idea."

X

Arriving at the ranch, Lucas felt very much like he'd stepped into some combination of a romantic comedy and a spy thriller. He was being brought on to the premises with what felt like an exaggerated amount of work put into ensuring that he would not cross paths with Maya or see her in any way before the time came. So as much as he would be drawn to look at the set-up for the ceremony, or see who of their guests had arrived and was hanging around, he would very quickly find his view obscured, as one or another of his co-passengers would take a look ahead of him. After a while he might have started doing it just to make them jump into action.

As it was part of the ranch's purposes to host weddings and other events, they had places for brides and grooms to ready themselves, and this had to be where Maya would end up today. Lucas however was bound for a different location. He was taken directly to his grandmother's former home, now the home of Juliet Stapleton. She had insisted on it, saying that it only felt right that he should be here right now.

Going upstairs to get changed, various groomsmen and family members hanging about, Lucas felt a renewed drum to his heart. One step closer now… The wedding, the ceremony itself, was set to begin ninety minutes from now, which felt both very close and very far away still. His clothes were all laid out, and he went ahead and changed, turning from normal, everyday Lucas into The Groom. This would be what Maya saw when she finally came down the aisle. He had briefly toyed with the idea of wearing a hat, the better to tip it at her, but then half the fun was in not having an actual hat and tipping it anyway. So, no hat. He might have worn his pocket watch, the one she had given him, but then she was the one who had it. She should have it, in this moment.

There was his heart again… She'd be here, somewhere, she'd have to be by now, and that notion did not leave him unaffected.

When someone knocked at the door, some small part of his brain decided it might have been her. But when he said to enter, the door opened to reveal Shawn Hunter.

"Hey, is everything alright?" he asked, his mind jumping immediately to the thought that something had happened to delay the wedding.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's great," Shawn assured him. "I just wanted to come and check in with you, see how you were doing. I'm going to guess 'nervous?'"

"Yeah," Lucas admitted, and just as quickly, "Not because I don't want to get married, the opposite of that."

"Hey, relax, alright?" Shawn smiled. "Am I giving off that much of an overprotective dad vibe that you're still jumpy around me?"

"No?" Lucas replied, and the fact that his voice had raised this into a question left him to wonder if maybe it was actually true.

"Not a bad skill to have, with four girls," Shawn shrugged, "But there's really nothing to worry about for you anymore, okay? Just take a breath already." Lucas took a breath. "Good," Shawn nodded, casually looking him over, checking for anything that might need fixing.

There was something instantly fatherly about the whole thing, and to Lucas it really felt like the first time where the two of them shared something like this. Their relationship had evolved a lot over the years, no doubt to it. Like Shawn had said, there had definitely been this jumpiness to him in the beginning. He and Maya hadn't even been dating yet and, come to think of it, neither were Shawn and Katy, but from very early on there had been this unspoken awareness in the air. Shawn had quickly become like a father to Maya, before becoming her father outright, and Lucas… well, he'd loved her whether he knew to say it or not, so without there being any sort of 'official' status to any of them, Lucas had gone and identified Shawn as 'person who will rip me a new one if I ever hurt her.'

And of course he had hurt her, the one time, even though it had been an accident, even though control had been beyond his grasp due to circumstances none of them would be aware of, not for months. Before that revelation, he had been left to see exactly who Shawn Hunter would become if anyone ever hurt any of his girls, any of his kids for that matter. The Shawn from back then, the one who wouldn't let him anywhere near his house, much less his daughter, would have likely refused to enable any kind of union between the two of them.

But then the truth had come out, and with it he had been welcome in the Hunter Hart house once again. Seven years ago… The twins had been babies at the time, just a few months old. It didn't feel like it could have been that long ago.

Shawn had always treated him like he was part of the family, from that moment on, but today, this moment between the two of them, he very much felt like a son, tended to by his father. Maybe that was why he was here, right now. Maybe he just wanted to show that this was where they stood, the two of them.

"You know, ever since we were here for the rehearsal the other day, Nellie hasn't stopped talking about how she wants to ride horses now," Shawn revealed as he stepped back now, looking Lucas over one more time with a nod that said 'everything looks good.'

"And what do you guys think?" Lucas asked, before expressing any opinions.

"Katy's still not sure if it's a good idea, she thinks she'll be too young."

"She'll be eight soon, Juliet takes kids on from that age," Lucas provided.

"Yeah, I looked it up," Shawn nodded. "As a rule, we give them a few weeks before making any decisions. Sometimes that's all it takes for the idea to make its way back out of their heads again. If she still wants it by the fall though, I guess we'll look into it."

"My grandmother prided herself in having the very best instructors here, and Juliet is the same, so Nellie would be in great hands."

"Guess we'll see," Shawn gave him a nod as he moved to leave the room. Lucas thought he saw a smile on his face as he went, and he had to wonder if maybe there had been more of a motive for this visit, other than passing on this fatherly feeling. Maybe he'd figured that having a talk, brief as it was, would work to calm whatever nerves he might have felt at the moment. Going by the way he felt now… he might have been on to something.

X

"I want to see the horses," Nellie leaned to the open car window as far as she could go, buckled in as she was.

"I don't think they're outside today," Maya pointed out with a smile to her little sister as she leaned back into her seat with a disappointed look. "But I'm sure we can go and see them at some point," she added to bring her out of her momentary funk.

"Can we?"

"Well, maybe not me, once I get changed, but I'm sure somebody else can take you, if you can be a bit patient, yeah? I need my flower girls first," she met Nellie's gaze and the girl smiled now, looking to the back of her big sister's head, where the two paper flowers had been fashioned into pinned accents amid Maya's braided crown. Flowers from my flower girls…

It had been almost two years now that Maya had first started to design her wedding dress. Naturally, it had been taken from sketches to reality over a year ago, back when she and Lucas had been meant to be walking down the aisle the previous summer. And then it had been left to sit in a closet for all these months, which had hardly been ideal, but now here they were, and she was finally about to put it on 'for real,' for its intended purpose.

She had worried over time that it might not have been right anymore, that her tastes would have changed, or that, left with all this extra time, she would be drawn to make changes, fussing over something which had been just perfect. A lot of those worries had been quelled when she'd put it on to show some of her Clutterbucket family a few months back, but now this was the big day, and she tried so hard not to go down the path of slipping the dress on and, so soon before the wedding, finding that she didn't like something in the dress anymore. There was no time, they couldn't change it…

"I still can't believe you made this," Nadine declared as she and Riley had stepped into the room to help her into the dress. "I mean, you drew it…"

"I can't believe it either sometimes," Maya smiled, humbled by the looks of awe on her friends' faces. It wasn't as though they hadn't seen it before. They'd seen it on her, when she'd made her impromptu sort of fashion show before Halloween, but they looked at it now like it was the first time again. Their amazement nudged some of those renewed concerns away.

She had never combined the hair and the dress together. It had been suggested to her, when they'd worked out her hairdo, seeing as the dress was here in the building already, but Maya had refused. She didn't want to go for the 'whole look' until today, the better to reserve the full effect. Now here they were, and as she stepped into the dress she had the brief temptation to shut her eyes as Riley and Nadine helped her get it on, and closed. Instead, she watched as it went from a mass of fabric around her feet to something that fit her like a glove. Her eyes got to sting like she'd soon be glad she hadn't done her makeup yet.

"Wow…" Riley was all smiles as she and Nadine stood on either side of her now, the two of them in their bridesmaids' dresses, It was all coming together…

When they heard a knock at the door, all three of them turned around, the bridesmaids instinctively stepping in front of their bride, which amused Maya, especially as the visitor was revealed to be her brother.

"Can I come in?" Sam asked.

"Give us a minute?" Maya asked her friends. Nadine gestured to her face. "Yeah, there's time, I'm not laying on inches of the stuff. I'll make it quick, I promise." So, they went to let Sam into the room, while Maya carefully lifted up her skirts to slip her feet into the shoes waiting just in front of her.

"Wow…" She turned, finding Sam stood in the open doorway.

"That's a popular word today," Maya smiled. "You're looking pretty wow yourself, Sammy boy." As he shut the door and walked up to her, he looked like a man on a mission, and she soon understood why.

"I wanted to make sure I didn't wait until it was too late," he explained, reaching inside his jacket and producing an envelope he now held out to her.

Before she'd even seen the writing on the front, she knew what it would be, and she took a breath. To Maya, on your wedding day. She'd had a feeling this letter existed, somewhere, among a whole host of others their father must have written, to mark any number of events he would miss in his children's lives, but to receive it now, she felt as though her heart had been made heavy, not in a bad way but just… heavy…

"He wanted me to give it to you before the actual wedding," Sam explained, and Maya nodded as she walked to sit down. "I'll just go back and see…"

"No, no, come here, stay with me," Maya reached out her hand. Sam moved up and joined her on the bench. He looked momentarily just as nervous as she did while she carefully tore the envelope open, minding fresh made nails. Pulling the paper from inside, it was just as it had been a few months ago, when she'd opened the letter written to her in honor of her twenty-fifth birthday, an unmistakable scent somehow captured in the space of the sealed letter, like a piece of the one who'd composed it, like… a memory bomb.

Maya held her brother's hand as she read their father's words, as she felt relieved not to have done her makeup yet. She sometimes wondered what it would have been like, if the two of them had not mended as they'd done before he'd died. How would she have felt today, if he hadn't been here because of reasons other than the fact that he was dead and gone? Would she have been sad? Satisfied? She had a father, she had Shawn, and he would be here today, to walk her down the aisle, but how much would it have weighed on her that the one who'd made her wouldn't be a part of this day?

That scenario had never come to pass, so they would never know, and that was more than alright with her, though of course she would have preferred for him to be alive. Instead she had the actual reality, the one where Kermit Hart had passed away knowing that his firstborn daughter was with him, in every way that she could be, and that the loss of him, painful as it was, would be a part of her as was her right for being his daughter. And he had known he wouldn't be here for this day, so he had put the words to paper, the ones he could, not knowing when she would become engaged, or how her wedding would be delayed as it had been… Four years already…

At the very bottom of the letter, he had added in post scriptum a single request for this day. Had he lived to see this day, he would have expected no less than to have her be walked down the aisle by the man who had been there for her in ways he'd never been, and that was as it should be. But he wanted her to know that it would have meant the world to get to have this moment with her.

She would have done it, if he had been here… In her mind, when she pictured this moment, she couldn't help but imagine herself walking up there with Shawn on one side and Kermit on the other. She knew it could never be, but she saw it, she saw…

"What?" Sam asked, when he saw a small smile rise on his sister's face.

"Hey, Sammy, can you do something for me? For him?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners