November 24th 2020

Chapter 329
Their Possibility to Grow

Getting back into the day to day as they awaited some kind of update from Katy and Shawn wasn't exactly easy, but then there was nothing else for them to do really except to get on with things. And as March progressed, this meant at least one thing that would serve to lift spirits. It was time once again to get their pumpkin patch in order.

After the success of their small harvest the previous fall, the plan had immediately become that when spring rolled around they would plant even more. They wouldn't go and try to grow dozens of them all at once, but at least one dozen might have been an attainable goal for this second year of it. Maya and Lucas had taken a look at the land behind their house, the spot where they'd grown last year's batch, and how far in any one direction they'd be able to take it. They had a better idea of how much space would be needed now that they'd done this before, so in time they had their plan all set.

Last year, when they'd had their 'seeding day,' as they came to call it, Milena Janacek had been back in their kitchen, doing the assignment Maya had given her as part of her punishment for her assistance of August Matthews' actions, coerced as they'd been. Maybe for that reason, Maya's former student had remembered about the pumpkins, and via August she'd reached out to her, asking if she would be doing it again. When she was told that yes, she would, Milena asked if she could help.

Before they knew it, Maya and Lucas – who had the day off from the bookstore – were joined by a veritable crew to tend their field, between Sam, and Milena, and August, and even Tony, who'd been talked into joining his sister and her boyfriend. It didn't matter that they did not exactly need that many people. They were thankful for them and, more to the point, it made them realize something they hadn't considered up to now. They would be gone over the summer, once the tour started, and then Sam wouldn't be here either, would he? But the pumpkins would be, and they'd need tending, preferably by people who knew what they were doing. In no time, they had essentially hired the trio, the better to then show them what they'd need to do.

After they'd done everything they could do that day, the accomplished crew united for a lunch inside the house, which ended up being take-out they had delivered. They ate together, exchanging stories which ranged from the former students catching up on their old school. Milena expressed how much she would have loved being part of Born Curious if she'd still been around, to which her brother tossed back the fact that she could have been, if she hadn't gone and skipped a grade. She laughed, as he did, too, messing with her. The three graduates in turn told their former teacher about college, and how that was all going for them. Maya kept from bringing up Cecilia and Tony's growing friendship, likely as some residual caution, for Sam's sake, even if it wasn't necessary. If anything, Sam could easily have asked it himself, of Tony or Cecilia herself.

When August and the Janaceks had gone away, Lucas had gone off for a few errands, for them and his parents. Having nothing particular to do for the rest of the day, Maya considered heading up to the attic, or maybe into the Hex. Instead, she found herself sitting outside, with Lou not so much sitting as standing on her lap for a while, looking on to their pumpkin patch just waiting to sprout. In time, Lou sat down in Maya's lap, submitting gladly to some scratches before just dozing off there.

"I thought you were upstairs," Sam came walking up from the house. Maya looked back at him.

"Yeah, no, I was going to go there, but… this here's good." It was, truly. Sometimes, she just had to stop and look around, actively noticing how beautiful it all was, right here, just about every which way you could look around their house, their home… It was peaceful, and it kindled so much of that fire in her heart and mind, in so many ways, whether it had to do with anything like creative endeavors or not. Whatever anxieties she might have had inside her mind, if she just sat here, and she let her surroundings slip along her senses… It wouldn't feel so bad anymore. She would hate to think that she came out here just for that reason, and she didn't, not all the time. Today though…

Sam didn't so much ask her what was wrong. Instead, he sat down next to her, pulling up another of the chairs from the storage box next to the back door. He set it there next to his sister's and sat down, looking out the way she did and just… waiting. Maya might have told him he wasn't subtle at all, but he would just have said that he was aware, that he was trying to be as unsubtle as one could. The thing was that, much as Maya wasn't exactly resisting talking to him, she would sit here and think of what she meant to say, what was the thing inside her mind that troubled her, and if she tried to speak any of it, her throat would feel as though it refused to speak the words. Speaking could lead to more feelings, none of them good.

But if anyone here is going to know what this can feel like, it's going to be him, isn't it?

Sam had been out here now, almost four years, while their other siblings remained in Tucson. Teddy, Cara, Eliza, Emma, Wyatt, Maisie… Yes, he went back and saw them whenever he could, but that was mostly over the holidays and the summer. Beyond that, he'd sometimes gone months without seeing them anywhere but on a screen. And it was not easy on him. The two of them had always been very much alike as far as just how much they cared for their brothers and sisters, and when Sam had come to live with her and Lucas, Maya had known what it would be like for him to be here while they were out there, from the time when she'd been in Houston while her Hunter siblings were in Austin, and that only to a point, as they were only two hours apart, but then her Hart siblings, in time her Hart-Lane siblings…

They had never lived near her. Yes, they were in Tucson now, and that bordered on a manageable distance, but compared to them, having been two hours away by car from her Hunter siblings felt like they'd been next door. And before they'd moved to Arizona, her father's children had been all the way in New York, and she'd be lucky if she saw them once, maybe twice a year. That was really what it felt like now, as she considered the prospect of her Hunter siblings moving to California. If that wasn't enough, of course, it wouldn't just be them. It would be her parents, too, her mother who had never been more than two hours away in all twenty-seven years of her life, and her father all the same, in nearly half of that. Maybe it would have felt different if she'd been the one to move far away, just her and Lucas, but that wasn't it. Instead, she was staying, and they were the ones going so, so far away.

The worst thought was how much this notion seemed to reach down and touch a very, very old feeling, one which had long died, one she'd assumed could not even have been in her still. It reminded her of the time after her father had left… after he'd left her behind, and… and it reminded her of learning that he was out there, with a family of his own. Oh, she hadn't thought about her Hart siblings with any kind of 'me versus them' sensation for as long as she had actually known them, and she would never feel that way about her Hunter siblings if they went off to California, but… there was still that old feeling, the one where the separation would feel like isolation.

"Maybe it's taking this long for them to get back to you because they have to work out some way that they won't all go and…" Sam spoke after the silence had stretched on a while. Maya looked at him. He and Gracie really could be so good at picking things up, better than the rest of her siblings on either side. This one might have not been so hard to pick up on, sure, but all the same he had made this opening volley, an appeal none of the others would have felt able to deliver.

"If it's taking this long, what's to say the real problem isn't just that nothing they've tried has worked and they're too stubborn to admit defeat?" she told him, and by the look on his face she could see him having no choice but to accept it as a valid point. Maya looked to the sleeping dog in her lap, gently brushing at her with her fingers. She looked like she was dreaming, nuzzling away at some invisible thing, and it made Maya happy, just as the view around the house did. The little dog had been with them for so long now, and the idea that she might have been coming along in her years was not one they stopped to think about very often, but that would only work for so long. It didn't matter, not here, not today. Lou was here, she was good, just like old Trix.

"Do you know that Eliza and Emma are already asking me if they'll get to come and live here, too, like I did, and Cara is going to?" Sam asked her, and it pulled a smile from her.

"I didn't," she replied.

"I told them it was still a few years away, and by then they could change their minds and want to go somewhere else, and also that it might be more complicated by then, if you and Lucas have a kid or two by then," Sam went on, and Maya's smile held on, imagining it all.

"We'll find the space," she declared, a statement which could very well come back to bite her in a few years, but really in that moment there was absolutely no other way for her to go. She'd let them all come and stay with them if she could. "Having you here, it's been one of the best choices I ever made," she looked back to her brother. "I got to really know you, like I didn't get to before." Sam smiled back.

"Even with all the…" he gestured, looking for the right words.

"Girl troubles?" Maya offered, trying not to laugh at the awkward look on his face.

"Yeah, those."

"I mean…" she sighed, looking to ponder. "I could probably have done without some of that, but… even with all those, yes. And now I get to look forward to knowing Cara like that, and I really do look forward to it, so much."

"You know she snores, right?" Sam joked.

"I'm sorry, are you under the impression that you don't? We can hear you at night," Maya informed him, giving a brief rendition of his nightly tune.

"Wow…" he laughed. "Really?"

"Really. It's not so bad, after a while. Tells us you're breathing back there."

"Good ear training for later then," Sam offered, and his sister laughed some more. She reached out between their chairs until he'd give her his hand and she gave it a squeeze. As much as she looked forward to having Cara here, she would miss him being in the house just as much.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners