December 24th 2020

Chapter 359
Their Moment of Joy

Days before the tour…

Very shortly, Maya would be saying goodbye to her students, some perhaps forever as they were about to graduate, others for a year dotted with the occasional return, but even so... The school year was on its last leg, even as both Maya and Lucas found themselves in something like limbo, as they were also gearing up for the kicking off of the tour with Ree. Among them and the team, the just over two months they would spend on the road, with forty shows on the schedule, had been nicknamed the 'For Start Tour,' or Forstart, for Forster and Hart. So much had to be done before they could even leave, but now that they had no more school and one of them wasn't working either, Lucas and Sam had been making the most of their time, the better to let Maya do her thing, from giving her classes, to putting in long-distance rehearsals with Ree down in the Hex, to taking all the care of herself as was needed as the baby went on growing day by day.

Within days, a few more pieces would be falling into place, between Cara's arrival in Austin with the Hart-Lanes and the graduations. She'd be staying, of course, while the others would be here to attend Sam's ceremony before then heading home with one less child under their roof. But for now...

"I am going to burst out here," Maya whispered as quietly as she could, even as the need made her frantic. They'd been sitting in the waiting room for so long, and already the quantity of water she'd consumed was demanding an evacuation she couldn't allow. Now she sat up there, waiting for the doctor to return and get started, and she thought for sure she'd just spring a leak at any second.

"Think of... the desert?" Lucas suggested after a moment. She stared at him. "I don't know, usually it's the other way around..." he shrugged, wishing he could do more but knowing as well as she did that this had been asked of her for a reason. So, she'd have to endure.

Thankfully, the doctor came along, and they were able to begin. Almost at once, the question had been asked. Had they decided whether or not they wished to learn what they were having? They had definitely decided, and they shared a smile as they told the woman that yes, they would very much like to know. They had done their part, and now it was up to the baby to adopt whatever position necessary for the doctor to take a look and see what she needed to see.

It was not the first time they had seen their baby on a screen like that, not the first time they got to hear that strong heartbeat, but every time still felt like its own thing. Every time it had grown, become more and more of a human being as they could recognize. Little fingers, little toes... a face...

Later, both Maya and Lucas would confess to having looked to the doctor more than once as she did her examination, like they would be able to discern the moment when she'd have the verdict, so maybe they could spot what she'd seen. For a few moments, they hadn't even been sure she would find out and she would just say the baby hadn't been turned the right way or...

"There we go..." the doctor spoke with a quiet smile, and Maya squeezed Lucas' hand. He hadn't let go the whole time, and neither had she. The anticipation was too much. The doctor looked back at them, checking one last time, just in case either one of them had changed their mind. They promised they still wanted to know. "Well then, congratulations, Friars, you've got yourselves a baby girl."

It was another reflection for the future, to think how they had been so eager to know one way or the other, when they could honestly say that they would have been overjoyed regardless of what they had been told. It did not make them love their child any differently, but now they knew, and even though it... even though she remained where they couldn't see or touch her, they knew... something more, something that brought them just closer enough that... oh, it made their hearts fly.

In that very moment, when the doctor had told them, this flight came with laughter, and tears, as they looked back to one another. They were having a daughter... As Lucas pressed his lips to the top of her head, Maya felt a stillness, peace... and knowledge. She knew what her name would be.

"You should see your face right now," Maya laughed as they walked out of the clinic after the appointment. He looked back at her and found the statement had been much more literal than he'd believed. She'd snuck a photo with her phone without him knowing and... yeah... He looked like a guy who might have a smile permanently attached to his face. "Are you going to be able to drive?" Maya teased him.

"Absolutely," he promised.

"Good. Can we stop somewhere on the way?"

They soon returned home to find Sam and Dora in the midst of preparing dinner together. Lucas' cousin had been over the moon when she'd found out about the baby, looking forward to watching her little... well, she hadn't been sure exactly what to call it. Technically, she and Lucas would have been second cousins, but they'd always just said cousins, so what did it really matter?

"Where's she going?" Sam asked, as they could see Maya heading up the stairs with a bag.

"Art project. I'm not supposed to know yet," Lucas reported, sounding like a bodyguard.

"Oh! Did you find out what the baby is?" Dora asked.

"Not supposed to say that either, " Lucas told them, though his smile gave some of it away.

Dinner was almost ready when Maya returned, several minutes later, brandishing a thin sort of plaque, two feet across and one foot tall. They couldn't see the front yet, and Maya warned them that it wasn't dry, so they had to be careful with it.

"Okay but what is it?" Sam asked.

"Something to bring on the tour with us, and not just on Saturday mornings," Maya explained. Picture Day...

There was humble shyness in her eyes when she turned the sign around, but then Lucas read it, and he was crying again, and... yes... Their daughter had her name.

X

"Wow!" Cara had nearly come bolting out of the car and to her big sister as they'd arrived, and now looking down at her belly, coming up on twenty weeks... The pictures and the video calls had not done it justice. "Where's the graduate?"

"Upstairs, questioning his hair... still," Maya did not try to hide her laughter at all. Cara was smirking, and oh, the thought of them tag-teaming on Sam in the years to come... She could get used to that.

"Sammy! Put the gel down!" Cara shouted as she hurried off into the house and up the stairs.

They had been meant to arrive the day before, but there had been a problem with the truck, and so the unloading of Cara's belongings would have to wait until after they all came back from the ceremony. It would be a big day for all of them, seeing Sam, Dylan, and Rosa receive their diplomas. If that wasn't enough, naturally, they had to do it all over again the next day, for Lucas. At least they hadn't been on the same day.

"I don't suppose I'll be dropping off this funny girl out here in about sixteen years?" James came along with Maisie in his arms after Abigail had given Maya a quick hug and headed into the house to find her son. Maya's face brightened at the sight of her littlest sister excitedly reaching out to her.

"I will take her off your hands right now," she laughed, picking her up and holding her close. "Look at you in your dress, you're so cute… Yes, you are," she straightened up the skirt for her. "They should have you right there in the front row, where they put all the famous people."

The last time she'd been able to hold the smallest Hart-Lane, she'd only just learned of her pregnancy. Now here she was, belly growing day by day, with a baby girl the size of a mango, and if holding Maisie made her especially emotional right about now, she wouldn't have to play it cool. They weren't telling the Hart-Lanes about the new surprise just yet. It would wait until tomorrow, when they had the rest of the grandparents on hand.

"Hey, do you have the…" Maya looked to James, who was already ahead of her, as he pulled a small wrapped box from his jacket pocket and gave it to her.

"Would you like me to…" he gestured to Maisie like he'd take her back.

"No, no, don't even think about it," Maya playfully squinted at him, moving toward the house with her tiny sister.

This could just as easily have been Abigail's task, but it had made sense for Maya to be the one in the end. Sam had already been tasked with playing this role for her a few times already, and come November would likely play it again. But now it was his graduation, and also he had been her responsibility over the past four years, hadn't he? Now, that chapter was closing.

After both his mother and little sister had cleared away, Sam now stood before his older sister, ready to go. He looked to Maya, wanting her opinion and knowing she'd be honest but less blunt than, say, Cara.

"You know, sometimes you really look so much like him, and I don't know what it is that flips the switch, but you did it, Sammy," she breathed, looking him over. They stood in what was soon to be his former room. He'd started to pack, and he'd taken down his things from the walls. More noticeable than anything, the forest green had finally relented to the joyful orange.

"I think he just walked around with a bit of worry in him a lot of the time," Sam suggested.

"And you're worried now?" Maya wondered, sitting on the bed so she might set Maisie down. The girl squealed, crawling about, dress be damned, until Maya had to bring her back to sit in her lap.

"I don't know, maybe?" Sam admitted. "I guess… it was easy, up to now. I went to school, then when I finished at one, I had to go to another, and another. Now there's just…"

"Everything else?"

"Yeah," he came and sat with her. Without preamble, she presented him with the box. He knew what it had to be as soon as he saw it, not what was inside, but who it would be from. "Do you ever wonder how many of these things they've got back in Arizona? With all of us kids?"

"Maybe they have a storage unit somewhere… A warehouse," Maya offered. He wasn't going to open it right here, wanted to be alone for it, and she respected that. "You know what? I think it might have been my favorite thing that I got to do, as a big sister. Bringing you out here the last few years… It's been the best. Like, I wouldn't mind if you said you wanted to stay. No judgement, you just stay right here until we're really old." Sam chuckled, though she could see the emotion bubbling in his eyes, too.

"We can build everyone a little house out there," he offered, and she laughed at once.

"Our own village, let's do that."

"Or I can just be fifteen minutes away, at the apartment," Sam smiled on.

"We've had much worse," Maya nudged his foot with hers. "Anyway, this one's going to need her Uncle Sam," she added, setting her hand at her belly.

"You're going to be huge when you get back," Sam teased, accepting the arm smack with a laugh.

"For a smart guy, you say some really silly things sometimes."

X

Maya was giving him that look like she was just waiting for him to end up in his cap and gown so she could tell him how much she enjoyed the look on him and inquire if he'd get to keep them after today.

"You know I'm happy to let you put the tie on for me, but if you don't focus right now you'll just choke me," he pointed out, exaggerating a bit of choked voice for emphasis.

"Sorry, good point," she smiled. "Is it too early for this pregnancy to be making me super… you know…" she asked, her eyebrow arching with intent.

"No, I think that's just you," he tipped his head, 'thinking,' and she laughed.

"I can't even play coy on that one. But I will, because, you know, parents and impressionable siblings running about," she waved out their bedroom door before getting back to work and finishing with his tie. "There," she stood back. "You are good to go, Doc."

"Are you nervous?" he asked, and she gave him a curious look.

"I'm not the one graduating here, you are."

"I was talking about the other thing," Lucas told her, and she let out a breath.

"Right, 'the other thing,'" she air-quoted.

They were leaving tomorrow. The tour was starting after a very lengthy travel, and from there they wouldn't be back in this house until the end of August. This meant, on top of everything, that they would be saying goodbye to their families at the end of this day. And that meant that it would be their parents' last chance to try and somehow talk them out of going on the tour. They hadn't said anything to that effect, not yet, but it felt like surely they'd try and pull some kind of intervention on them.

They had one card to play in all this, other than the ones they had already tried to play before. They knew what they were doing, they would be safe, Maya and the baby both well looked after… Their last card now felt like it could sink them further as much as bring them floating back to safe ground. What did they have to lose at this point? Maybe some things… maybe a lot of things…

For now, all they could think about was today, and Lucas' graduation. Four years, driving back and forth as he'd done, and now he was about to take that next step… No matter what, everyone would be out there to cheer him on and show how proud they were of him. He had come so far, not just over these four years but for much longer, from the time of his suspension, from the time when he'd been a small boy and vowed to his grandmother that he would accomplish this. She was gone, but she was with him, too, always.

He heard his wife's voice clearest of all out there, when he walked the stage, and he resisted giving his best 'fashion graduate' walk just for her. Even without doing it, later she claimed that she'd seen him consider it, and she appreciated the notion.

Now, they were back home, with families and friends filling out the place, and spirits were high, as they had hoped. It would be all the better for them to use this as a launchpad, to hope their last card struck true.

"I'd like to say something," Lucas stood, raising his voice to get everyone else to quiet down and turn to him. "Well, we would, actually," he turned to Maya, who came to join him, holding the sign as she'd done days before, turned toward herself. "We wanted to wait until we had you all together, to share something with you, the people who matter most to us," he went on, looking to Maya, and around the room, and to his parents and in-laws.

"You're going to see a lot of this thing," Maya chimed in, drumming her fingers on the sign as she looked at it. "When we go to new countries, and cities, the next two months… Anyway, we wanted you guys to see it first, right here."

She didn't so much flip it over as turn it ninety degrees, so Lucas would catch one end and they could turn it over together and let everyone see the loopy letters neatly painted along the panel's front.

Marianne Friar was here!

It took a moment for the implications of those few words to hit home, but once they did, they had all of Lucas and Maya's guests react with so much surprise and so much more love. Lucas had been fortunate to have looked to the side just in time for him to see the moment it all connected for his mother, and his father along with her. It had gone from one split second, as they understood that they were going to have a granddaughter, to the next, as they discovered she was to be named in memory of her great-grandmother, her grandmother's late mother. It was so much more than a name, it was a legacy, and it was an expression of the future parents' attention to their family, from those who'd come before and now to the one about to start her own life. If they'd hoped for this to clear the air, to reset all that had sent askew… they just might have succeeded.

"When did you…" Melinda asked them both, when she'd made her way across the room and gotten her turn at congratulating them.

"A few days ago," Lucas told her, embracing her as he could see she was on the verge of tears.

"She would have been… so touched, so… Oh…" Melinda moved from her son to her daughter-in-law, holding her as she'd held him. "You… You will keep us up to date?"

"So much that you'll get tired of it," Maya promised, even as they both knew that no level could exist where this would be the case.

X

The guests were gone, the night was over, and though they didn't have to leave at the crack of dawn, they'd all gone to bed very quickly after the last of the guests had gone away.

Sam had already gone to rejoin Dora at what might have finally, officially, been their shared apartment for the first night. The dogs had already been sent along with the Sandersons up at the farm, where they would remain until the end of August. And for the first time, the household stood as it would be from here on out… or the next few years at least… as Cara slept in the room down the hall, midway through its transformation as it was. When they'd unloaded the truck the night before, returning from Sam's graduation, they hadn't known how to wait, so a lot of her things had already made their way up and into the room, several boxes stacked in one corner, waiting to be unpacked, some of the furniture already rearranged. Cara would only get one night in her new bed before they all left for the tour, but the fact that she was here…

Up the hall, in their room, Maya prepared for bed, looking very happy at the knowledge that her little sister was back there. At the same time, she would have been lying if she said she wasn't feeling the slightest bit of pre-departure jitters. She had never been immune to a bit of 'what if it all goes wrong?' thinking as she'd go and start something new. It was… maybe not a fault, maybe really necessary in a new venture, but right now she could really have done without it. Unless…

"Lucas?" she paused.

"Yeah?" he asked, checking for what felt like the hundredth time that all their papers were set for the next day's flight.

"I think she moved… I mean… I think I felt her move…" she turned around. His head turned to her at once. From all they'd both read, he was sure it was too early for him to be able to feel it, but her…

"How sure are you?" he asked, approaching her.

"I, well… I thought it was just nerves at first, but I don't know anymore," she admitted. Whether it was what she'd felt or not, there was no telling for sure, but the idea of it, she had to say… Maybe she'd put her trust in it being their girl moving around, telling her not to worry so much.

"Maybe she'll do it again," Lucas suggested.

When they'd finished getting ready, they climbed into bed, not so much lying down, just sort of… sitting there, waiting. Maya had her hands set on either side of her belly, like she could somehow summon their baby to move.

"Anything?" Lucas whispered.

"Give her a minute. Not to project on her or anything, but she is half me, so…"

"So she's a bit dramatic?" he joked.

"I was going to say she might warm up to putting on a show," she looked at him, suggesting his own answer had its own merits.

"Sooner or later, we are going to have to go to sleep," he reminded her. A few seconds went by, then…

"Oh, wow…" Maya blinked. Lucas sat up, debating if he might add his hand to hers, even if he knew he'd feel nothing.

"You felt her?"

"Oh… No, I just heard…" she tapped her ear and indicated for him to listen. After a moment, he heard it, too. Cara was snoring, down the hall in her new room.

"Huh… And I thought Sam's was loud at first…" Lucas stated, and Maya laughed herself right into a snort, even as he joined in. "We'll get used to it."

"That's what I told Sam," Maya replied, once her laughter had receded enough that she could be understood. "Oh… There you are," she looked down. "Not nerves, and not gas either. That was definitely you, Miss Marianne."

"I can't wait until I can feel her, too," Lucas looked on, a blissful sort of envy on his face.

"You will," Maya nodded. "I have a feeling she's going to be a serious daddy's girl," she whispered, and he looked like he greatly enjoyed the prospect.

"I think I've been having dreams about her," he revealed. "I see a girl, on a horse, up at the ranch… And she looks a lot like you, but also she has something of my grandmother, too, the pictures I've seen of her when she was a kid… and I know it's her, it's our girl."

Maya was sure she dreamed about her that night, too, inspired by the picture Lucas had painted in her mind. It saw her through to morning, and the day they would go and, after collecting Shayla Blake, fly off from Texas, only to return at summer's end. The dream would follow them, on many a night spent in any number of beds which were not their own, in different countries, different continents. It would follow them and, maybe, act as an anchor to the thought of home, and the 'after tour' life they would long to reach. The Marianne of their dreams would ride along on her steed, golden hair in the wind, even as the one of their reality accompanied them on their adventure around the world.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners