Chapter 53
The Branch We Did Mend

It had taken two weeks, but Kermit had finally remembered the melody he had composed, twenty years and some dust ago, for his then baby daughter, his first born, his Maya.

This work had not been accomplished with ease. For days still after he'd told her about it for the first time, all he could seem to get were crumbs, hardly anything he could manage to piece together enough that the song could be yanked from the bottom of his cluttered brain.

"It's no use," he'd told her, one afternoon when she'd brought Elliott over for another visit. "Maybe I'm not meant to get it back, maybe I just… I lost the right to get it back, when I walked out on you and your mom."

"You can't believe that," she'd tried to convince him, but it was no use. He would carry his guilt forever, and it wasn't something he could or, as far as he was concerned, should be rescued from. He had done this to himself, none worse than what he'd done to her and Katy.

Katy… her mother… She would have heard it, wouldn't she? Somehow, it hadn't been captured on any one of the videos Kermit had on that thumb drive he'd given Maya, but that didn't mean no one else would remember it. Maya got a pass because she'd been too little, but her mother… and Luna, his sister… She might have an idea of it…

"Hey, Mom?" Maya had asked her mother, when she'd gone to visit her the next day. "When I was a baby, do you remember Dad playing this song for me on his guitar? He said he made it up, no words, just…" Her mother had looked at her, and after a moment she'd just started to laugh to herself. "What?"

"That's just… That's what I've been humming, for him," Katy looked down to herself, running a hand over her belly. "It's just been stuck in the back of my mind, and here I was trying to remember the words, I was so sure it was something I heard on the radio. I've been driving Shawn crazy for weeks trying to figure out what it was. All I know is it keeps this one calm, whenever I do it, just…" she hummed the tune, and Maya remembered her doing this, just as she'd said, in the past weeks. "No wonder we couldn't find what it was. I guess I just… I must have remembered, from when Kermit would play for you, and how it would calm you right down."

With this information, Maya had gone back home. Picking up her own guitar, she'd held to the memory of her mother's humming, called on those small crumbs given by her father, and she'd recorded the results. She'd sent this to Kermit, and he'd called her back just minutes later, ecstatic. That was it, near enough to it! When she'd told him how she'd found it again, he'd laughed.

"After all this time, I guess I wasn't sure how to ask her."

He had gone back after this, and he'd done his own version, found those last missing pieces and put it all together. When he'd sent it back, Maya had listened to it, with Elliott in her arms. Her boy, coming on four months old now, had been the picture of peace, and she… She couldn't genuinely say that she remembered her father playing this for her, but she knew that he had, and it was something.

"You could find the words," Kermit had told her. "I never could, but maybe that's why, maybe you're the one who's supposed to have them."

All this time, Maya couldn't shake the feeling that something was going on with him that he wasn't telling her about. She didn't know what it was, though clearly it had something to do with his health, with the thing that had plagued him so, enough that he'd reached out to her and enabled this shift in their dynamics so strong that he had moved his entire family from New York to Texas in great part so that they could all be together again. His thrive to retrieve and pass on this lullaby of his all of a sudden, the dedication he'd given to get it back, had an all too distinct feeling like he was trying to get it back while he still had the chance.

As much as she was plagued with this thought, and she continued to be, she didn't have it in her to ask him point blank, him or any of the others who might know, like her stepmother, or Sam, or her grandmother… For all she knew, they weren't aware of it, and she would be blowing Kermit's secret. Or maybe they did know, and for some reason or another they weren't telling her. Or… or, maybe this was all in her head, a conjured up worry, but… no, she wasn't making this up, that much, unfortunately, she was sure of.

All this time, the only one she'd confided her worries to was Lucas. Her husband did not once push her to talk to her father, to just get out with it and ask him. He knew why she couldn't make herself do it, and he wasn't about to make her do something she didn't feel ready to do. What he had done was that he'd been there for her, to listen to her concerns, to support her… She hoped he knew how much it meant to her to have him there in that capacity.

Already he was continuing on his exhaustive rotation of home, school, and work. He had gotten better at managing everything, found ways to make the most of his time, and at no time did she find him looking as though he hated what he was doing, what he had to do… He was happy with his two jobs, which was really just essential, wasn't it? It would have been a whole other matter if he had not found work that motivated him in one way or another.

He had the bookstore, where he got to carry on with his love of sharing books with others, more and more with the kids, now that he found himself scoping out new things for Elliott from time to time. Their son easily had material now to see him through many a stage of his growing reading abilities… which he did not have yet in the slightest, of course. For now at least, he was being read to, daily, and that was the start of something.

Then there was the pet shop, where to some very minimal but in no way insignificant degree he was working toward his future goals, to be a veterinarian, to look after animals. They were the kind who sold food, and toys, and any other supplies for the animals, not the animals themselves, and for the most part his job consisted of pointing people in the right direction. Still, he was very much of the mindset that he should not waste any opportunity presented to him, and in that space, he was presented with the opportunity of familiarizing himself with any number of things which could either benefit dogs, cats, birds, fish… and the things that might be good for some but bad for others… And then, sometimes, a customer or another would have their pet with them, and those would be his favorite days. Alright, his favorite days were the ones where Maya stopped in for a visit, with Elliott, or with the dogs.

Meanwhile, there was school, his first semester at his new school now not so new and unfamiliar as it had been in the beginning. Having his friends there, Ramona, and Gaby and Ari, made a world of difference. There was no doubt that he would have made friends in no time, whether or not he already had one foot in the door thanks to Ramona, and he did have other classmates he was close to, but those three girls… they had become his unit at university, and he was thankful for them each day. In just these weeks since he'd known them, they had just been indispensable. Ramona had already known him, already been a friend, which was good enough to put him in the other two's good graces. And once they were aware of his situation, his juggling of school and work being on the whole the means to an end where he got to be with his son and look after him, they had just swept in like a trio of fairy godmothers to help guarantee he got to do the most of that.

They had all been at the house several times now, doubling study sessions with opportunities to see little Elliott Friar, and hold him in their arms, and just melt every time for the sweetness of him. Ramona would joke that, if nothing else, the boy would absorb a fair amount of Spanish, with how the three of them would end up speaking it at him, or singing it to him.

As Lucas had gotten more familiar with his school and work schedule, he had been able to manage that time as best as anyone could, all with this goal of gaining back the most time for him to dedicate to his family, to his wife and son. No matter what he did, it never felt like enough, but that didn't stop him from enjoying every minute, every second he got. Pappy Joe would tease that he'd never seen anyone so happy to change a diaper.

Joke or not, it was sort of the truth. Lucas wanted nothing more than to be there for Elliott, regardless of the task. At the end of the day, all the work he put in, toward his education as much as his jobs, was for him, so he might give his boy the future he deserved. He had never felt as though he understood his father, his mother, so much as he did now that he had Elliott in his life. He would look upon this little human, created of Maya and him together… and he was so precious, so fragile, and so, so very loved, so much that the very thought of his life without him in it felt wrong.

It would make Lucas wonder sometimes, about Kermit Hart, about Dylan's mother, too… What could make a parent able to leave their child behind? He'd wondered it before, sure, but now that he had a child of his own, it was just… And the real surprise in all this was that the feelings he felt with regards to this departure… they weren't necessarily rooted in anger. Maybe for Kermit's sake at least, after having seen him these last several months, interacting with Maya, with Sam and the younger kids, and now with Elliott… He mostly just felt bad for him, to think that he could have been brought so low, when it was clear now, to look at him, just how much his children meant to him.

"Why aren't you dressed, I thought you said…" Maya came up into their room to find Lucas buttoning up his shirt.

"I was, and then someone… I'm not naming names, but someone thought I needed a splash of something more to complete my look. We disagreed," Lucas informed her, taking a look to where Elliott lay in his crib, staring up at the mobile hanging overhead.

"Oh," Maya laughed, walking over to get the baby.

"Hey…" Lucas turned to her again. "Are you going to bring up…" He didn't need to finish his sentence. Looking at their son all the while, Maya knew exactly what he was asking. Would she ask her father the question that had been plaguing her over these past couple weeks? They were headed to his house for dinner that night, a tradition instigated ever since the family had moved into its new home.

"I don't know," Maya told him, never taking her smile away from Elliott's face. He looked so happy, carefree, and all she ever wanted was to be inside that joy bubble with him. Looking to Lucas though, she knew he would only go along with what she wanted, no matter what. If she didn't want to bring it up, he would keep his mouth shut all night and play along, and if she decided to ask… for better or for worse… he would be there, too. "What would you do?" she finally asked. He let out a breath, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"If it was my father… Maya, I don't know, I mean… It's different for us. No matter what, he…"

He was always there. And if Lucas thought something might be wrong with him, he would just ask. They weren't the same people though, and their situation was so, so very different. He knew where Maya stood, after having been apart from her own birth father for so long, and all the emotions she'd carried inside her heart and mind. And now that Kermit was back in her life, genuinely back, and wanted… now he might get taken away from her, not of his own will, and permanently. He could understand why there would be safety in not having a definitive answer. But for all they knew it wasn't what she thought, and wouldn't it be better if she knew for sure?

"I think… I think you already know what you need to do, just like I think your gut's told you enough already, and the reason you don't want to ask is…"

"Because I know the answer," Maya quietly replied. In her arms, Elliott just had his head resting to her shoulder, like he could sense her distress.

The trio got into the car and took off for their dinner, leaving Pappy Joe to have a quiet night at home on his own. He had a standing invitation, same as the rest of them did, but he did enjoy his alone time every now and then, too, so they left him to it.

Arriving at the house, they were greeted by Sam at the door. The thirteen-year-old uncle was quick to turn his attentions to his nephew, as he was allowed to take the boy from his car seat. He had always been very good with him, from the day Elliott was born, and now four months later the baby practically grabbed for the boy whenever he came to pick him up.

"Hey, El," Sam laughed, tipping his head back to keep his nephew from getting his fingers all up in his glasses. "We want to try and show him sign language," he turned to his sister and Lucas now. "He's still kind of young, but it doesn't hurt to start early, right?" Before either of them could ask who 'we' was, the sound of steps bounding down from above heralded the arrival of Lucas' cousin, Dora Cassidy.

"Hi!" she smiled, seeing the new arrivals and hurrying up to briefly hug them both before turning to the baby in Sam's arms. Elliott liked her very much, too, especially the loose ringlets of her hair, which he'd attempt to grab. Maybe anticipating this, Dora's long hair had been pulled into a bun over her head. "Hi, Elliott!" she greeted the baby, both aloud and signing. "Is it okay if we take him upstairs?" she turned to Maya and Lucas once more.

"Maybe stick around for a while, so everyone can say hello," Lucas told his cousin, while Maya went digging in Elliott's bag and pulled out a bottle, which she gave to her brother.

"You know how to get this ready for him, yeah?"

"I do," Sam nodded, and they were off.

"Didn't know she was going to be here tonight," Maya turned a smirk to Lucas, as he set down the empty car seat and followed her toward the kitchen.

"Neither did I," Lucas chuckled. "From what I've been hearing though, he's been spending a lot of time Aunt Dot and Uncle Emmett's house, too."

"Is that right?" Maya's smirk expended. "Oh, my dear Sammy…" she hummed, like she was already imagining how she might tease him some more.

In the kitchen, they came to find Dora, Cara, and Eliza were working together to ready Elliott's bottle, while Kermit held up little Wyatt so he might see the baby who had since gone from Sam's arms into Abigail's.

"Why does it look like you were in the middle of putting on a play?" Maya asked her sisters when they briefly left Dora's side to come say hello. The pair of them were wrapped up in what looked like bedsheets, coaxed into looking like dresses with long trains dragging on the ground. "Or a wedding…"

"For Halloween!" Eliza proclaimed, giving a swish of her train.

"It's not even October yet," Maya pointed out with a smile, ignoring Lucas' looks as they attempted to call her out for having already started to sketch costumes for their son.

"Almost though," Cara told her. "So we have to start getting ready. Mom makes our costumes."

"What are you supposed to be exactly?" Lucas had to ask.

"It's Eliza's turn to pick the theme this year," Abigail explained, as Elliott had been passed into his grandfather's waiting arms. "She wanted fairy tales, so she gets fairy tales."

"You could do it with us this year," Sam told his big sister.

"We could do that, yeah," Maya was all for it. She'd seen the family's Halloween pictures, from year to year. The 'theme' had been alternately picked between Kermit and Abigail in the early years of their marriage, and as Sam was born, and then Cara. Then when Sam had been four, he'd gotten to pick, and the year after that Cara had gotten the choice. Soon enough, the rotation was going this way, eventually picking up Eliza, and Wyatt just last year. Much as she had not said a word about it, Maya was very happy to get to be involved, after all this time.

The great Halloween scheme took up most of the time leading up to all of them sitting around the dining room table for dinner. While Sam and Dora were off with Elliott and the bottle for their experiments in sign language, Maya had been commissioned by her young siblings to draw what they would become, the better for their mother to bring their creations to life. They had more or less everyone sorted out by the time they had to clear away the paper and pencils and get dinner served. Lucas had gone up to get Elliott back, settling him in his car seat, which found its way near his and Maya's chairs.

As worried as Kermit and Abigail had been that the kids would soon get past the initial shine of being near their sister and eventually show regret for the home they had left behind, the city, the school, friends… none of it had passed. After having spent some time out here with Maya already, they had found plenty of love for Austin as they had done for New York. They had come to a home they had immediately gotten to love, too, almost like going into a nice hotel and actually getting to stay there and make it your own. School was a bit of a mixed bag, but that would have been the case back in New York, too.

Sam was used to be the kid younger than his classmates, and even though it wasn't ideal for him to have to start over with people he didn't know and who didn't know him, he was adjusting. For one thing, he had Cory Matthews on his side, and as to friends, well, there were plenty of connections for him in that school. He had been introduced to Michaela Zhu over the summer, who had managed to skip sophomore year to find herself a junior, like Sam, while two years below, along with Dora, he had taken what had been an inevitable link to August Matthews and started cultivating a genuine friendship. To see the four of them together, it was hard not to get a bit… maybe not emotional, but definitely awed for the echo it created.

"A Hart, a Matthews, a Zhu, and a Friar of another name," Mr. Matthews had been the one to put it to words. "Now all you need is a Garcia and an Orlando."

Meanwhile, there was Cara, who'd struggled in the beginning, finding her way with in the sixth grade with a teacher so different than her old one back in New York, which only tapped into her insecurities even further. She'd found the start of her turnaround after getting to start her guitar lessons again. She'd had classes back in New York, and she'd had a great teacher, which made her apprehensive about starting with a new person. But she had finally done it, early in the school year, and she had made fast friends with her teacher's daughter, who was a year below her in school. The lessons and the new friend had managed to soften the edges a bit for Cara, and she had started to make a turnaround in her school work.

Down in the third grade, Eliza had gone into the school year with readymade friends thanks to summer camp, and really of the four of them kids, hers had been the easiest adjustment. Wyatt, for his part, was finding preschool to be very interesting. The kids in Texas were very different from the ones in New York, from what he'd been telling them, and he actually really enjoyed this notion, and the discoveries that came with it.

By now, with a month of this new school year under their belts, they were all settled in, which was great, truly. But then it was inevitable, as soon as she would think this, Maya would find a footnote to this thought. If Dad's illness is really back, it'll reassure him to see everyone's okay, everyone's got people around them in case he goes and…

"Maya?" Abigail's voice pulled her out of her mind, blinking.

"Yeah? Sorry, I was just…" she shook her head, trying to think of an excuse, to brush it off. Dinner was over, and at some point everyone else had gone off somewhere else except for Lucas and her, and Kermit and Abigail. Wyatt had wanted to hold Elliott, so the kids had all gone to sit in the living room, where Wyatt could sit on the couch and be handed his little nephew, under the watchful eye of his big brother, while Dora and the girls looked over Maya's sketches and discussed their costume some more.

Maya looked to Lucas for a moment, and she knew that he understood where her head had gone. She didn't want to make such a big thing out of this, but she still hated to even bring it up…

She had to be brave, no matter how much this scared her… Every day her son was growing, and in time he would be looking to her, to Lucas, to set examples for him. She had to conquer her fears, if not for herself then for him, right?

"Dad… Are you okay?" she finally asked, looking across the table to where Kermit sat. Going by the look on his face, on Abigail's, too, they had both been waiting on the other side of this moment for a time. That was already a part of her answer right there, wasn't it? Somewhere inside, it felt like she'd started to tremble, and it all came to resolve itself in a prickling in her eyes signaling a rise of tears. "Dad…" she breathed.

"Look, this might be nothing, alright?" Kermit was on his feet at once, coming around the table so he might sit by her, taking her hand in his. Abigail, after a moment, came to sit closer, too, next to Lucas, who was at Maya's side already. "I've just been a little… off, that's all. It doesn't mean anything, not yet, maybe not ever."

"You went to the doctor?" Maya asked.

"Not yet," Abigail replied, showing her own opinion on this matter. Kermit let out a sigh. Already he'd been under his wife's glare about this, but now coupled with his eldest daughter's glare, he had little room left to go.

"I will go, I will, just… I need time, I need…" He didn't want to know, didn't want to hear that this was bad again, didn't want to hear… that it could be even worse, that it could be the worst. On this, Maya could hardly argue, seeing as she'd been in the same position up to a minute ago, but at the same time…

"Dad, you have to… please… If there's any difference to be made, if…"

"I know, Maya, I…"

"I'll go with you," she cut in. Kermit looked at her, his baby girl, so much of Katy in her, but so much of him, too. His eyes said it all. He'd let her down so many times in her life, and he could live to be so old and still not be through repaying her for it. This… This was something he could do, would do, for her.

"Okay… Okay."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners