Chapter 57
Welcome Advice

The first thing he'd done upon arrival was to book the appointment. They would see him at one, which left him all morning to just get ready… and wait… and wonder… Sitting outside his first class of the day, Lucas pulled his laptop from his bag and opened the university's site. He didn't want to just walk into that office in a few hours and have no idea of what he was going to do, if he was really about to completely reset his trajectory. What would he be?

He couldn't stop thinking about earlier, when he'd been awakened by the sound of his son's cries and then Maya… It pained him so much to see her like that, to feel like he couldn't reach her. She was so ready to give it all up, school, her career goals, because it felt like the only way, when it had taken him until that moment to stand up and put his own plans on the line. Would a part of him regret not getting to follow through on veterinary school? Sure, how could he not? But he would do it, one hundred percent he would, because in this moment, with them about to have a second child, it was just the right thing to do. It was not his one and only, he could find something else that would make him happy at work, just as he would be, at home.

"Aren't you busy enough as it is without more classes?" a girl's voice pulled him out of his head and he turned to find it was Gabriela, who had arrived and peeked in at his screen. Ramona was just a few steps behind, along with Ariana. The three of them each had to-go cups in one hand, while Ariana had two. She stepped up and handed Lucas the second of hers.

"I was just… passing time," he tried to brush it off, the better to get them all away from the subject before they could really delve in.

"By looking at the nursing department?" Ramona chuckled, now that all three of his friends and classmates were getting a look. Lucas sighed, shutting the laptop screen and sticking the computer back in his bag.

"I'm curious that's all, I…" he started to say, then stopped.

Who was he kidding? He was going to have to tell people, professors and classmates, about his intentions, father than just disappear. He didn't even know how this was going to work. Was he going to have to finish this semester as it was, or would he be out of class until January for the winter semester? It had to be too late for him to just jump into classes in progress by now, they were already halfway through… Either way, they were going to know something was up, and he couldn't come up with a valid reason why he was doing this which would not result in them misinterpreting one part or another.

"I may have to…" No, not may… "I'm switching my degree." There was a cascade of surprised pauses followed by expressions of shock and disbelief all around him. He had a full array of reactions, from asking him if he was crazy, to wondering if something bad had happened to him. "It's not that I don't like the classes, or that I don't want to it anymore. My circumstances changed, that's all."

"What circumstances?" Ariana asked. "You just got here." He could have said he couldn't talk about it, anything to keep from getting into it and revealing the secret when they had made a deal not to tell anyone outside the parents and grandparents for a while, but it was just like last time, wasn't it? Sometimes, the moment came and the answer was the truth over the secret.

"Maya is pregnant, we're having another baby," he said the words, and he felt himself smile as he did. He hadn't really done that since they'd found out, had he?

It was a good thing he got a moment to bask in that feeling, as the next one saw him buried under a pileup of arms and loud congratulations from the girls. At this point, the whole university might have known. When Ramona, Gaby, and Ari pulled back, he called on their discretion, and each vowed not to say a word. They would have to tell it to their faces, as all three were smiling from ear to ear. They wanted to know everything, but seeing as there was very little to share up to this point, this did not take long. The three girls already loved Elliott so much, they could not wait to meet this new baby.

"I still don't get why you have to change your degree," Ramona shook her head as they all sat on the ground with him.

"It's a lot of things," Lucas told her. "Maya is concerned about her ever getting to go back to finish her own degree, and me, I… I can either spend the next five and a half years balancing school and a couple of jobs and a couple of kids… or I can do what makes sense if we're going to be looking after those two kids the way we need to."

He was already foreseeing what those years would be like, with him being in school, especially those that would require him to drive to and from another school that was an hour away. This would have to be joined with who knew how much work, and then the kids… It still tugged at his heart to say or think that word, plural… He didn't want them to grow up and see him as someone who was barely there for them, who barely had time for them. It was such a feeling, to know that their happiness and well-being mattered more to him than this career he had imagined in his head for who knew how long. He didn't have a single regret.

"So that's it then, you're leaving?" Gabriela asked, indicating the classroom behind them.

"I don't know what's going to happen yet, I have an appointment at one to talk it over, but that's why I was looking at the site, to figure out what I'll tell them I want to do instead."

"You're already more than halfway through this semester," Ariana pointed out, swishing her cup around in her hand. "You're finishing this one with us at least," she guessed, and the other girls agreed. In no time, the laptop was back again, and they were all squeezed in together to look at the university's site, searching for a new field for Lucas to study.

It was complicated. If he had been in his first year, even his second, it would have felt less daunting, but he would have completed two and a half years already by the time he started over. Some things would very likely carry over, but then for whatever he would choose, to then try and keep it from turning into four years, his options would be somewhat restricted.

"It's not like you have to study something that leads to a specific job," Ramona told him. "The fact that you get your diploma has to be good for something."

"It does, yeah, I know," Lucas nodded. "It's just that I never really had to decide before. I always knew where I was going." He had known it since he was four years old, since he'd told his grandmother, Marianne, his mother's mother, that he was going to be a vet, to help her with the horses. She was dead now, had been since he was eleven, but he knew that she would understand his not keeping his word, for this reason here.

Lucas had not expected to have some kind of eureka moment, sitting there in wait of his first class of the day, and by the time he and the girls got up to head into the room, it mostly felt like he was more confused than he'd already been. Much as he tried to concentrate on his professor's lecture, his mind was just sort of miles away, back home… This was a moment where he needed to step up, as a husband and a father. He needed to do his part, he just didn't know what that part was, not yet.

Up to now, even with Elliott coming along, everything had been more or less straightforward, hadn't it? They had the house, and they'd just needed to fix it up, then they'd moved in, and Elliott was born, and he'd gone back to school, continuing on that same track he'd been on from the start. Four years here, four years there, except it had been turned to two and two years in one place and another, and four years more at a third place. Nothing had changed, except for one school, and more work, and a baby… Alright, a lot had changed, but in the grand scheme of things…

Now this was where things really changed. Suddenly it was this grand scheme that was having to change. Two children, two babies really, who would be depending on both he and Maya, except Maya was forced to sit out a lot and he was the only player on the field, trying to score for the family team.

Lucas: Are you busy? Can you meet me at school around lunch?

The whole time as they had been looking at the site, him and the girls, Lucas had sort of known somewhere that he had one option, staring him in the face. As options went, it wasn't a bad one, but he still wanted to explore other avenues before he committed to this one. He had looked at his options, and though he'd hoped he might find something that would give him that instant feeling of 'why, yes, of course!' all he had really been left with was a lot of 'these are all the reasons why I don't want to or can't do this' more than 'that might be possible.' So, by the time he had gotten out of class, with the one survivor in his melee of candidates, he knew he had to consider it. At the very least, he had to figure out if this was going to be something worth putting on the table.

He walked into the university café and soon found his father had arrived. Thomas Friar was sitting at one of the tables, with a coffee and the school's paper, which he was now flipping through. Lucas walked over to him, and his father closed the paper as he looked up and saw him approaching.

"Don't think I'm not glad to join you here on any day, but am I right to think this isn't just a social call?" Thomas asked, as Lucas sat across from him.

"You are," he nodded.

"After yesterday's surprise, I can't imagine what this one's about," Thomas smiled, which made his son smile back, to see how happy it still made him.

"Maya and I were talking things over, about what this is going to mean for her, with school," Lucas started. He didn't need to get into the context of that conversation, even as he had a flash of his wife's face in his mind's eye. "When Elliott was coming, the plan was that she would take a year off school and then go back and finish out her degree, but now, with this new baby…"

"Right," his father nodded, as ever leaving the floor to him until he was rightfully done.

"For a while she didn't even see herself going back anymore, with the time going by, and the kids… That wasn't fair to her, I couldn't just let her throw all that away for something we did together. So, what we came down to is that I'm going to change my degree and be through with school here, in a year and a half or two, not five and a half."

There was a part of him that worried he might disappoint his father in some way, before he could even present his alternative, like the very fact that he was abandoning one road meant he wouldn't hold to a new one. It was silly, he realized it, but then it couldn't be helped.

"I'm meeting with an advisor at one," he went on. "And I've been thinking about what I would do if I wasn't going to be a vet anymore."

"What did you come up with?" his father asked, sounding intrigued, interested.

"I was thinking I might do what you do, work with you," Lucas told him, holding his gaze, showing he was serious. His father looked surprised now, and whatever he thought of the idea beyond this, he held it back for the time being, to find out more.

"Is that something you want to do? Lucas, I understand what you want to do, and it's very admirable, to do all of this for your family. I just need to know that you won't grow to regret it."

"I won't," Lucas assured his father, and the more he thought about it, now that he'd put the idea out there… it really felt like the best option, if he was going to set aside his original goal.

When he was growing up, his father had taught him his numbers. It had always been his thing, and nothing could have made him happier than to pass it on to his son. Lucas had many memories of sitting with his father, in his old office, as he would be shown how to do additions and subtractions, multiplications and divisions. It was like a game, and he wasn't half bad at it. When he'd started school, he was already ahead of the other kids. He was just good at it. And the business part… he didn't know all the ins and outs, no, but he had been around his father's work long enough that he understood what it was that he did. His father did good work, and Lucas could see himself doing it with him, especially if it meant he would have decent hours and he could be home with Maya and the kids at regular hours.

He told his father all of this, and then he stopped, and he waited. His father settled in his chair, reflecting for a moment before turning a look to Lucas.

"Friar & Son… Has a nice ring to it," he smiled. Lucas smiled back, more so as his father extended a hand across the table. He shook it. "So let's make it happen."

X

Maya woke up to mid-morning sunlight and what felt like the gift of a peaceful start for all of ten seconds, and then it was off down the hall. So much for that.

By the time she was able to get herself out of there and back to her room to look in on the baby, Pappy Joe was halfway up the stairs to get to her.

"I've got the little guy downstairs, breakfast is on its way," he informed her, and she could have smiled if she didn't feel like someone's shaky approximation of a human right about now.

"Thanks," she told him instead, and he tipped his head to her before leading the way down to the kitchen. She really hoped he knew how thankful they both were, Lucas and her, to have him around. Some days she imagined him not living with them and she immediately just had to go and hug him.

In the kitchen, Maya found Elliott, in his seat on the table, and he looked so jolly and happy to see her that she could almost forget the unpleasantness in the bathroom a few minutes back.

"Hey, baby boy…" she hummed, leaning close where she gladly submitted to his poking and prodding. From what she'd seen of the clock, Lucas would have been gone for a couple of hours already. "What have you and your Grand Pappy been up this morning?"

"We dealt with a stinky situation that required this young man get a bath. This might not be the best time for that particular story," Pappy Joe gave her a look and she didn't need to know more. "So instead maybe you can tell me the story of what happened last night." He set a plate in front of her as he said this, and she ate half a toast before speaking up.

"Just had a bit of… I don't know, a panic attack or something," she admitted. She couldn't have brushed it off, not with him. He was looking at her now, like she was his very own granddaughter and he was all ears. So, she explained what had happened, to the best of her ability. Frankly, parts of it were only vaguely recalled now, like they had been a dream, or not even that. She remembered waking up, and not being able to fall asleep. She remembered going up and taking Elliott, singing to him, and then accidentally spooking him until he cried, being unable to calm him down and then for a while there things fell in the hazy category. But then she had Lucas, there with her, and she remembered his voice, pulling her back. She remembered talking with him, and the plan they had started to make, and then singing for him so he would go to sleep. Then she'd stayed with Elliott, and she'd fed him, put him back in his crib when they were done. After that… she mostly remembered waking up, and the rest, well… he knew.

"That is some night," Pappy Joe declared, now sitting with her.

"Yeah, good times," she frowned to herself. She wasn't even entirely aware of her zoning out until Lucas' grandfather tapped the table between them to draw her attention.

"Now, you have had yourself a couple of very… eventful weeks," he told her, which got her chuckling. That was for sure. Between everything going on with her father, and finding out she was pregnant, and everything it implied… It would have been weirder if she didn't have a reaction like that. "If there is anything that I can do, to help you just… lighten the load… I need you to speak to me, alright?" He looked at her with all that intent in him, and again it made her smile. She reached out, laid her hand over his.

"I know. I will," she vowed, as though she might as well have traced a cross over her heart.

"Good. Now, explain to me, what's this situation with your schooling?"

After breakfast, Maya had taken Elliott back up to hers and Lucas' room. With the way her mornings were looking to start for the next little while, she was being forced to miss out on a quiet start for the two of them, a tradition which had come to mean a lot to her since her son was born. Of course, now, every time she considered this fact, she had to face the wild truth that she was looking to her baby boy and he wasn't going to be her only one for much longer. In the following spring, she would have this boy nearing on his first birthday, all the while looking to a newborn babe once again.

"All the more reason to enjoy this time just you and me, huh, Sprout?" she whispered to the boy staring up at her with intent and curiosity.

Going around the bed, to sit on her side with the baby, Maya spotted the notepad, posed on her nightstand. She blinked. When had she put that there, what was… She picked it up, and slowly she remembered. She remembered sitting in that rocking chair, still humming for Elliott. When those hums had started to sound like her father's melody, she'd realized she was singing it, singing words… Soon, she'd grabbed the paper and a pen and she'd started to write. The shaky letters spoke of half-darkness and exhaustion, but they were legible, and with those and the notes she absolutely recognized what they were.

"Man, if I didn't know I was definitely not drunk…" she mumbled to herself before looking to Elliott, clinging to her collar. "Hey, you want to hear some tunes?" Maya smiled at him.

She had gone and grabbed her guitar, sitting in the corner of the room, before returning to the bed. Here, she organized a bit of a resting spot to place Elliott, where he might be propped up and looking back at her, his curious little fingers out of reach of the guitar strings. At the last minute, she arranged her phone on the night stand, so it might capture the scene, of her performance and Elliott's reaction. The pad sat next to her as she held the guitar in place and started to play, not so loud, and sing the lyrics she had written in the dark.

Kermit had told her how that little melody used to work wonders on her when she was little, and right about now, sitting here, looking at her own son, bringing the tune to life, he wasn't the only one brought to ease by it. He was dozing off, while she… she felt calmer than she had done since the previous night. When she'd finished the song, she'd turned back to her phone to stop the recording, looking into the camera with a smile and a tip of the head. Thanks, Dad. She sent him the video. She would play it for Lucas when he got home from school, but for now her father deserved to be the first to hear it.

She'd spent the next little while looking through her books and notes, everything from when she'd first been pregnant with Elliott. Right now, she really felt that she needed to rein in her focus, put herself back in that mindset of her first trimester, what she'd need to do, to get… She had never been so intent on keeping focus as when she'd become someone's mom, and now she was about to double up on all that. No more fear, not now.

"We are going to need a second crib, aren't we?" she sighed to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose, just as she heard the doorbell from downstairs. She hadn't realized how much time had gone by, and she was going to need to have lunch soon, wasn't she? As she got up from the bed, she stopped in to see that Elliott was asleep before making her way down to see who was at the door.

"… might dress up as a witch, warts and all, for the trick or treaters in the neighborhood. I have too much candy, as usual," a familiar laughing voice could be heard, joined by more laughter, from Pappy Joe. As she came down the stairs, Maya finally saw the white-haired woman standing with him, and her presence instantly added another notch on this day's improvement.

"Profess… Patty?" Maya corrected herself with a blink as the woman turned to her and beamed. "What are you doing here? I mean… it's really good to see you."

"Good afternoon, Maya dear," Patty came and embraced her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "I would tell you that I happened to be in the city, like he'd have me say," she pointed back to Pappy Joe, "But I'd rather tell the truth." And that truth was easy enough to piece together.

"You called her," she guessed, nodding to the man who – to his credit – chose to assume his truth instead of pretending like he had no idea what the professor was going on about.

"He didn't tell me why," Patty specified. "All he said was, if I wasn't busy, you might benefit from a face to face chat." She finished this sentence with a look as though asking 'is that so?'

"Have you had lunch yet?" Maya asked her.

They decided to order in. There had been a brief thought to go out somewhere and eat, but in the end they had balanced this idea over what would be required and chose to stay here instead. Professor Robinson was treating her hosts for the meal and no arguments would be heard on the subject. While they waited, Maya had gone up and retrieved Elliott, finding him just on the cusp of waking. She brought him down the stairs and to the couch where Pappy Joe and Patty were sitting.

"Now would you look at this fella," Patty was all smiles, holding out her arms and receiving the boy, who showed hardly a second of discomfort before staring up at the woman with curious eyes. "All the pictures and the videos in the world don't do you justice," Patty informed Elliott. He got hold of her necklace and kept it grasped without pulling. "You like those beads, aren't they colorful?" the professor laughed, holding the baby's other hand and lightly stroking his fingers with her thumb.

"Why don't I go and keep a lookout for that delivery guy?" Pappy Joe stood up and started toward the door.

"Joseph," Patty turned her head back to him.

"Your treat, I know, I remember," he promised. Once he'd gone out the door, he could be seen through the window, taking a seat on one of the chairs.

"He's not subtle at all, is he?" Patty turned back to Maya.

"Please, he comes with a soundtrack," she breathed out, settling into the couch cushion at her back. "One of those old westerns or something…" It made her former professor laugh.

"Now, I have to wonder, what is it that compelled him to… saddle up… and have me drive over here from Houston?" she inquired, her gaze already recaptured by the babe in her arms. As such, she missed the debate happening on Maya's face. Pappy Joe had kind of put her in the position of having to share this secret of hers with someone else, when they had decided to keep it quiet for a few weeks. Still, for all that, it was like the professor had said. He wasn't subtle. And if he had called her over here, then it was his way of helping his grandson's wife. He'd called out someone he believed would be best placed to assist her, and only the fact that she knew he was right made it so that she convinced herself to give her the correct answer.

"Lucas and I are expecting another baby," she revealed, and the professor's head turned back to her at once. Her face fell into a state of shock, only to take a rousing upswing into happiness. She reached out one hand and took her former student's in hers, giving it a squeeze.

"Congratulations, Maya dear…" Patty told her, and it was as though they both realized these were the exact same words she'd told her nearly a year ago to the day, realized it as one. Even as they smiled, Patty Robinson was putting the pieces together now, of why she was called, and what this new pregnancy might mean for the young woman at her side.

"All this time, since before Elliott was born, I kept telling myself I would only take the one year off, and it wouldn't be a big deal. I would go back to school after that, finish my degree, but now… now I won't be able to go back when I was supposed to, not with a… a four-month-old and a fifteen-month-old at home. That means two years off, and that's… I can't even predict what my life will be like by that time, so what's there to say I won't be delayed again, I… I was just going to quit," she admitted. "Or maybe not quit but just… maybe I'd go back, in a few years, when the kids were in school, too, or something. For all I know, we could have a third by then…"

"Maya…" Patty said her name with so much sympathy but also pleading. She didn't want to see her abandon her studies either.

"I won't," she shook her head. "Lucas and I, we're trying to figure it out, we're both going to graduate, somehow, there's just no way of knowing when I will get there. And all this time, he's going to be out there, studying, working, and I can't… I was going to start looking to get a job, in like a month or two, but now I would have to go in, work as I keep getting bigger and more tired, and then I'd have to go on leave, for months, it… it wouldn't make sense. And there's my father…" she stalled, having laid out the mess that sat heavy in her head only to trail off quietly on the end. She bowed her head, feeling it had grown so heavy.

"Maya, what did I tell you, when you were going to be leaving the university?" Patty Robinson asked. She was still holding her hand, and Maya kind of never wanted her to let go. She lifted her eyes back up to her, sitting there with her son in the crook of her arm.

"That just because I wasn't technically your student anymore it didn't mean you couldn't help me anymore?" Maya replied. Patty smiled at her, nodding as though to say 'that's about the gist of it.' She could have recited her exact words, she hadn't forgotten them. True, you won't be in class with us going forward, but in case I haven't made myself clear, as we are headed to this event you and I, it matters a great deal to me to continue guiding you as much as I can. We will work something out, you have my word. And Patty Robinson was nothing if not a woman of her word.

"You just give me a couple of weeks, yes? I will see what we can do, you and I." As the professor's attention was drawn to the baby, who had now decided to see what would happen if he tugged on the necklace, Maya felt herself welling up, not for fear but the opposite now. Her tears would only fall on a smile.

As the food had arrived and been served around the table, Maya had gotten a call from her father. Kermit only wanted to thank her, for the song, for the video. In months to come, Maya would hear how often he could be seen watching it over, and over again, feeling the effects of the old tune echoing back on to him.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners