Chapter 87
Summer Sun Rising

June 2024

"Come, Elliott, come," Wyatt waved for his nephew to follow. He was standing next to his mother now, his little hand holding to her knee, and he looked from Wyatt up to her, blue eyes seeming to ask 'yes?' Maya smiled, brushing at his hair.

"Go on," she nodded, holding his hands as he turned about and started teetering toward her brother. The further he'd go on his own, he'd make squeaky sort of noises, like satisfaction at his success. She could never get enough of him doing that. Wyatt hugged the smaller boy when he reached him and led him to where they might sit, so he could show him a book. He was learning to read, and he loved to demonstrate to anyone, but he was developing an affinity in hanging out with his sister's son, which they all encouraged. Anything to help him continue in his adjustment.

It had been almost three months now since they'd lost Kermit, and as much as Noah's arrival, this nearly two months ago already, had helped to soothe the ache, it wasn't a miracle. The effect was still there, the hurt, the grief. On the whole, Wyatt was doing the best of them, so if they could keep it that way, then that was what they'd do.

"Make the face again, I think he likes it," Cara laughed, tapping her little sister's arm. Eliza held Noah now, after he'd made the rounds with the rest of their visitors, and her patience had been rewarded with the boy coming off easily the most contented he'd been over the course of his 'travels.'

He would be two months old in a matter of days, so it would he a while longer before his expressions became properly defined, but there was no doubt when he was or wasn't happy. He would give mighty cries if something displeased him, something his parents and great grandfather could attest to.

It was easy to see why he would lock on to Eliza, or Cara, or Katy, too, just as he would to Thomas Friar and his father. They all looked the most like his mother and father, if bigger or smaller. And for all that, Eliza earned top prize in his book here and now, which made the quiet girl notably happy.

She still would not speak, though for those who understood the root of her reasoning, well, they could suppose that it wasn't nearly as bad as they would have thought it, in the beginning. They knew it was a sort of tribute, almost, to her late father. He had struggled so to speak in the end, until he'd just given up outright. This was her way of coping with his loss.

The only one who knew it enough to be able to say for certain was Maya, as she'd pieced it together, the day Noah was born. She'd said it, and her sister's eyes had done the rest. After that, there was Lucas, and maybe Cara, too, who had been there that day, who had heard her. They sort of understood what it was all about, too, and they respected it well enough.

As for everyone else, well, it depended. They could believe that this was a phase, that she'd come out on the other side of it in time, but then... how long would it take? What if she just stayed in that tunnel forever?

"How's it going with your sessions?" Abigail asked Maya, a few days past. She came at the subject so casually, showing obvious care for the answer itself, but Maya had a feeling like maybe there was more to it, like she was considering getting Eliza in to see her, too... and maybe not just Eliza.

"Dr. Eisley is really good," Maya told her, showing herself fully aware of the double tracks of their conversation. "She takes her time, she doesn't make me do anything I'm not ready to do, but she definitely... She knows how to kind of... nudge, I guess? It was hard to go, in the beginning, but I'm at a point now where I know I needed it. And I still do. If there was nothing for me to get out of it anymore, she'd tell me as much. She's not out there to keep making me go so I'll keep paying her, you know?"

"I do," Abigail tipped her head, and Maya had to think that maybe her stepmother was getting to understand how her children weren't the only ones who could benefit from sitting with the doctor.

She could barely imagine what Abigail had to be going through, trying to help four children deal with the loss of their father, to support a woman who had outlived her son, all the while dealing with becoming a widow. If she tried, all she'd accomplish would be to picture what it would be like if she lost Lucas, and she could not afford to let her mind venture out on that road, not now if ever. If Dr. Eisley could shoulder some of this with her, well, it would be good, it'd have to be, wouldn't it? Maya was doing all she could to lend her own share of that support, but she knew it wasn't enough.

The littler ones were one thing, and then the older two… Cara… She put on a good show, Maya had to give her that. Maybe not a show, no. When she was with them, she was a great deal better, could almost said to be herself again. But when she wasn't…

Maya saw her once, at the mall. Her father accompanied her to her appointment, a couple weeks back, and they went to run a couple errands before he drove her home. It was almost funny sometimes, interacting as fellow parents to young children, when his children were her siblings, and her children were his grandsons, but here they were. And that day, the two of them split off at some point, to save time. Maya spotted Cara, on her own in the middle of a store. Their grandmother was somewhere else in the store, as she'd later learn.

She didn't know if Cara would have gone through with it if she'd been left to her own devices. The only thing she did know was that, for several seconds, Maya observed her little sister holding a few items in her hands and appearing to consider the best way for her to hide them on her person. Out of surprise, she ended up approaching her, announcing herself. Cara smoothly returned the objects to the shelf in front of her before turning around. Just like that, she was herself again.

She'd told Lucas about it that night, didn't know what else to do about it. Should she tell Abigail? She couldn't say for sure that Cara would have tried to leave with those things, that she saw what she thought she saw, and if she didn't, then she didn't want to get her sister in trouble. She'd been through a lot in the last few weeks. It would only be natural for her to not be quite herself. For all she knew, it could have been no more than a fleeting thought, and it would have ended right then and there. But if it didn't… If it was only the beginning and she didn't stop it before it got out of hand…

Could she mention it to Dr. Eisley? Ask her for help? Cara wasn't her patient, maybe it would be overstepping. And if Abigail in time decided to bring her there… No, she wouldn't air out her issues to someone she didn't know. For now, all she could do was be there for her little sister… maybe watch her closer. She was going to start back on her cake work. She'd taken a break, naturally, after Noah was born, but her little Bee was nearly two months old now, it was time. And she needed her assistant back.

She might see about bringing on a second assistant, about asking Sam to help her, too. He was showing some skill in the kitchen. This might be just what he needed, something between focus and just… relaxing.

Maya may have been the eldest of Kermit Hart's children, but she didn't live with the rest of them, had never done so, and for that, he was the eldest of his house, and as much as he had always taken up his mantle of Big Brother with the greatest care, now, after they'd lost their father, it had become more important to him than ever. All his attention was being shifted on to looking after his siblings, and his mother, and his grandmother, and the house… He'd gotten a job at Nando's for the summer as a bus boy and dishwasher, to earn up some extra money. On the surface, the whole thing sounded reasonable, sure, but that would have been seeing the puppet and not the strings, not the puppet master, which was his grief. He was content to keep it in the dark, unseen, and all the while it controlled him, gained more power. If he didn't face it at some point…

As much as Maya felt she needed to do something for him, she was starting to think maybe the help would come from another source.

Dora…

Lucas' young cousin continued to be a steadfast friend to Sam, just as she'd been since the two of them met, or at least since he'd come over from New York, just ahead of the Harts' move to Austin. Whether she was also his girlfriend depended on who you asked, and even that tended to flip one way or the other. They were young, she got that, got how confusing those emotions could be; it hadn't been all that long for her either, marriage and kids or no. Add to that everything that had happened with Kermit, the sickness, the death, all of it… Right now, titles were not nearly as important as the fact that she was there with him, at his side. Maya would see the two of them together, and it felt like an echo of something she knew, like something in their blood was the same. Sam was like her, weighed down by emotions. And Dora was like her cousin, a force of levity, a vitally needed one. She could trust that.

The departure of the visiting Harts that afternoon coincided with the boys' naptime. It wasn't as though Noah's sleep schedule was entirely trustworthy yet, for how much Maya and Lucas both wanted it to be, but with any luck he'd start and figure it out in time. Either way, they had more hands willing to carry the young brothers to their respective cribs than there were… well, brothers. In the end, Sam took Noah up, while Cara brought Elliott, on the reasoning that they were bigger and thus better able to combine going up the stairs and holding the small ones without incident. Eliza and Wyatt followed nonetheless, and they said their goodbyes to their nephews in their own ways once each was set down and settled in. After this was done, Sam guided his young siblings back down the stairs, so they would take their places in their mother's minivan. Cara hung back, at her big sister's call.

"Yeah?" she asked, curious.

"Well, I was thinking that, with summer starting, and you being out of school, that it could be the perfect time to try and really make this cake business thing happen, yeah? We get some clients, fill some orders…" Maya told her, smiling at how excited Cara quickly became. "Yeah?" Maya asked, and her sister nodded.

"I think we should make some practice cakes first. We could be rusty."

"We could," Maya laughed. "Don't know what we'll do with… all that cake…" she wondered.

"I have a few ideas," Cara beamed. "I can come tomorrow?" she offered, and Maya let out a breath.

"I can't tomorrow, but the day after, sure." Cara considered this.

"Where do you go every week?" she asked. "You're always busy on those days."

"Oh, well…" Maya hesitated. They hadn't actually told her or the other kids about her sessions. It wasn't about shame, but, well… They weren't sure how they'd all take it. "I've actually been going to see a therapist," she finally decided to tell her. Cara's eyes widened in surprise. "Started to go, a couple weeks after Noah was born," she explained. "There was just… so much on my mind, with Dad going, and having the baby so soon after, and just… a lot of things even before all that. It's been helping a lot," she finally smiled. "I'm going to see her tomorrow, that's why I can't. You understand?"

Cara looked at her for a moment, reflecting. Finally, she stepped up and embraced her big sister. Maya hugged her back. How much of it was Cara showing support and how much was her maybe reflecting on her own situation, Maya couldn't say, but then her sister pulled back and looked at her again.

"I think my mom wants me to go to one of those, too," she revealed. "Heard her talking to Gran the other day…"

"What do you think about it?" Maya asked. The way Cara looked at her, it felt like her first instinct had been to categorically say she didn't want to go. But then, looking to her big sister, who'd just told her she was going for herself, because she needed it, because it was helping her, she couldn't say it anymore. She had to think it over.

"I-I don't know…" she finally said, bowing her head.

"How about… you could come with me," Maya suggested. Cara lifted her head again. "Just to see the place, maybe meet her, see how she is. It might help you decide how you feel about it."

"My mom will just make me go," Cara frowned.

"Hey," Maya took up her face in her hands. "I think she'll hear you out a lot more than you're giving her credit for." Cara couldn't deny that.

"Like, tomorrow?" she asked. Maya had an idea.

"How about… you go ask your mom if she'd be okay with it. And, if she is, you could spend the night here." Oh, she liked that idea.

"Like a sleepover?"

"Yeah, but a really small one. Then we go to Dr. Eisley's tomorrow, and when we get back… we can get started on those totally unnecessary cakes someone will have to eat."

Cara was off in a second. Five minutes later, Abigail was heading home minus one daughter. There were a few rumblings from the younger of those siblings, but then big brother Sam stepped in, promising his younger brother and sister an evening they would not soon forget. He had their attention.

The evening was easy enough. Cara was just happy to be here, around Maya, and Lucas, and Pappy Joe, and of course around her nephews. When Noah was heard over the baby monitor, she begged to get to go and check on him, and then she was gone. They heard her over the monitor, talking sweetly to the baby boy, then singing to him. Before long, his crying stopped. By chance, none of it woke up Elliott, and he slept on.

"What if she changes her mind?" Maya quietly asked, in the middle of the night, when she had to get up and tend to Noah. Lucas half-sat in bed, awake and a bit asleep, too. "And then I can't just leave her in the waiting room on her own, or…"

"I'll go with you guys," Lucas offered, mumbling.

"What about Boys' Time?" she asked. That was what she'd playfully come to call it. Lucas loved those moments where he got to have Elliott and Noah to himself, sometimes with Pappy Joe, or Zay, or any of their friends or family members.

"I'll make up for it later, while you guys are baking," he promised. "We'll leave them with my parents on the way, they'll love that." Maya chuckled, looking back to find Noah was asleep again. She kissed his head and brought him back to his crib.

So, off they went, the next day, the five of them together. As predicted, their sons were greeted like princes when they arrived to drop them off at the elder Friars' house. It was down to the three of them now, Maya and Lucas and Cara in the back. Maya looked back to her sister in the rear-view mirror, found her looking as calm as ever. If she was concerned about going to the doctor's office, she was hiding it well.

"That's a house," Cara stated as they pulled up.

"The office is in the garage," Maya chuckled. "Doesn't look like a garage," she added after a moment, catching the confused look on her sister's face. After a moment, she seemed to consider it all and accept it as something valid… possibly reassuring. It didn't look like a clinic, or a hospital.

As welcoming as she'd always found the office, Maya would say the thing she was most hoping for her sister to find today was not a nice plant or an enthralling painting on the wall. Instead, she hoped to find a young girl with her nose in a book or, as of late, with her hands bent to a couple of knitting needles. She didn't find her right there in the waiting area, but she found her mother, flipping the pages of a magazine, so it held promise.

"You'll be the husband?" Nadia Su smiled, looking Lucas over like she recognized his features from meeting Elliott. At a year old, the Friar boy was really starting to come into his looks, and his resemblance to his parents. He had some of both of them, and it was really astounding to see, truly.

"Yes, and you're Ariel's mother?" Lucas tipped a smile back at her, offering his hand, which she shook as she confirmed it. She looked to Cara now, and with the way her eyes ticked back to Maya, it was almost unnecessary for her to say they were sisters, but she did, and Nadia and Cara shook hands, too.

"Who's Ariel?" Cara whispered to Lucas as they went to sit while Maya and the woman spoke.

"Another patient. She has her appointments right before Maya," Lucas explained. "She's about your age actually."

"What's… How come she has to come here?" Cara asked, left feeling awkward for the question and how intrusive it inevitably felt.

"I don't know," Lucas shook his head. "If Maya knows, she's not telling me," he explained. She wouldn't, shouldn't. It wasn't hers to tell, oath or no.

"Right… Sorry…" Cara settled in her seat.

Not long after, just as Maya was moving to sit with her husband and sister, the office door opened, and Dr. Eisley led Ariel out again. She spotted her mother, then Maya – she smiled and waved at her and Maya reciprocated the greeting – before noticing Lucas and Cara. Not unlike her mother, she easily picked up on the traits, revealing the connections between the man and the little boy she'd previously met and between the girl and Maya. As her mother went and had her regular check-in with the doctor, she moved over to the trio.

"Hi," she spoke, nodding to them.

"Hey, Ariel," Maya smiled back before making the introductions. She easily noticed how Cara looked at the other girl now with curiosity, and Ariel noticed it, too, growing momentarily shy.

"Do you like her? The doctor?" Cara blurted out, shrinking back just as quick. On the flipside, this seemed to help Ariel understand the look from before.

"I didn't at first, but that's just because my mother made me come here and I didn't want to," she admitted. "It's better now. I forget that she's a therapist after a while, and I don't mind coming as much."

She stopped there, and Maya knew, for having heard it from her before, that she would have been about to say how she hated the part where her mother would go in to talk to her after, because she didn't know what she was telling her, if she was sharing the things that she told her. She had to figure out that Cara was a prospective patient herself, and she thought better of tanking her opinion before she so much as walked into that office. Maya would have to remember to thank her for that later.

"Our dad died a couple months ago," Cara stated, and the look on Ariel's face now showed how she hadn't even known this about Maya until now. "He was sick for a while, and then…" she looked to her hands in her lap.

"I'm so sorry," Ariel told Cara and Maya both, and Maya thanked her with a nod and a small smile. "I… I wasn't eating, for a while," she confessed now, like she felt she needed to balance the scales. Maya had sort of figured as much, from what she'd seen and heard of the Su mother and daughter, but still to hear it now, her face grew sympathetic and Lucas' did as well. Meanwhile, Cara looked back up to the girl standing before her. "It was that, and other things, and… I'm still working on it, I guess. But I think it's better now," she nodded, brightened for her own self-realization.

Ariel was called away by her mother shortly after, and she grabbed her bag and went to join her after saying goodbye to the trio. They rarely got to talk for more than a minute or two every week, and still it felt as though both Maya and Ariel looked forward to that one minute or two a great deal, every time.

"So, this must be Cara?" Dr. Eisley came toward them now, and Cara startled a bit at hearing her name. She looked to Maya, wondering maybe if she'd spoken about her… and what she'd said. Maya met this look with reassurance. She would never say anything about her that she wouldn't want shared. Yes, she had mentioned being worried for her siblings, but that almost went without saying, with what they'd been dealing with. She hadn't mentioned any specific incidents, about any of them.

"This is my little sister, yes," she nodded, smiling at her. "And my husband, Lucas," she carried on. Lucas and Dr. Eisley shook hands and nodded to one another. "We're going to work on some cakes back home after we're done here, so they tagged along so we could go to the store on the way."

Cara looked almost instantly reassured by how she'd handled this introduction. She got to have a conversation with the woman without being framed in any kind of 'I might be your patient soon' manner. Dr. Eisley had heard about the baking adventures before, and she started telling them how hopeless she was when it came to baking. Her daughter's birthday was coming up in a few weeks, and she was looking into maybe getting a custom cake done for it. Out of the blue, Cara declared that they could make it for her. She had so much determination in her in that moment that it felt sort of impossible to ignore her. And by the time they would leave the house and the office in the garage, they would have their first client on the books, and a design project for the afternoon to come. Maya could have laughed, seeing how giddy Cara had become. Yeah… This summer was going to be great.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners