Chapter 152
To Commune With Ghosts

It started with a question. A purely innocent question from a small boy to his grandmother. They'd just been having dinner the young Friars and the Hunters together. The four Hunter kids had said goodbye to their big sister, brother-in-law, and nephews – who would soon be leaving – as Shawn took them up to start on the evening routine. Meanwhile, Katy was getting a couple more minutes for her own farewells to her grandsons, which presently included her holding Noah and giving him a big hug and many kisses, the better to make the boy laugh his curly head off. It made Maya grin as she was getting Jamie settled in his car seat, the same for Lucas, as he was looking to put away the boys' things – those the grandparents kept on hand – so his in-laws wouldn't have to. Elliott stood by like he was just waiting for his turn in Nana Katy's embrace… all the while stealing looks back to make sure that his baby brother was doing well.

"You know they won't sleep now," Maya 'scolded' her mother, as she stood Noah back on to his feet and he just zoomed around.

"Oh, sure, they will," Katy insisted, still smiling. "You're going to be good to your mommy and daddy, yeah?" she looked to Elliott. "Don't want to make your nana look bad," she whispered, and Elliott shook his head. No, of course not, they would never dream of it. "See?"

"Were you good, Nana?" Elliott asked, and Katy looked back down to him.

"What do you mean?" she laughed.

"With your mommy and daddy," Elliott specified.

It wasn't as though the room went deathly quiet all at once, but it did feel as though the sound dropped off one by one, as Katy, and Maya, and Lucas processed the implications in turn. From there… Oh, what were they supposed to say? Elliott couldn't know what door he'd just opened, not when he hadn't even known that there was a door, that it was not just closed but locked… with so many locks… Only now everyone had gone so quiet, and he could pick up on that. Had he done something wrong? At once, Katy cranked her smile back on, as put upon as it was, in hopes that it would not be noticed by the three and a half-year-old.

"Never as good as you," Katy told him, pressing his little face between her hands and kissing the top of his head before hugging him. Over his head, Maya caught her mother's eye and mouthed an apology, but Katy waved this off with a shake of the head. Don't worry about it.

Except she couldn't do that. It stayed in her head as they went home that night, as they put the boys to bed and went to sleep, and still in the morning… She sat there in the rocking chair, feeding the baby, and her mind was so far away that Lucas was the one to come over and make her realize that Jamie was done. He didn't have to ask what was on her mind. He suggested that they see if Pappy Joe and Patty might receive Elliott and Noah to breakfast at their house, enabling the two of them to have a talk without small boys hanging around and hearing things they might not be intended to hear. Soon, it was just them and the baby in the kitchen.

In all the time Lucas had known Maya and her mother, he'd been made aware of… elements of the story, yes, but not all of it. He'd found out a lot about what they could call 'Kermit's side,' between his passing and the return of his parents in their lives and even the… old days… when he and Maya had still been in school, when he'd shown up in Austin, and then when he'd come back around, after he'd heard about their first pregnancy… But Katy's side… What he knew of his mother-in-law's tale was barely a page. He knew she'd left home young, landed herself in New York, where she'd met her future husband, and became a mother at eighteen… He couldn't think of any instance where he'd been told much of anything regarding her parents and the rest of her family, who had originated in Arkansas. For that, he supposed, he could be pardoned for being curious about the effect created by their being mentioned.

Knowing enough to trust him, Maya began filling in the picture as best she could. She was very aware that the stories were based on memories of a restless teenage girl, and Lucas understood this as well, so he mainly listened without interrupting. He had no trouble picturing fifteen-year-old Katy, in all her dreamy fantasies and drive to accomplish whatever she set her mind to… which would become an issue once held up against her parents' ideas for her future. The clash had been too much, finally thrown over the edge thanks to a small television set, hard-earned and painfully discovered. And so, unbeknownst to Katy's parents, their daughter had worked out her escape. She'd finally left Arkansas, bound for New York. It had already been her goal, but amid her circumstances, it also came with the added bonus of who she would find out there, as her safe haven… Betsy Young, her favorite cousin, who had also left their hometown, though in her case under even more troubling circumstances, following the 'scandal' of her being found out as a lesbian.

Maya went on to tell Lucas how her mother had landed in New York, found her cousin. It wasn't a total escape from responsibilities, no. After considering everything, Betsy had finally allowed her cousin to stay… on the condition that she go to school. Katy had agreed, whether because she saw that it was the right thing to do or because it was either that or heading back to Arkansas, who could say? She'd stayed, and she'd gone to school, and it had been as near to the life she'd always wanted as she could get. And soon, she'd met Kermit, and they'd started seeing one another, and he'd been the love of her young life… And as odd as it could be to say it that way, as she'd been the result, Maya told Lucas how one thing had led to another, and her mother had become pregnant with her. After that, he more or less had the whole story down, except how her mother had told her cousin that she was moving in with her boyfriend and then never really spoke to her ever again.

"She told me once how… she'd wanted to, she did, but… it had been too long, and she didn't know what to say…"

"So, not once, not in… twenty-eight years?" Lucas finally spoke, after silence had set in, save for Jamie in his seat. Maya shook her head. "Then they don't know anything, about your siblings… about you?" he realized as he said it.

They'd left it at that, as Jamie cried and was tended to. Soon, the boys would be returning from the little house and the day would have to carry on… but Maya still couldn't leave it alone. Finally, the next day, she made up her mind to go over to see her mother, to talk to her and ask her more about her grandparents, the family out there… Shouldn't she know, after all? She had the boys to think about, and one way or another, it was part of their history, too.

When her mother opened the door, she had a look on her face like she'd been expecting this visit since the night of the question. Did a part of her still look extremely hesitant to get in the subject? Oh, more than a part, yes, but she knew better than to expect for all this to go away if she ignored it. Maya had brought only Jamie along, which she could admit might have been some ploy to help her mother not feel so stressed. It was easier with a four-month-old to hold on to, wasn't it? They sat down in the living room, and for a while Katy remained focused on her grandson, giving him copious smiles that made him smile back and reach his little hands up to touch his grandmother's face. Maya let them be for a few minutes before finally getting into it. Neither of them would be helped by ignoring everything, would they?

"You've never thought of reaching out to them? Genuinely?" she slowly asked. Katy's face relaxed into consideration, even as her hands remained occupied by her grandson.

"I've thought about them, over the years," she finally replied. "Around holidays, and birthdays… theirs and ours," she explained. "Anniversaries… You know, at the end of this month, my parents will have been married fifty years," she shared, and Maya blinked in amazement. After a moment, Katy frowned to herself. "I… That's if they're both still alive, I guess," she amended, and Maya almost wished she hadn't brought it up. She wouldn't know, would she? For all she knew, they could have been dead for years, she could have been imagining them carrying on all this time, when in reality…

"I'm sure you could find out…"

"I could," Katy nodded. "But then… I don't know… I keep telling myself that it was all so long ago now and so much has changed, people have changed. Look at me. I'm not exactly the girl I was when I left anymore. Grown woman, with a good job, a house, a husband, children, and grandchildren…" she turned a smile toward Jamie at this. "That's usually where the train of thought starts and then… then it grinds to a halt, because all I can imagine, when I think of them meeting me as I am now, meeting Shawn, and you, and everyone else is… all the ways I've walked through life that were not the ways they would have wanted me to do it. And… it's so silly, I know it is…" she tried to laugh it off, as successful or unsuccessful as she might have been. Maya responded by leaning her head to her mother's shoulder, putting her arm around her, and cradling the back of her son's head.

"You've got nothing to be sorry about. Not one thing. They should be proud of who you've become, and any one of us would tell them so."

"I know you would, baby girl," Katy breathed, and they remained this way for a little while more, as Maya watched Jamie slowly but surely drift off to sleep.

"Would I be overstepping if I tried to look any of them up?" she spoke quietly. Katy didn't respond, though Maya could tell she had heard her, and she was considering the matter.

"I trust you," she finally said, and Maya looked up at her. She could have demanded for her not to do anything and Maya would understood, but at the same time… Maya had been considerate enough to ask, and Katy could see how she would need to do this, so she didn't stand in her way.

It wasn't as though she was aiming to track down a phone number for her grandparents and go 'surprise!' She was well aware of the delicate nature of the situation, so if she was going to do anything, she was going to do it with care and caution. She told as much to Lucas when she got home, and he was right on track with her, as he would be. Still, days went by before she actually did anything. She kept turning it over in her mind, but she really could not find the right way to start. She kept turning it all over and over in her head, kept changing her mind… going around in circles…

Finally, one morning, she decided to see if she might track down Betsy Young. It really felt like the more reasonable place to start, more so than her grandparents. She didn't know what she'd do if she actually found her, though, if she was honest with herself, she knew she'd want to talk to her. In order to make up her mind about that, she would need to actually find her. She couldn't say whether it would be difficult or not. It all would first depend on whether or not she was present on social media in such a way that Maya could find her. If she wasn't there, then she'd have to expand her search. Would she still be in New York? Would she still be going by the same name? What if she didn't find her?

It was a lot easier than she'd anticipated. Within minutes, she'd tracked down a profile for her, and once she'd gotten a look at the picture, there was no doubt. Her mother had some photos she'd kept with her from those days, and it may have been twenty-five years and some, but there was no mistaking it. That was her mother's cousin right there on her screen. Now she had to figure out the next step, or…

There was a post, saying that Betsy and her family would be headed to a party for her aunt and uncle's fiftieth, at the end of the month. When Maya saw it, her first reaction was 'well, there you have it, they're alive…' After that, her mind went several places. It wasn't an immediate sort of 'let's reunite my mother and my grandparents for the big occasion' plan, but it wasn't too far off. If there was any possibility to make it happen, wouldn't that be good? Oh, but then again, it might have been too much. It was only a couple weeks away, and it had been so long…

Betsy… For now, she had to keep focused, stick to the Betsy thing.

As Maya learned through her research, Betsy Young and her wife ran a company together. That made things easy as far as getting in touch with her mother's cousin. She had an e-mail address and a couple of phone numbers at her disposal, as well as several social media handles. All she had to do was figure out how best to initiate things. Everything she knew of the woman told her that she'd be happy to hear from her, so why should she be nervous? Maybe it was some kind of transference from her mother's feelings. Her mother… She deserved to get her cousin back. The parent part remained undetermined, but Betsy had made all the difference between fifteen-year-old Katy having a stable home when she'd reached New York and possibly ending up somewhere far, far worse. More than that, the three years they'd spent living together, from all her mother had told her, had been some of the best in her life.

"Wear Your Colors, this is Betsy, how can I help you?" a woman's voice answered her call, and the tone in her voice made Maya feel as though, had she called as an actual customer, she would have had a really good experience. She'd browsed through the site for a while before actually making the call, out of the need to calm her nerves, maybe she'd put in an order later… "Hello?" Betsy's voice sounded, making Maya realize she'd been contemplating quietly, leaving the woman to wait.

"Sorry, I… uh… You're not too busy right now, are you?"

"No, not at all, go ahead," Betsy replied. Maya took a breath.

"My name is Maya, my… my mother is Katy, your cousin…" She didn't know what to say next, but then she could hear a weighted silence, like her words had sucked the breath out of the woman on the line. Naturally, she'd be shocked. "I hope it's okay that I called…"

"Y-yes, yes, of course, I… I'm sorry, I… Hello…" the woman's voice broke from surprise into a happy laugh, and it helped Maya to relax, to refocus herself on what she'd set out to do.

"Hello," she replied. "My mother told me about you… when I was growing up. The way she talks about you, I already feel like I know you a little. She told me how much she wished she'd reached out to you again, over the years. She could never work up the courage."

"I figured that might have been… or I hoped, if that can even be the right way to… I knew she had a baby, I saw her once, but I couldn't get to her. That was you?" Betsy asked. Maya confirmed that it was. "Where are you? You're not in New York, are you?"

"Uh, no, we lived there until I was thirteen. We've been in Texas since then, in Austin," Maya told her. She almost asked 'how about you' even though she knew, from having tracked down her business and called her, that she was in Boston.

"Could you hold on a second? Just a minute or two?" Betsy asked.

Maya agreed, and so she waited, quietly pacing the floor. She could just feel her heart drumming, thinking of her mother, and what she would get to tell her… She didn't know yet how this would all shape up in the end, but she could get Katy her favorite cousin back, and that was already a wonderful start. Please let it only be the start…

"Hi, Maya, I'm back," Betsy came back on the line, and she stopped pacing. "Listen, I'm flying out, in a little over a week, going back to your mother's and my hometown…"

"I know," Maya replied before she could stop herself, so she had to explain about how she'd tracked her down and, at the same time, discovered the party for her grandparents' anniversary.

"Right," Betsy breathed. "I was wondering if you would be alright with me making a detour to Texas, to see you. I'm just thinking, for my part, I would like to have this conversation in person…"

"I would, too," Maya tried not to sound too eager.

"That's good… Then I'll be there."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners