December 9th 2022

Chapter 187
Three School Dropoff

There was little use for an alarm clock in their room on the first day of school, not with two baby boys moving and kicking as they did inside their mother's belly bright and early that morning, letting her and their father feel them, waking them both.

"You know what this is starting to feel like?" Maya asked as she watched his hand follow the motion where he'd find it.

"Tag team?" Lucas guessed, and the sigh of sheer… preemptive exhaustion… made him chuckle into her shoulder. "We've got this," he promised. "Or we will have this, once they're here."

"I'm putting this on you, by the way," she pointed her finger up and back toward him.

"By all means," he went on laughing. "Just what exactly am I being blamed for though?"

"Oh, I think you know…" she whispered. Lucas didn't even need to see her face for it to make him work overtime to keep it together. He did know. His infamous proclamation, made for the first time back when her belly was much smaller and held not twins but one tiny little bee.

What, you don't want to be surrounded by seven tall sons?

Now here they were, less than a handful of years later, just three or so months away from clocking in with numbers four and five. It was still much too early to even approach the question of whether or not these two would be the last or if they'd keep going, but either way it was and would continue to be up to her.

"Some would call it… efficient?" Lucas suggested, and she snorted before moving to turn herself on to her back and sitting up.

"Is that what we're going to call it?" she asked, and he shrugged innocently, even as her eyes cut past him as she spotted movement across the hall. Ava was up, out of bed and looking like she wasn't sure if she could step out as it would reveal her for having been listening in. "Hey," she greeted her with a smile while Lucas looked over his shoulder and saw her, too. "Good morning." Ava came up to their doorway.

"Have you been awake long?" Lucas asked her.

"Just a bit," she shrugged. "I picked out my clothes for today… checked my bag… took care of my plants…" It was as good as her telling them that she'd had trouble sleeping. Seeing as she'd said goodbye to her father for the next however many weeks, they could hardly blame her.

"I'm going to go see what the boys are up to back there," Lucas got up and moved past her, giving her shoulder a tap as he went. With him gone, Maya motioned to Ava, and she came dashing over, climbing up to sit across from her. She offered her hands out, palms up, and Ava clasped them with her own. "Can you promise me one thing?" she asked.

"What?" Ava asked.

"If things get bad at school, today, tomorrow, any day, I want you to promise that you will call us if you need us, okay? Me or Lucas, both, you've got all those numbers and you should use them if you need them. Are we on?"

"I promise."

It was a good thing that Lucas found all three boys awake and out of bed when he went to check on them. This was the first morning with almost all of them headed somewhere different from the others. Lucas was off to the office with his father, Maya to the middle school to teach, Ava and Elliott to the elementary school for fifth grade and kindergarten, Noah to preschool, and Jamie to his Granny Mel's. It wasn't going to be like this every day, as it just so happened that the senior Friars were unavailable to watch Jamie today, and of course in a few weeks Maya would go on leave… But today was the big rush to get everyone fed, dressed, loaded in the minivan, and of to their respective destinations.

They'd wanted to drop Jamie off first, but that wasn't going to work, no. That was his word: no. He knew the rest of them were going to all those other places, and he wanted to go there, too, everywhere. So, they changed the plan. It was fine. Lucas was doing all the drop-offs; he could take the nearly two-year-old off to his grandmother's last of all. This was good, actually, right? Because then it was off to the preschool for Noah, and he was being a grumpy one this morning, too, over not having his brother with him. They'd been sure that having Caitlin there with him still would be enough to make the fact that his big brother had moved on to a new school feel like less of a bummer, but then as soon as they'd all started getting ready that morning and it had really sunk in, it had been pouts and a big furrow in that four-year-old brow.

"Hey, Bee, look who it is," Lucas told the boy as they pulled into the parking lot and he spotted the Olsens' car not far off. Nope, no joy. "Alright…" Lucas sighed, he and Maya exchanging a look. What were they supposed to do except take him anyway, right?

"Hey, big car cheer for Noah, yeah?" Maya suggested, looking to the kids in the back. It wasn't a thing of theirs, not yet, but it was right there in the name, right? Elliott, Jamie, and Ava all gave it their most, whooping and calling out for Noah, Lucas and Maya joining them until there was enough noise in the car that it might have moved on its own. Whoever was in the parking lot in that moment was definitely hearing them. More importantly, it was startling and just silly enough to knock Noah's spirits back somewhere that allowed him to laugh and make noise with them.

"Come on, Noah, I can walk you there," Elliott told his little brother.

"Me, too," Ava smiled.

"Me, too!" Jamie shouted, not done with the car cheer. The others jumped, then laughed. Now they could go.

There were too many hands there for him to hold them all, but the others graciously stood back, leaving Elliott and Jamie the honor of walking their brother into class. There were a lot of hugs, but there was not a hint of that trembling lip, and that was all they could ask for. One down, now on to the next.

It was a short drive from the preschool to the elementary school, enough that they might have left the minivan and walked there and back, but they were on the clock, so it was back on the road, one lot left for another so they could get two more kids off to class. There wasn't any kind of low spirit about this one, but still when the minivan stopped, Jamie raised his hands and called to his mother.

"Yeah, tadpole?" she asked.

"I cheer now?" he asked back. Maya hesitated, looked from him to Elliott and Ava, to Lucas, then back to him.

"Sure," she smirked.

Maybe they hadn't needed it, but it never hurt to have an extra dose of cheer, right? Back out of the minivan they all went, Jamie now playing escort to the pair heading into this school.

"They're not the ones emotional about this, are they?" Lucas signed to Maya. She pointed at him. Don't you dare. He pressed a hand to his heart, then offered it to her. I'm right where you are.

They were hitting the kindergarten class first. They could have gone and seen to Ava first, but she wanted to be there for Elliott, too. Of the three boys, he'd been the one she'd grown closest to in the time since she'd started staying with the family, and it had less to do with his being the eldest and much more with just how much he'd been like the captain of the hospitality squad in making her feel at home with them. And now they were going to be in the same school, one she'd been attending for several years by now while it was brand new to him, so it felt only right that they swap roles and she now be the one to make sure he would be alright.

With Jamie tagging along, Ava took Elliott around the classroom that had once been hers. She remembered it very well. The trio ran this way and that for a few minutes before they finally had their goodbyes and they could get Ava where she needed to be. Jamie took her hand back up and the way she smiled at him, Maya and Lucas knew there'd been just the briefest instance of her remembering the last few weeks until he'd anchored her back to the present, to car cheers, and excited young brothers, and… school. Ava loved school, no matter how little the other kids would be part of that love. She just enjoyed learning.

Summer hadn't just been about her family problems though, and as they all walked around together, a lot of the kids noticed them go by and had these looks of surprise, and curiosity. Some of them even approached: they had been watching the ranch segments, they recognized Lucas and Ava.

"Maybe we shouldn't have gone all the way in there with her," Lucas reflected as they left the school and returned to the minivan.

"Why?" Maya asked, smiling as she took in the way Jamie sat on his shoulders, hands locked like a headband around his forehead. "We left it up to her, she wanted us to go." He nodded. True.

"It's just…" he gestured around. If they hadn't been there with her, it might have been that no one would have known anything had changed in the Nash household. Everything and everyone right where they'd always been. But it wasn't all the same, and they knew Ava enough now to know she wouldn't have wanted to pretend. This was what was going on, and her classmates may not be in any position to hear about the bad parts, but this… Why would she hide this?

"I think she'll be okay," Maya told him. He looked at her. Do you? Wherever she could feel uncertain, worried for their girl, well… She knew how to reach them.

Next stop was the middle school, Maya's stop. Now that they'd seen to the others, she could start to turn her mind to her job, her students, the returning ones and those new seventh graders, new MOMAs and Class Creatives. It still didn't feel possible that she could be kicking off her second year as a teacher. She was going to do everything in her power to be there for as long as she could. Those two boys growing in her belly might have had other ideas, but for now they were in the clear.

"Mommy?" Jamie asked when they arrived. Maya turned to look at him, then Lucas.

"There's no one around," he pointed out after checking out the rest of the lot. "Just a quick one for Mommy, okay?" he turned back to Jamie, who gave them that big smile before belting out that third car cheer of the morning. His parents soon joined him, if only so that it didn't sound like he was out here having himself a tantrum.

"That was a good one," Maya laughed when they'd all pulled it back in. Jamie laughed with her.

Never doing things halfway, the three of them went together, walking Maya into work and toward her classroom. The funniest part here was just her fellow teachers' reactions upon seeing her. It wasn't like they hadn't known about her being pregnant when the last school year had ended, but a few of them looked like they'd forgotten all about it over summer. Now here she was, her twins six months along and coming closer and closer to being born. She was four belly-feels in by the time they made it to the art room, and maybe she was starting to show signs of not wanting a fifth, because the next one who'd tried it had been stalled by Jamie with a resounding 'no!' It had been cute enough that the gym teacher had just chuckled, ruffled the boy's hair, and gone on his way.

"You're my hero," Maya had whispered at him, and he'd been very proud of that declaration.

"If you need something today…" Lucas told Maya as they stood looking on while Jamie looked at the students' art on the class walls.

"Heard," Maya promised him. "You know, if I just parked him at a desk somewhere, they wouldn't even notice," she whispered with an air of playing it cool, the better not to be 'caught.'

"Worthy theory," Lucas slowly nodded. "But I'm pretty sure my mother's got her heart set on a Granny and Grandson day, so…"

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of getting in the middle of that… Serious business," Maya showed her 'serious' face for as long as she could before they just laughed, getting Jamie's attention in the process. He came hurrying back over. "Hey, did you see what I have other there?" Maya asked, pointing to the wall space next to her desk. Jamie confirmed that he had seen it, yes.

When she'd come and checked on her class setup before today, she'd brought along a drawing from him and each of his brothers and stuck them there. Along with Lucas' apple on the board from one year ago, they were her favorite things in this room.

After one more hug here and kiss there, Mrs. Friar was left to her pre-class routine while Lucas and Jamie left the school and got back in the minivan. When he called his mother to let her know they were on their way, Melinda suggested he just make for the office. She could pick Jamie up from there. It would save him time, and she would have taken him that way anyway. That was more than fine by him. Lucas had already discovered how much he enjoyed seeing the boys around the office. It could have seemed as though it would be the last thing he wanted, having three small children in there, but then it was just him and his father and they were not ones to see those boys show up and ever feel as though they were in the way.

"Cheer now, Daddy?" Jamie asked when they arrived, and Lucas laughed.

"You know those are for special occasions, yeah?" he asked, knowing better than to leave this practice out there without some restriction. "It's just a normal day for me," he reminded his son, current youngest but soon to be middle brother. Jamie looked at him like he didn't see the difference. "Alright, fine, but…" he held up his finger before he could start shouting. "We're going to need Grandpa to get in on this first, yeah?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners