July 1st 2023

Chapter 216
If They Only Knew the Joy

From day one, from the moment she'd looked at those tests and seen that they were positive, she'd known that any grace period she'd be afforded with regards to morning sickness – or any time of the day sickness – would more than likely come to an end. It was possible that she might be spared any of it, sure, but she knew better than to expect as much, and she was proven correct after four blissful days of nothing. The fifth morning, she was sent sprinting to the bathroom almost as soon as she woke up. Lucas hadn't been awake yet himself, but her rush to rise pulled him instantly from his sleep. He sat up before his brain could catch up with what was going on, but once it did, he hurried to follow after her at once. He stubbed his toe on the way out and swallowed down the cry of pain, walking and shaking out his foot at the same time.

They had both dealt with the sickness enough times by now, on one side or the other of the event, that it was all deeply familiar to them. It was horrible, for Maya especially, but they had dealt with it, and they knew it would – hopefully – be something they'd have to deal with only for a time, and then it would be over. This part still sucked. Lucas stuck by Maya through the aftermath until she insisted that she'd be alright and that he should go and see how the boys were doing, get breakfast started… He never liked to leave her like this, but if she said he could go…

She knew that he hated seeing her like this, that he felt that he should be helping her but couldn't. She also knew that he understood, underneath all of this, that she'd do better having a couple minutes to herself. She brushed her teeth, got every hint of the bad taste out of her mouth, washed her face, looked at herself…Well, she'd certainly looked worse before, dealing with morning sickness, so she had that going for her at least, right?

When she heard the door creak open, she was startled, even more so as she saw that it wasn't Lucas, or the boys. It was Ava, her Sweetpea, and she had a look to her like she'd come hurrying up the stairs but now had been unsure of what she'd find… They both stood there for a moment, looking at each other, not moving, not speaking. Ava's eyes took in the scene, and her mother, and before Maya could say or do anything, there was a flash of understanding in the girl's face that couldn't be taken back, not now.

"Mama?" she asked, taking one step forward. There was no point pretending, was there? Anyway, she had been dying to tell those closest to her, and Ava… Ava was as close as they got.

"Yeah…" she smiled, and that smile evolved into a laugh as her daughter gave a happy hop and moved up to hug her. Maya hugged her back, feeling her spirits raised just for having her daughter in her arms. "This stays between us, swear?" she asked once they pulled away, and Ava held out her pinky at once. It reminded Maya of her saying how she'd never really known that those were a thing, not until she'd ready about it in a novel, and she'd sort of sat there for a few minutes, trying it out by herself. Ava looked at her with this smile like she knew that her mother was remembering, and so she'd know how much it meant to her, how much she could absolutely count on her word.

"I bet I can find something to help you, for when you get sick like that," Ava declared with confidence, which made Maya chuckle.

"If anyone could, I'd put my money on you," she told her daughter, making her smile. "After four pregnancies, now a fifth, I think I've got it covered, but let me know what you find, yeah? I've probably tried most of it… I'll spare you the details."

"You don't have to," Ava insisted. "I mean, some things do make me kind of… squeamish," she admitted. "But I want to help, and no one knows except Dad, right?"

"Right," Maya had to admit.

"Good, so… tell me all of it," Ava nodded, and Maya could only hug her a second time.

"I promise I'll try and keep you updated. But for your sake, right now, maybe I should wait to get into it. Would be a shame to ruin a perfectly good breakfast for you…"

As the week progressed, Maya had to say that she was kind of glad to have Ava on team secret. She was excellent at redirecting her brothers when anything came up, especially in the mornings. She'd made up this entire game that required for Elliott, Noah, and Jamie to sleep in the basement, in her room, which was immensely helpful in making it so that none of them saw their mother get sick and either worry for her or figure out her secret. It wasn't as though it would have been bad if they knew, but they could so easily go and blab about it, so it was better if they were kept in the dark.

It helped a lot more than they could say, having that barrier in the mornings. Once, they'd come very close to having it all come out, as Noah had come up from the basement and to the first floor, seeking one of his toys. The whole attempt of keeping him from knowing what was going on in the bathroom could have been a whole comedy act if it wasn't that Maya felt like the very opposite of a comedian. Ava had eventually come seeking out her younger brother and redirected him downstairs, sounding like she'd inadvertently allowed one of her chickens to get away and she'd come to redirect him to the others where he belonged.

The good thing at least was that, given enough days, as strange as it sounded, it would get easier for Maya to make it through her 'morning run' and bounce back. Was she hoping for this to be one where the sickness would work itself out in record time? Oh, very much so, yes, but that hadn't happened yet, and until it did, they'd just thank their Sweetpea and the innocence of small boys.

Once she'd get through the home part of her mornings, the school part didn't exactly make things better. The building was like an obstacle course as she'd try to keep herself from encountering some scent or another that would churn her stomach. After four previous experiences, she'd been forced to conclude that she just had a very sensitive system when it came to early pregnancy and nausea… Even the word was enough to send her teetering on the edge. But she had to keep powering forward, and so she did.

Her classes had more than enough in them to keep her distracted from whatever might make her queasy next. The big subject nowadays, wherever she turned, was Halloween. It started before classes even did, as she'd have Stevie and Ashleigh come into her room and immediately go digging at markers, like they owned the place and pulled out their sketches for their costumes. Maya didn't mind, not if it was all for some artistic purpose anyway, and especially if it brought two new friends closer together. For what she saw of their plans, they were advancing quickly and looked very ambitious.

She got more of it in second period. There her attention would be deeply focused on one pair of students, Cade Foster, and Joy Augustin. As far as she'd been able to figure out, neither one of them had ever properly gone out for Halloween, done the costumes and whatnot. She would say that she'd never felt comfortable in any that she tried, while he… Well, he wasn't opening up and sharing anything just yet, but she could see how he would have shied away from anything like that; it wasn't so easy when he'd had no friends. But now, maybe, those two together… who knew?

In the afternoon, she was able to slot some more of her students in the 'categories of Halloween,' or at least to see if anything had changed for them since seventh grade, which… well, it usually did, at this age, didn't it? Some had been into costumes one year and suddenly found them childish, while others hadn't really seen the appeal but now, surprise, they had new ideas about it, possibly inspired by a new friend, a new crush… For Danny Arden, she suspected, it was both of those things, and both of them boiled down to Taylor Munroe, even if he did not reciprocate the second…

By the end of the day, with her last class, she'd be tired, more so than normal, which might have drawn some of the students to take note. But again… Halloween. Most of them were caught up in talks of costumes, and parties, and who was doing what, who was going where… The only ones who seemed to catch on that something was going on with her were those who knew her as more than their art teacher. Here, that was Lea, and that was Lambert. She wasn't going to be able to fool them for much longer.

Lucas was having the same thought about his father, and he didn't even have the excuse of walking around with the threat of nausea following him wherever he went. No, his issue came from a whole other trigger, if he could call it that. It came from how he had been raised, or just how he'd come up with the firm belief that he did not like to lie, and the knowledge that he was horrible at it when it came to his parents. It just felt wrong, physically wrong, if that was possible, which, with the kind of people his parents were, it probably was.

That might have made them sound like the opposite of who they were. They were just about the best people he knew in the world, they were the makers of his whole compass in life. They had made him into the man he was today, the husband and father that he was, with a wife who made him as happy to be alive and near her every day as their sons and daughter made him to get to watch them grow, to help and mold them… So how could he keep them from knowing about this newest addition to his family and theirs?

Evidently, the answer was something like 'with difficulty.' He couldn't excuse himself from the office to work at the ranch instead every single day, not without his father sooner or later either coming along to see what was keeping him busy or just joining him there, or starting to wonder if something might be wrong with his son. So, he just had to go and work from his desk, at their office, and not give himself away. Some people might have assumed this would be easy enough, but they weren't him, and they weren't sitting across from Thomas Joseph Friar each time.

Every day he got through where he was able to leave the office and know that he hadn't said more than he was supposed to, he would be relieved, but also he would wonder if, once he got home, his father would mention to his mother how their son had been acting very strange. If that happened, Lucas was almost sure that his mother would only have to be told exactly what he'd been doing she would put every last piece together, figuring out that she was about to have a seventh grandchild. He'd mentioned all this to Maya, and she would just stare at him like she was caught between a smile and a laugh, which was all he needed to see to know that he was being a very silly man, a very silly, very honest man, and she loved him for it. It would lighten his heart, and his concerns, and even if he would sink right back into them by the following morning, at least it didn't feel like a burden heavier and heavier each day.

The more days went by, he couldn't even say that escaping off to the ranch saved him from fumbling and almost spilling his secret. The people there may not have known him the way his father did, but they for sure knew him enough to be able to look at him and think, 'hey, he's being weird, isn't he?' But at least, just as Maya had it at school, he had the approach of Halloween to act as his… costume. On the one side, there was the ranch itself, which was in the midst of a transformation, with decorations going up. He was so happy that he got to be around for this part again, with how it reminded him of growing up and visiting his grandparents. His Grandpa Jax may have been the bigger Halloween nut, but his Granny Marianne had plenty to offer, too, and anything he did now, with Juliet and the others, all of it reminded him of those days. It made him happier still when he got to bring the boys around and see them get into it all as he used to do.

And then there was the series, too, and they were of course going to touch on Halloween in one of their episodes, more than one, actually. All he'd had to do was bring up the possibility of doing Halloween content and Ava was ready to go, brainstorming ideas with so much motivation that it would get him going, too. Before he'd known it, they'd had their plans, and they'd gone ahead and gotten started on preparing for both of those weeks. One would air before and the other after Halloween, the latter with elements that would only be recorded on Halloween night, but that still left plenty to do beforehand, and that was all that he needed to know, especially now as he was trying to hide this thing that his mind was clearly struggling to keep quiet.

Not unlike Maya, he was kind of relieved once Ava had found out about the secret. He could let down the mask of 'everything is very normal' that he struggled to keep snug on his face, and air out the bubbling emotions that were in his heart and mind, thinking of this new baby. There was still so much time ahead of them before he or she actually came along, and all he could think about now was just how much he looked forward to throwing his mask of secrecy away. As much as the first time… and some of the second time, too… had carried some fears and uncertainty in them, even those times had him feeling in a constant elation. More and more, it left him secure in the knowledge that he was right where he was supposed to be in life, that he had always been meant to be a father. His children, all of them, whether they'd been born of him and Maya or not, made him who he was supposed to be.

"Hey, is everything alright?" Lucas asked when Maya called him in the middle of the day.

"Everything's great, why?" she replied, and she sounded that way, so he did his best to push back his instant Dad concerns.

"Nothing, it's fine. Uh, what's up?"

"I'm at the bakery," she told him, voice muffled around something she must have eaten right as she spoke. "Are you very busy or do you want to meet me here?"

There was no debate there. Unless he had genuinely been very, very busy, he would have found a way to excuse himself and join his wife, as he did now. When he arrived, he realized that a part of him had expected to walk into chaos, catastrophe… But it was just a regular day at Friar & Olsen's. There were a few customers sitting at the tables, others standing in line at the counter, and everyone looked to be in a good mood. Halloween had touched the bakery, too, in both its décor and the products that it offered. When the girl at the register saw him, she smiled and indicated the kitchens, so he walked past her and through the swinging doors.

"So, Charlie knows now," Maya informed him, sitting on a stool by one of the workstations, eating her way through a pear bun. He wasn't sure if this was the same thing she'd been eating when she'd called him, or if it was another thing, or another bun, and if so how many had preceded it, but it didn't matter.

"You told her?" Lucas asked, wondering if he would still have all of his fingers if he tried to reach for one of the other buns sitting next to her.

"What? No, I wouldn't do that, we said not yet, and I keep my word, okay?" she pointed at him, and he held up his hands, smirking. Maya hummed, breathed in the bun. "These are so good…" she shook her head, taking another bite. "I was at school, and I thought about them, and I figured… Hey, I have a long break ahead of me, and, you know…" she vaguely gestured at herself. Lucas nodded. Yes, naturally. "Right? Right, so, I got in my car and I came here… And they are everything."

"So, when you say that Charlie knows…" Lucas slowly nodded, starting to understand.

"Look, I do what I can to keep it quiet, but this…" she gestured at and with the buns. "This is making it very hard for me to act normal, alright? And she's been through this, she knows what it's like, so… Yeah, pretty sure she knows… Sorry…" she gave a sheepish smile that was too adorable and too reminiscent of any one of their sons when they 'did an oops,' that he just laughed, lovingly so, and kissed the side of her face.

"Are you going back to school or are you good here? I can try and go sub for you…"

"Pretty sure I had a dream that went like that," Maya informed him, generously offering him one of the pear buns for his own.

"Was it suitable for a general audience?" he asked, already guessing the answer. She snorted.

"Nope, definitely not. Okay, take these away from me?" she stared at the tray, eyes taking a near ravenous glint. When he took up the tray, she followed it with her eyes. "Maybe just one more?" she asked. He turned back to look at her. "No, no, keep going, it's fine, it's good, I… I need to get out of here, yeah, that's it," she got up and marched out of the kitchen, leaving him to quickly set down the tray and follow, catching up only once he made it out on to the street, where he got hold of her hand and fell in step with her as they headed to where they'd both parked.

"So, I'm wondering something," he started, and he didn't even have to keep going.

"I guess it would make things easier if we told people," she breathed out.

"It would," he nodded, putting no pressure either way.

"Maybe not everyone, yeah? Just our people… That's a lot of people, I know, but all the more reason, yeah? We can just tell them, tell the boys…"

"And then everybody will definitely know," Lucas added, making her smile.

"Give them more credit, yeah? Did you know about your birthday present before you got it this year?" she confidently asked.

"No, I did not," he admitted.

"Well, our sons did," she beamed her proud mama smile.

"Somehow not sure that would compare to an entire human being though, you know?" he countered, which she brushed off. She had faith in their boys and their ability to keep this secret, and why should he deny it?

"Okay, so we tell them, we tell our parents, your siblings, our friends…"

"Yeah," she smiled again.

"When?" he asked as they came to a stop and turned to face each other. They had just one answer there, the same for both. They would let Halloween pass first, and then they would share their news with the people they loved.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners