February 22nd 2022

Chapter 53
We Begin, One By One

In the immediate days and weeks after his mother's passing, Lucas had not gone and monitored green group. He felt bad about it, but he just couldn't bring himself to be there and give the energy that those kids deserved. Everyone understood, and Dylan and Bobby had things in control, so he didn't have to worry about any of it. Once he'd started going back for half days, it had been one of the things he'd most looked forward to resuming. He had missed being out at the ranch with his daughters and seeing how much they loved everything, from story time, to visiting the horses, and the dogs, and now the arts and crafts corner, all of it with one another, and their friends, and of course with him, too. And because he'd have the little sisters with him throughout these days, they'd be at the ranch with him for group time, much to the delight of their big sisters in green and red, and their niece in blue, and just about every one of the employees they ran into. They'd been gifted with a pair of white bandannas, as though to say 'we are not old enough yet, but as soon as we are…' And you could not have seen two girls happier to own a piece of fabric.

When they went home that day, the six sisters were given the wonderful surprise that they were first making a stop at Pappy Tom's house to pick up their grandfather and bring him back with them over dinner. Oh, they were so excited! They had not seen nearly as much of the man in recent times, and they treasured the times when they did more than they knew how to say.

"No, hey, stay here, okay? I need you to watch them," Lucas told Marianne when he saw her reach for her buckle as soon as they'd stopped. He nodded to the other girls, who were either staring out at the house like they could spot their grandfather already or were busy playing with their new bandanna. Marianne looked disappointed for a moment, but finally she nodded. He knew that she'd been much more aware of Thomas' state since her grandmother had died, aware and so understandably concerned, but he wasn't sure she understood exactly how bad it had been getting… because he and Maya had done their best to shield her from it, her, and her sisters.

It wasn't as though the house was wrecked or even very unclean, but then you had to look at it from the story it told. Thomas hadn't been working for the last month and, while he spent the vast majority of his time inside this house, he had his zones: the kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room couch. He hadn't slept in his own bed since the last night he'd spent in it with his wife. Lucas remembered when he'd been a kid and his Nana Susannah had died. Pappy Joe had gone through a similar… estrangement from his bed and the room that would one day be his grandson's. He'd never gone back to it. For all the years he'd still lived at home after Susannah, he'd slept down the hall, in the room that was now Marianne, Mackenzie, and Aubrey's room. He would joke that it was practical, being the room across from the toilet, but they knew better.

They didn't know yet whether his son, in his grief, would adopt the couch from here on out, or claim one of the other rooms upstairs, or finally choose to return to his and Melinda's bed. All they knew, for now, was that Thomas' world had shrunk down very much, and for that the rest of the house had been left to the dust. It all felt so unlike the home that he and Melinda had kept up together. They'd cooked together, cleaned together, and in her absence, he found it near impossible to do any of it. His meals were the very simplest things, if not already made and needing heat or ordered in. The dishes didn't always make it back to the kitchen, and the trash didn't always make it out to the curb. Some of them had been out there to try and help, just a bit, but they never got it done completely. He would tell them not to bother before long, to leave it alone, so they would.

Lucas found his father sitting on the couch, waiting for him. One thing could be said, whenever it'd be time to go and visit his son and his family: he would prepare, clean himself up until he was a near semblance of his old self. He'd lost just a bit of weight, enough to be noticeable, and he'd let his beard grow in further than Lucas ever recalled him having. When they got out of the house and the girls saw him coming, they were cheering with anticipation, and it gave Lucas something like relief to see how his father's face brightened for seeing them, too. He made sure to go into the back of the minivan and give each of them a little scratchy kiss before climbing into the front passenger seat with his son.

When Maya came home, after sitting in on that first joint session of the cheerleaders' rescue, she was met by her husband coming out to join her. He had a strange look on his face, which she could only identify as some mix between surprise and deep thought.

"Been thinking about you all day," she told him as she embraced him. The way his arms closed around her she could already guess the feeling was mutual. She didn't have to say more for him to understand that this was in relation to the one month anniversary for his mother. "How's it going in there?" she nodded to the house. From out where they stood, she could hear the piano, a slow, simple tune being played, over and over.

"I need to talk to you about something," Lucas brought her to stand near the porch seat.

"Okay?" she asked, unsure where this was going. He had determination on his face even as it felt just a bit hollow. She'd soon understand how it came from a place that read like 'I wish I didn't have to think about this, but I have no choice.'

"I was thinking… maybe it would be a good idea if my father came to live with us," he told her. She let out a breath. She wasn't surprised; part of her had been thinking the same thing, or at least she'd long figured that the possibility would come up. "Maybe not permanently, maybe it would just be a few weeks, or a few months, or…" He didn't want to say 'until he gets better,' because that suggested that there would be some magical day where Thomas would 'go back to normal,' and that just wasn't possible. There was no going back for him. He would forever be this new version of himself, but at least he could discover what this life could still be for him if he wasn't all by himself a lot of the time.

"Of course, he should come," Maya told her husband, and this at least he had known would be her answer. It was the easy part. They had never turned away someone from shelter under their roof if it was needed and they could provide it. Years back, they had already hosted the elder Friars after that fire that had ripped through their kitchen. This time though... "One more person won't bust this house, especially this person. What I do have to wonder..."

"What happens if it's not just a few weeks or a few months?" Lucas filled in for her.

He'd thought about it, too. It was easy enough right now, almost convenient for everyone. They had that empty room across from Wyatt's and the guest room, too. But then, in half a year's time, they were expecting Nellie and Gracie to take that room for the next four years, and then speaking of expecting, what if they ended up hosting Alicia and the baby, too? And what if they actually went and ended up making Aubrey a big sister?

It was all so much to think about, some of it running the risk of getting ahead of themselves. Right now, they had an immediate need and an easy solution. Thomas needed support and they wished to lend it to him. The actual biggest struggle might have been getting him to accept. For all the benefits it could bring him, would he be too proud to accept?

If they wanted to talk him into it, the angle was not their concern for him as what he could bring for being among them. His granddaughters had need of him. He could be there for the little sisters, as Melinda had made it her business with great heart over the years. And as to the others... They deserved so much to make as many memories with him as possible.

"Marianne might have found herself a project to help her Pappy already," Lucas told Maya, smiling as the sounds from inside the house reminded him. At Maya's curious look, he motioned for her to follow him to look through the window.

The piano bench was lined with three small blondes in green bandannas. The taller blonde in the red bandanna was not in fact sat there playing, as her mother might have surmised. The soft little tune was being pieced together by several small hands, each with a finger hovering over one of the keys. Marianne would run this way and that, tapping one shoulder and another to indicate that the key was to be pressed, and the triplets did as told as soon as they were nudged. Even from out where they stood, they could hear that the whole routine made Kacey, Lucy, and Remy laugh.

"She informed me that she was going to show them all how to play, just her," he specified, in a tone that could only mean 'these were her exact words in this exact tone.' Maya snorted at this, but then she smiled, looking back at their daughters. "She wants to help them learn a song so they can play it for their Pappy Tom. They were all very excited to start, almost rioted on the way back here because I wasn't getting them to the piano fast enough."

"You didn't," Maya gasped like she might have said 'how dare you?' They kept looking through the window a while more. The girls seemed to be deciding together who would go one-on-one learning with Marianne. Lucy won out, though the twins both had a similar expression to them like they wished they could have been the ones to start. They stepped back anyway, and Marianne sat next to Lucy, the eight-year-old showing her four-year-old sister the basics as she remembered learning them, giving flashes of big sister Ella, who had been her chief instructor.

All three of the triplets listened with such concentration, and it was unavoidably sweet and hilarious at the same time. They felt bad for interrupting the moment, but then there were Thomas and the little sisters to consider, and Lucas especially was sure that it would only be a matter of time before they came looking for the rest of their dinner party. They wouldn't start getting into Thomas and his living situation that evening, but they hoped that, for what they saw of his interaction with his granddaughters that evening, he would not be so hard to convince of at least giving living with the young Friars a shot. They really believed that it would do him good, picking up the pieces of his life to reassemble them despite the giant Melinda-shaped hole left in it. Heaven knew they were all trying to do the exact same thing.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners