February 27th 2023

Chapter 58
We Marvel As We Strive

"What do you think, do I pass?" Marie Nilsson sat back from the sign she'd been drawing up, crouched on the gym floor. Maya looked over and walked up to see.

"Oh, A+, definitely," she grinned. "Extra points for humor," she added, bringing a grin to the redhead which highlighted her freckles as much as it showed the odd streaks of paint that had found their way on to her face while she'd worked. Maya bit back a laugh and pointed this out to the sophomore girl. She turned to her sister and Miley Nilsson had no problem bursting out laughing before reaching for a rag and motioning her little sister forward so she might help.

There were several of these groups working on signs like this, the better to advertise their various fundraising efforts going toward clubs, or trips, or a cause of their choosing... They could count on a burst of these projects at least twice a year, the first usually before the holidays, and the second one now, as the month of April reared up, bringing spring and the promise that summer was getting closer and closer.

Maya loved when they got here, and totally not for how many of these events were hosted in the form of a bake sale. At home, she and Lucas had developed a code in discussing this, the better not to be cornered by a pack of small blondes who knew they had a box of goodies coming their way, and who wanted to know when it would come, as though they'd been sugar starved. It got complicated when they would end up running into any siblings or cousins or friends who were in those clubs and teams and could let it slip that bake sales were approaching.

"Mrs. Friar, is it true you're going to raffle off tickets to your musical?" Noor Kaur asked as she moved to see how the basketball teams were progressing with their signs.

"What?" Maya blinked at this, blindsided. "Who said that I was doing that?" she asked, turning to her siblings like this might have been their idea. MJ held up his hands and shook his head, while Nellie and Gracie both looked as surprised as her to hear the question.

"I don't know, I just..." Noor turned to her best friend and former foster brother, Freddie Jacek. He had no idea how to respond to this at first, but Maya could guess that Noor had heard it from him, and he had heard it from someone else... and she now had a feeling that she knew who that someone was. It could almost be funny to think how the student government, of which Freddie was a member, for the freshman class, had become like her secret pipeline to what their administration was up to.

"Alright, don't worry about it," she told Freddie before turning back to Noor. "No, there's no raffle, I'm sorry," she told her.

"It's okay," Noor insisted. "We probably couldn't have bid enough to win them, and then there'd be the flight, and a hotel..."

"You guys keep going, yeah? The signs look great. Excuse me."

"Maya?" Gracie hurried after her big sister and teacher.

"It's fine, go back there, really," she patted her little sister on the arm and smiled. Gracie didn't look like she believed her, but she did as told.

Oh, she was fuming. She went for Dylan's office and shut the door once she was inside. He looked up from whatever he'd been working at, surprised at first, and one look at her face made him flip the folder closed and sit back.

"What did she do now?"

"It's kind of alarming that you know," she noted, but he just shrugged, and she sighed. "MSC raffle."

"Oh..." he frowned.

"Yeah..." she plopped down in the chair across from him, absently picked up the squishy Green Lantern duck on his desk - a Christmas present from Nicky the year before last - and started playing around with it. "It's bad enough that she went and did this without running it by me at all, but now I have to go and nip this before it goes any further and I know it's going to be a massive headache that I don't need..."

"Who actually needs a headache?" Dylan reflected.

"Oh, her, definitely," Maya sighed. "Can I give her mine? Preemptively?" she pleaded.

"Uh..." Dylan winced, so she waved off the notion.

"Never mind. I'll take care of it. I'll bring Sam with me, that'll do it. And if I get Cara in on this, she can bring that sleepless new mom energy," she went on, finding it very easy to grin at the idea now.

"How is young Manny doing?" Dylan gladly jumped on this new topic to get away from The Bad.

"Good and cute," Maya reported, taken with new smiles at the thought of her baby nephew. She pulled out her phone, the better to show the newest record of the boy. Her favorite part was seeing how Felix was settling in his role as big brother. "He's coming around to holding him, doesn't freak out as much that he might break him, but he still prefers to help from a 'not holding' position."

"Megan was that way with Aimee," Dylan reflected with a laugh as he thought of the two youngest of his three daughters.

"Yeah," Maya laughed along, remembering how the Orlando girl would squeak and run off at the suggestion that she might be entrusted to hold her baby sister. "She came around, too." The detour was fun, but she remembered what she'd have to do, and she let out a sigh.

"You want to hold on to the duck for a while?" Dylan offered. She chuckled. She just might do that.

She didn't even want to think about what might have happened if Noor hadn't asked her about this raffle. She would have been cornered with the demand, like it was really the least that she could do for her school, never minding that those tickets – which she would have to acquire on the will of Sandra Davenport – would have been made to go beyond their going rate, and that was really not what they were about. She could see just what the principal was trying to accomplish here, and she wasn't going to let it happen.

The very next morning, the whole of the creative team behind the MSC musical descended upon the principal's office and told her that there would be no raffle. They left her no space to argue, instead listing off all the ways in which this act of hers could be turned against her. If she thought they would be pushovers, on this or anything else, then she really didn't know who she was dealing with.

"What happened? How did it go?" Morgan asked, standing in wait outside the art room when Maya returned, her siblings right behind her. She had long been keeping her eyes open over the principal's actions, and when Maya had told her what was going on, she'd been as unsurprised as she'd been furious.

"No raffle," Maya told her. "May or may not have a giveaway in the art auction," she went on to reflect, the words 'just to spite her' feeling implied underneath. Morgan laughed.

"Or at our musical premiere," she suggested, and all three siblings were more than happy to back up that plan.

"Two prize packs, one for each," Cara doubled down at that. "The tickets, round trip and accommodations..."

"Backstage passes," Sam added.

"Even better," Maya grinned.

She saw very little of the principal over the next few days, but she'd expected no less. By now she was becoming very familiar with how the woman worked, especially when she didn't get her way. She'd just go in her corner and sulk like a toddler, a comparison that didn't hold up to her so much when she thought of her own toddlers, past and present, who in her opinion were far better behaved.

Either way, a few days of less Sandra Davenport was fine by her. She got to focus on things that were much more important, like the students and their fundraisers, like the school musical. The premiere was getting closer and closer, and the anticipation rose along with it. They got to see a lot of it through the rehearsals with the cast and crew at the school, but even more so on their weekly nights at Chubbie's.

It was a tried and true tradition by now, the closer they got to premiere night, and it always brought the best out of their performers. Maya would forever recall the night this year where Gracie had taken a turn at the microphone and, overwhelmed at the thought that this would be one of the last times she did this, as a senior, was quickly joined by younger brother MJ to turn this into a duet, siblings arm in arm and barely able to keep laughter from spilling into their voices.

The bake sales landed on a group day, which made it so that Lucas was the one to pick up the girls and eventually bring them home, all save for the little sisters. They had spent the day with Pappy Tom, who had now started doing as his late wife would do, bringing Mackenzie and Aubrey out for a visit over the long afternoon breaks. They knew about the surprise already, and now they really wanted their big sisters to get home so they could see what was in the boxes in the refrigerator.

It was almost a wonder that the surprise was not spoiled until the big reveal, as intended, after dinner. But they made it, and when Marianne and the triplets saw what their mother brought out to the table, there was a great giddy uproar, all of them shifting in their seats and sitting up on their knees to see better if they were further away. Each box had been identified with their names and, as they would do, to prevent anyone grabbing more than one or two things for the night, they all opened them one at a time. Maya would do her best to cater to each of their tastes where she could, improvising for the rest. She generally picked right.

"I've got a box back there for your dad," Maya later told Lucas as they were cleaning up in the kitchen after dinner. "I should have given it to him earlier, but I completely forgot."

"I'll get it to him in the morning," Lucas assured her with a smile.

"How is your new part timer?" Maya asked, smiling back. He chuckled, nodded.

"He's doing pretty good," Lucas reported. "Wondering if I can find him some office space, something more permanent than the client rooms."

"I think he'd be up for it," Maya hummed. "He gets to spend more time with you, which is always a plus." He smiled. "Plus... The ranch has to remind him of your mom... good memories... It was part of her."

"It was... It is," Lucas agreed, finding he couldn't do much more than stand there for a moment, feeling the rush of emotions that threatened to throw him off balance day to day, like it wasn't enough to know his mother was gone, he had to feel just how badly he missed her. In a moment, he felt the stability return in him, returned by arms looped around his waist, a head pressed at his shoulder. He closed his arms around his wife, let her warmth calm the feeling of tears rising.

"I'm right here," she spoke softly, and he nodded, held her nearer. The thoughts were never quite the same, but they all seemed to boil down to how badly the world made no sense when he remembered his mother wasn't in it anymore. But then he had Maya there, he had their daughters, and they would tell him tales of their days, and he would feel better, maybe not for all time, but it'd be this much, and that'd be all he could ever want.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners