March 26th 2023

Chapter 85
We Celebrate Summer's Advance

Dear Mrs. Friar,

It feels like I keep ending up doing this with my letters to you where I'll start writing to tell you about what's going on in my life at that time, but then I'll sit back after a while and think one of two things. Either it'll feel like I worked out whatever I wanted to talk about by just putting it down on paper, or I'll read back what I wrote, and it'll feel like maybe I shouldn't send it to you. It's not like it's embarrassing, or dark, or anything like that, it's not, but maybe it just doesn't feel like something I need to be bothering you about. I know how busy you must be, and I already think that it's great that you'll correspond with those of us who write to you like this. The other day I started to think about how much those numbers have to go up from year to year, with the new kids that come to have you as their teacher, and the ones that finish high school and move on. I don't know how you keep up with it all.

See, this is the kind of thing right there that I would stop and think 'should I just scrap this one?' But I'm not going to this time because this isn't just about me. Actually, it's barely about me and a lot more about Kinsey. You might not know about this yet because I don't think she's planning to do art, but she's going to be starting high school this fall, at my old school, your school. She's nervous about it, I can tell, even if she tries not to let it show. I'm trying not to project about any of it, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with her mother. She's going down the same track I was when I was her age. I didn't want people to know that my mother was in prison, and when they did know, it was really bad, as you'll remember. Kinsey's such a good kid, and I don't want her to have it like I did back then. Tisha says it's cute how I've adopted her little sister like my little sister, too, but I never kept things from her about when I was in school, the bullies that would rough me up, so I know she's worried, too, even if she won't say it.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say, to ask, is just if you could keep an eye on her somehow. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think I needed to, for Kinsey's sake.

I hope you and your family are well. Have a good rest of your summer,

Cade Foster

.

Dear Cade,

Honestly, you can write me as often as you'd like. There's nothing too random for me. I'm always happy to hear from you and the others. The joke with my mailman is whether I finally went and started a fan club with how many times I get letters. I used to get them sent to the school, but as you'll know, I started getting them redirected to my house. Some people out there just wouldn't know how to take it with a laugh or a smile.

I didn't know that Kinsey would be at school with me, and no, she isn't one of my new freshmen this year. But now that you've told me about her, you can be sure that I'll keep an eye out for her. You should tell her to come and introduce herself sometime if she's up to it. I wish I could say that your bullies' era is behind us, but no matter how much we wish they wouldn't, new ones will usually come and take their place and it's not always so easy to get support to deal with them, but that never stops me from intervening where I can.

The family's well, some of us looking forward to school starting more than others. How are things with you and Tisha? I heard from Stevie that the two of you were looking to get a place together. Has she started going to visit her mother with you again or is it still just you and Kinsey?

I'm looking forward to your next letter as always. Much love,

Mrs. Maya Friar

x

All the Friar girls had grown up knowing about the archive, walking through its doors, visiting the exhibit, being told tales from Carson… For all that, it was rare that any of them would go up the stairs to walk through the upper half of the building, with the records in cabinets, tables for studying them, usually occupied by students of many types, younger ones, and older ones, too.

Then, a few weeks back, Lee Beaumont had taken up the initiative to recruit his granddaughter Harper and her friends and set them to help him sort through some documents that had recently been donated to the archive. The girls would be paid for their time, which had been very exciting to them and had caused them all to discuss what they planned to do with this money. Coming out on the other side of it, one of the bigger takeaways was that Marianne really got to appreciate this part of the ranch that had been there nearly all her life without her paying it much thought.

By now, when she would visit the ranch, her usual circuit – visit Truffle, look in on any of the younger horses they might have had on the property, check on their dog visitors at the retreat, say hello to her favorite people, like Donna – would often include a visit to the upper archive. More than once, Lucas had gone looking for her and found her quietly sitting at one of the tables, bent over a folder she'd pulled from one of the drawers and reading in full attentive mode. She would tell him how both Carson and Lee had impressed upon her how important it was to know the past, her past, so how fortunate was she to have all these things at her disposal? She couldn't just not go digging in.

"What did you find today?" he quietly asked. The floor would have a library vibe by its nature, which meant low voices if silence couldn't be observed, and either this or her concentration made it so that she was startled by his voice. She looked up and breathed, calmed to see it was him. She looked down and up again, giving immediate airs like she didn't want him to see what she was reading about. It was all for her to decide, and whatever it was he doubted it could be anything he wouldn't want his nearly nine-year-old daughter reading, so he wasn't going to push… but he could mess with her just a bit. "That good, huh?" he asked her, sitting across from her.

"It's interesting," she told him, sitting up straight but still covering the papers from view with her arms. If he tried to work around this – which he did, only in jest – she'd match and block him, like they might have been weaving across a soccer field… a basketball court… She didn't let him gain an inch.

"Is there anything you do want to show me?" he asked, leaving her mysterious reading alone. She quickly closed the folders, which he only managed to establish – accidentally – to go back, remarkably far, over fifty years if he saw the year correctly. From the edge of the table, she pulled up a different folder and put it in front of him before opening it. He found himself looking at a picture of his grandmother, his firstborn's namesake, with a child sitting astride the porch rail around the front of her house, a five-year-old who, especially at this age, looked almost identical to Kacey and Remy… He was staring back at his younger self, and he chuckled. Marianne held a finger to her lips; he couldn't be too loud here. He matched her and resorted to sign language. "Picture story?" he asked, and she nodded. "It's early for this month, isn't it?"

"It's summer, so we can have more," she informed him, punctuating with a perfect Maya smile.

"Right. I forgot that rule," he nodded, and she did the same before indicating the picture again. "Your mother snuck that picture in there," he informed her, and she was even more curious. "That was the day I told your great grandmother that I was going to be a veterinarian. To your mother, that's ranch history." Marianne apparently agreed with this sentiment. "In that case, we might need to get some other pictures in some of these folders," he smiled. She liked this, too.

She was looking forward to the start of school, he knew, but he was sure she also wished to lament how she would no longer be able to do some of the things she'd been able to do over summer, that or not being able to do them near as easily or often. This summer, when they hadn't all been at camp, it had been about the triplets and piano lessons most of all. They had really pushed into it, all of them together, and the results were starting to show. To some surprise – to her parents at least – Remy had been pulling ahead of her fellow triplets, showing the most natural talent. Very briefly, Kacey had fallen behind, but she'd come up alongside Lucy by now. Maya suspected that Marianne had it in mind to turn herself and her sisters into a band someday, the new 'sister band' now that the Hexes had become the 'junior band' with Ash. He'd tell her that she hoped more than suspected, and she wouldn't deny it.

"Are you ready to go or do you want to keep reading about… whatever's in there?" he asked, indicating the folders she didn't want him to see, and she looked like she'd just managed to keep herself from too obviously reaching for them.

"Can I stay?" she instead asked, and he smiled.

"Of course, you can."

He left the archive, asking Carson to call him when Marianne was ready to leave, and he had nothing to worry about. He might keep her hanging about longer still, feeding her curiosity with all the knowledge he had accumulated in him.

In the meantime, he had plenty to keep him busy elsewhere. Marianne's piano students had been left in the care of the campers, the little sisters up at the dance studio with Donna… Maya would probably still be up at the stables with Wyatt and Finneas. The siblings were of a mind that it was the perfect time to introduce the baby boy to the horses, and the horses to him. Sure, he wasn't quite two months old, but they'd brought the girls out like this even sooner, hadn't they?

He ended up making his way to join them, curious like they'd been to find out how the meeting would go. He didn't find them right when the baby and the animals had been brought together, but from what he saw now, he'd guess that it had gone well enough. Wyatt had his son strapped to his chest, and that could have been the cause for his calm, but Lucas thought it had far more to do with Finn's being the opposite of distressed around the horse. He certainly never missed an opportunity to let his displeasure known – loudly – at other times. He was good now, and his peace was mirrored in his father as he held him. He knew that by the time she went to bed that night, baby Finn's Auntie Maya would have the moment immortalized with pencil put to paper. She had a whole sketchbook full of images of him and Wyatt, and Lucas already knew that she planned to gift it to her brother when his boy turned one.

"Hey, where's Marianne?" Maya asked when she saw he'd arrived.

"Researching… Whatever it is, she didn't want me knowing," he smirked, making Maya chuckle.

"Neither of us let her know summer was the 'no homework' part of the year, did we?" she joked. Lucas hummed and nodded.

"We really should get on that."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners