May 8th 2023

Chapter 128
We Remember Days of Learning

Dear Mrs. Friar,

The other day, while Bobby and I were at your house with Gracie and Nellie, they showed us your collection of letters, the ones you've received from your students across the years. We were both amazed about how many you had and about how you still had them all. It's not as though we'd put that much thought into it until now, but I guess we hadn't figured that you'd have them all saved up the way you do. I can't speak for my brother, but when I saw those, it made me happy. It took me back to those years in your classroom, and even though I wasn't maybe the best artist out there, I always had a great time. I wanted to be there, and I wanted to create things. Thinking about all that, I figured I should go ahead and sit down, take a moment to write you and let you know how things were going for me now that I'm no longer in your classroom. I know that we see each other a lot, at your house and everything, but we don't exactly talk a lot, one on one, so here we are.

I can't stop thinking about how strange the last few years have been and how so much of that strangeness has crossed between my family and yours. There was Bobby's accident, just outside the ranch, and then what happened to Mr. Friar at the ranch, and then my mother's problems after what happened to Bobby, which I know you're aware of, and then the accident that took away the other Mrs. Friar, Mr. Friar's mother. I didn't know her well, but Gracie did, and she was so heartbroken when that happened. She told me how her and Nellie and MJ and Haley got to feel your other siblings were theirs, and how Lucas felt like a brother to them, so his parents were family to them, too. That got me thinking about how close our families have become, and how much further that could go.

It might be early to be thinking about all of that or even discussing it with anyone else, but then if I stop and ask myself in earnest, I know that I don't see myself loving anyone the way I do your sister. So, I know that when I look to my future, she's there with me, and that means that you will be, too, you and all of yours. It is kind of odd to think of your former teacher as your sister, but that would be it, wouldn't it? That might take me a while to get used to, but that's normal, right? I don't know what that would be like for you, but I want you to know that I'm looking forward to figuring it out. Nellie's been saying she'd looked at me like I was her brother ever since the days when she and Bobby had to work at the ranch because of that horse chase and fight they had, because she took one look at Gracie, and she knew what we were about. Once she said that, I knew I'd started looking at her like that, too, which was really not as weird as one might think, with her being my girlfriend's identical twin, and the same goes for Bobby with Gracie, too.

Maybe one day we'll look back on this and we won't remember what it was like for it to be new and a little odd. I'm kind of looking forward to it, and until then, I guess, I just want to say thank you for always making me feel welcome in your home.

All the best,
Ethan Davis

.

Dear Ethan,

I absolutely keep all my letters. To be honest, I think I'd just feel bad for anyone to learn that I might have thrown them out, and I know that's probably silly, but on the flip side, I think that it would make them happy, as it did you, to learn that I did keep them, that I hold on to them and cherish them. Some of them have come years after these students' graduations, have allowed me to find out who they all became after they left my classroom, and I feel so fortunate that I get to do that.

As someone who spent the better part of her formative years as an only child, I've ended up gaining more and more siblings in the years since, by this parent, and that parent, and by this stepparent and that one. And now, over the last several years, I've gained a few more through marriage as my Hart-Lane siblings have started to marry and have families, and I expect to gain a few more before everything is said and done. Now, as for you, and as for your brother, I guess you could say that you both have already been counted. It's hard not to, what with how the two of you and my sisters have been moving along over the last seven years or so. I'm very much of the 'when you know, you know' mindset, and that's how you all have always been.

So, if you're wondering if it's strange for me to look to one of my former students – two of my former students – as my brothers, officially or not, well, I already have one of them now as my son-in-law, and that's after one of them became my daughter. I guess you could say that things haven't had the same power of strangeness over me after a while. I'd be more than happy to help you bridge that gap.

Take care, and I'll see you around,
Your future sister,
Mrs. Maya Friar

X

"Are you alright?" Maya asked with a smirk as she spotted Ash and Olivia hurrying into the room where the rest of the Hexes and all of TXNY were getting ready ahead of their upcoming performance.

"Yeah, we're fine," Olivia promised, and it might have been believable if she didn't go out of her way not to make eye contact with her older sister. Maya only had to look over to Nadine to know that she didn't believe this either. She called out a few words across the room in Mandarin which, without having any proper knowledge of the language, her oldest friends could recognize on context alone, especially as Olivia turned to look at her sister and sighed in defeat. "It's nothing, okay? We thought it was something, but it wasn't, so it's not a big deal." Nadine kept staring at her. "You're turning into Mom, you know that?" Olivia gave her a look back which only made her smirk.

"We thought we'd seen Davenport out there," Ash cut in, putting the matter to rest. Everyone looked at them. "It wasn't," Ash promised. "We got up really close, definitely wasn't the principal, just a woman there to enjoy the show. We almost said we'd bring her to meet all of you so she wouldn't think we were weird."

"Oh, but we also saw this other group there, and I think they're parents?" Olivia added, now that the tale of minimal stalking had been let out. "Like, parents of kids at the high school. Looked like it was their first time out here." At this, Maya and Morgan looked to one another before turning to Olivia again.

"Show us?"

Olivia escorted them both out to where they could see into the audience and pointed to the group in question, sitting around one of the tables on the side. Maya only had to get a look at them to know that Olivia and Ash had been correct in their guesses. Those were definitely student parents, and, thanks to parent night and school activities, she knew who some of them belonged to. She spied Agnes Killian's mother, along with a man who had to be her husband as he had the sophomore's exact smile and jaw. And then she hadn't met them through parent night specifically, as their son was not in her class, but as Kip Perreault was of the musical both last year and this year, and also of the second quiz team, she had met both of his parents on a few occasions. They were joined by another couple she was not familiar with but still had a vibe to them like they and the other two couples knew one another in the same capacity. Possibly they had been classmates themselves, once upon a time, and now that they had kids in school… She wondered if the unknown couple might have had a child in the same year as Agnes' younger brother, Jonah, who was presently in the eighth grade and would be entering high school in the fall.

"Alright, let's just leave them be, come on," Maya turned, and both she and Morgan went about redirecting Olivia so that she wouldn't get any ideas.

"Hey, I just figured it'd be nice to say hi, you know? Perks of knowing you… sort of," she insisted, and if they didn't know any better, the two muses might have believed that she was digging her heels into the ground to slow them down.

This speculation was further explored as they arrived back at the room and Olivia sneezed loudly. When they stepped in, everyone looked a lot busier than they had any need to be, which suggested that they had all been huddled in and, at the sound of the sneeze, had jumped apart and into their current configuration. It could have been anything, really, but the timing suggested something more like Olivia and Ash had gone out looking for something, anything, in order to draw her out of that room, by their own idea or at the request of anyone else in the room, all of it to make it so that some matter or another having to do with her birthday could be talked about while she was gone. It was a common thing for her to see at home, at school, anywhere these days, and she had no idea whether any of them were under the assumption that she didn't know that this was what they were doing. Possibly, they were trusting that, while they wouldn't let her know what they had in mind, it wasn't so bad that she'd know they were scheming; it'd just make her smile.

"Is it time to get up there?" Riley asked her best friend, and if Maya didn't recall what her face looked like when she was trying to hide something when they'd been children, she had been given a very adequate reminder thanks to the likes of Emily and Megan Orlando.

"It's getting about that time, yeah," Maya played along.

No amount of birthday shenanigans stayed with her once they did take the stage and their show began. Well… maybe most of them went away. That night, here and there, she didn't so much think about her birthday and what her friends and family would do, but she did think about herself, and the fact that she would be turning thirty-eight years old this time around. She didn't put as much thought in the number as she thought she might, although they might re-examine this in two years' time when she'd crack into her forties. Just now, the thing she thought of the most was her children, and how she looked forward to a time when they'd all be a bit older, and it would be easier to bring them all out whenever the bands would perform. TXNY was showing no signs of slowing down, and the Hexes were only beginning… She knew Marianne already had her sights set on taking up a place on one band or the other's lineup, if not on a brand new one of her own creation. Wherever she landed, her mother firmly trusted that she would be amazing.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners