June 22nd 2023

Chapter 173
We Swim With Heart

She used to go with him, to each of his appointments. It only made sense, especially when he needed more help in his care and his recovery. The more time had gone on however, with him going back to work and doing just about everything on his own again as he used to do, it would only make him feel like he was being a burden if she had to go and take time out of her day to go with him. He would never be, not for a second, but she loved and respected him enough to hear what he wanted and know when to go with it. So, he would go on his own, and he would do his own bit of loving and respecting by turning around and appraising her of any and all details there were to share, good or bad.

He would also know that, whenever he had one of these appointments, whether she was at work or at home or anywhere else that day, she'd be waiting ever so impatiently for him to come along with that report, and so he would work very hard – safely so – to keep the wait to a minimum. Driving back, he rightly predicted that she'd be right outside the house, sitting on the porch as she waited for him. She sat scribbling with intent at what he'd soon identify as her lesson plans for the new year – for her class, for the quiz team, and the cheer squad – and some ideas for the next musical, or at least she had been up until she spotted him coming up the road, and then she just watched him draw nearer and nearer until he pulled up to the house and came to a stop.

He had very little to tell, genuinely. He was doing very well all around, probably even better than what his doctor had expected in the beginning. What remained of scars, or pain, he managed very well, enough that any discomforts or shortcomings were not all that noticeable to both the common observer and the familiar. If he ever put on a brave face, honestly, he never did so on purpose, and he could count on the likes of his wife, his father, and his two eldest daughters to call him out if he 'played the tough guy.'

While he'd been gone, the girls had been collected and brought across the road to their Hart-Lane grandparents' house. This had not been Maya's idea to begin with and instead had been the intervention of Abigail and James – and Maisie – who had swooped in to get the six of them shortly after Lucas had gone to his appointment. Without either of them needing to say a word, Maya had understood that it was their way of both giving her space to stress about Lucas and whatever information he would bring back – even if she knew deep down that all would be well – and ensuring that none of the girls would go down that path at the same time. Now that Lucas was back, he wasted no time volunteering to go and bring them home, and so he went.

It had been far from difficult for the Hart-Lanes to choose to give up their lives in Tucson in order to relocate to Austin. It was simply the way everything was flowing, all of their children ending up out there, one by one, and those who weren't there to study anymore – because they had graduated – were starting to marry and have children… This just made sense. It wasn't as though there weren't things and people that they missed from living in Arizona, Maisie especially, as she'd spent all her life there before the move, but any time they did feel those regrets, they would never be so great and overpowering that they'd start thinking that they wished they'd never come to Texas. On the contrary, their sadness would be almost immediately balanced out with thinking of what they'd gotten in return since coming to Austin, and they'd be good to go on from there.

When Lucas walked into the house across the road, formerly the Oswalds' home, the cars he spotted outside told him to expect visitors when he'd enter. What he found could have felt overwhelming to some people, but to him was really just any other day in the extended family. Sam and Dora were there along with their daughter and son, as were Cara and Mateo, their two boys, and their baby girl, and Eliza and Ben and theirs. Emma and Dakota had arrived just a few minutes before Lucas showed up, and Teddy was on his way with Priya and Lily.

All the kids – all those that could walk or crawl at any degree – were playing around together in the living room, Maisie and the Friar girls along with them, and it was a big, noisy mess just how they'd want it. Some of their parents were getting in on those games while the others sat near and looked on, amused. Seeing that Lucas had joined them, they converged on him, whether or not he was their father, and he greeted them with no distinction. They were happy to see him, and he was happy to see them. Of course, where some of them were concerned…

"How did it go? Was it okay?" Marianne asked, gripping on to his arm.

"Are you hurt, Daddy?" Aubrey squeaked, looking up at him, and he smiled down at her, at all her sisters and her cousins as well, who loved their Uncle Luke very much.

"No, no, I'm alright, I promise," he tipped his head to them, and the relief coming over them was as good as anything he could have needed to relieve any kind of pain. But he really was alright, and he hoped that they could see just how true it was, being with them.

While Lucas had gone across the road, Maya had gone around the house, up the path and through another door, this one to her studio. Inside the Hex, she came upon what was clearly the tail end of the Hexes' band practice, as the group sat in the booth, still, some of them bringing slivers of melodies out of their instruments, but mostly just talking and laughing among themselves. Olivia Zhu, Kelsey Farrell, Jenny Marshall, Ash Bell, their songwriter, Ava Nash, and to her surprise…

"Kinsey?" she blinked as her brain seemed to finally register her student's presence. It was as though she'd first seen her and gone 'ah, yes, there's Kinsey,' right before she'd also thought 'hold on a minute, she's never been in here before.' "What are you…" she started to ask, smiling like part of her brain at least had an answer already.

"I invited her," Ash revealed. The two of them had some similarities in their style, which would be something to connect them, but beyond that… well, there would be links between them, Maya supposed. Kinsey was on one of the quiz teams, and on the original team, at least until one of them had graduated, she had gotten to interact and even travel with Ash's girlfriend and one of Ash's best friends. They had only just returned from accompanying the seniors on their trip, so recently that it was the first time Maya saw them since they'd left, but it had been long enough for this invitation to be extended.

"Ash thought Kinsey might be a good fit for the band," Kelsey added with a smile. "We had been looking for someone new, and now here she is," she gestured to the soon-to-be sophomore, so proudly that it might have made the girl awkwardly blush.

"I said that waiting to pick someone that fit would be better than just trying to pick someone ourselves, and I was right," Ava tipped her head, and the others around her chuckled; they'd been hearing this a lot.

Maya was very happy to know that this match had happened, as much for the existing members of the band as for its newest addition. On the one hand, she knew that the four bandmembers and Ava had felt like something was missing since Cara had fully stepped away from their lineup, and on the other, even as she'd become involved with plenty of activities since starting her high school years, she knew how much it would mean to Kinsey to have something like this in her life, to be a part of the Hexes. And the others were right, she would be a great fit. Maya could already see it in the way they interacted with her. She couldn't wait to see their first show together, which would not be too long a wait at all. The two bands had a show the next evening, hence the day's practice, and the Hexes were planning to introduce their new member when they took to the stage.

Most of the junior band had to leave and couldn't stick around for TXNY's practice, but Ash and Kinsey sat on the two big chairs in front of the console while Maya, Riley, Nadine, Morgan, and Rosa took to the booth. Maya would look over and watch them briefly from time to time, and she was really happy for seeing them. They each had a sister they looked up to or looked out for, who was the closest person to them, but the way they interacted here while the other band practiced, it was easy to see them forging a similar bond together.

Looking at them, she would also be made to reflect, especially the moment she'd look to her own bandmates and longtime friends, how it felt at once as though so much time had passed and no time had passed at all since they had been as young as the two of them, as new to this as the two of them, when they knew how long it had been and how far from being those kids they now were. Not all of them had been part of this since they'd been in their teens, no, but either way, they were so truly fortunate to be here, to still be here together. With all their lives having evolved as they'd done, for so many years having gone by, in which they had stopped being teenagers, or in their twenties, and were now just an arm's stretch away from knocking at forty's door, there were so many ways in which TXNY could have ceased to exist. But they continued to thrive, and this was in great part because of their fans. Every performance they gave now felt like a gift of thanks, for what they had allowed the five of them to have together.

"Okay, but you know what we could do?" Rosa asked her bandmates, as they were getting ready to leave the studio. They all looked at her, never needing to speak up and ask her to go on. She turned and gestured to Maya and Morgan. "The musical."

"What musical?" they both asked at the same time.

"The school musical, whatever one you guys are going to do this year," Rosa replied. "The two of you are already doing it, sure, but the three of us," she indicated herself and Riley and Nadine, "We should get in on it, too." If she needed some indication that the rest of them were paying attention, that they saw merit in her idea, the sudden stillness in the studio said it all. "Yeah? Yeah?" she looked around, with a smile that made the others grin. As much as music had become a prominent part of her life since she'd joined the band, they knew some small part of her always wished she could have had the nerve to do something like what Maya and Morgan and their students did every year. And this was more than good enough as a compromise. Now, Rosa basically did a fist pump of victory, and the Hex quickly filled with laughter and just a bit too much smirking, thinking how the news would sit with the principal.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners