July 20th 2023

Chapter 201
We Light the House

Of the many times where one of them would state the benefits of Lucas being at the head of Sullivan Stables, Maya knew that the ones he would favor would always tie back to when he got to do something special for any of their girls. Just now, even as she was on her way to pick them up from school, she knew that her husband would already be home, hard at work to get as much done as possible before they arrived, so that they would all have a great surprise once they drove up the road.

Making the rounds wasn't so bad with all of them in one of two places. She got the little sisters from preschool first, the better for them to be right there once she got the triplets and then they tracked down their big sister on her birthday. It was always Marianne's favorite day, which wouldn't have felt like anything too out of the ordinary, this being her birthday and all, but it was really just everything, all of it at once. It was Halloween… Hallowannie… which might have been her favorite time of year even without her having been born on the last day of October, with how their family was, but they couldn't deny the fact that her being born on that day had for sure heightened their love and appreciation for the season.

Whichever way they'd ended up where they were in all this, Maya found her firstborn in just the mood she had both expected and hoped to find her. She was tripping over herself with giddiness, because she'd had a great day so far and because she knew it was only going to get better once they headed home.

Maya was very good about discreetly setting her phone up to record in the car before they made it close enough that the girls could see the house up ahead. She just had to capture their reactions for Lucas after everything he'd done to make it all as perfect as it was. She would show it all to him later. Right here and now, once they pulled up to the house and the girls could jump out and run to him, he got to be overrun with happy daughters, and that was everything he could want.

By the time their dinner guests would have arrived and everyone took their places around the table, everyone would look as they'd done when they'd arrived home save for the birthday girl herself. The costume she'd worn all day had disappeared, and she was just Marianne again, save for her bouncing pumpkin headband. It had always remained part of her tradition, and maybe it would have been written off as childish in time, except that it had been a gift from her Granny Mel, and now when she put the headband on each year, it would remind her of her soulmate of a grandmother. How could she ever not wear it now?

After dinner, she would go and put her evening costume, and the way she would move around in her seat all through the meal, there was no questioning how excited she was to go and put it on. She knew that people at her school may not have been as into the spookier side of Halloween, and she was very respectful of that, so she said, even if her parents partially suspected that what she had in mind had a lot more to do with getting to have two different costumes instead of one.

"Are you trying to catch up to me early? Is that it?" Maya was teasing Marianne, making her laugh, when the call came from below that people were starting to arrive for the games. She nearly had her new costume all done, only needed some hair and makeup work, and that was where her mother happily stepped in. The new costume involved some heeled boots, immediately adding to her already noticeable height.

"No, Mom, I'm not," she promised, though her smile told another story, one of giddy pride, and Maya couldn't keep herself from smiling back as she shook her head. Sure, if you say so. "Can I go now?"

"Yep, you're all done. Careful in the stairs, please? We didn't go to any hospital ten years ago, let's keep it that way now," Maya called after her daughter as she started up the hall again.

"Okay, I promise!"

"Had to go and skip a generation with the height there, huh, Clutterbuckets?" Maya hummed to herself as she watched her go before finally following along. She wasn't about to miss what was going on outside with her daughters, her siblings, nieces and nephews, the turtles and junior turtles, her students, and all their other guests.

As far as her daughters, for now at least, there was a departure from the house and its activities in favor of a round of trick or treating, accompanied by their father and a few others. Maya had volunteered to stay behind and look after things here, a choice that had not been made lightly, as she of course would have wanted to go with the girls. She didn't worry too much, knowing full well that Lucas would be diligent in his immortalization of the candy hunt.

In the meantime, the house would keep her pretty busy, and thank goodness that she had backup, because this might have been their busiest year yet, or near enough to it if it wasn't. The first order of business for Maya, along with making sure that there was enough candy, enough treats, and everything else that their guests would need, was the costume contest. It had all started as the means to an end, true, but it had evolved to be so much more over the years, enough that it had drawn more people to the house over time who had clearly heard about the contest first and found the games purely by chance.

"Maya!" a nearby whisper startled her and she turned to find a strange little creature she finally recognized as her little sister.

"Haley?" she blinked. She didn't remember her looking this way at school, so clearly she had a second costume, too. "What are you supposed to be?"

"It's a thing, I'll explain later," Haley brushed this off, which Maya took to mean 'I have more important things to discuss.' Having seen plenty of that from her and the rest of her siblings – not to mention her students – Maya humored her and stepped forward. "You haven't seen Rafa, have you?"

"Ra…" she started to respond, then paused. "Ah…" she nodded now. She thought the costume reminded her of something, and now she had pieced it together, much to her sister's dismay, she guessed off of Haley's sigh. It was possible that she'd hoped that her big sister wouldn't connect the dots between her new costume and the one that Rafa had worn all day being a match. "I, uh, I think I saw him with a few other sophomores, out by the maze. There, see, there he is," she raised up her hand to point, and Haley practically pounced on her to get her to lower her arm.

"Okay, okay, I see him, thank you," Haley told her before scurrying off. She tried not to make it look like she was going to see him, like she was just walking along and happened to spot him. To see his reaction to her new costume, Maya doubted that Rafa would have noticed anything else. He was giving off big 'I'm trying to keep a straight face, but my jaw keeps trying to fall.'

Deciding not to keep looking on and let whatever might happen happen between those two, Maya looked beyond. She saw plenty of familiar faces, no matter where she turned, but she was truly the happiest to spot those of her three Mamas. She hadn't done anything to nudge them into doing anything, but she was kind of glad that they'd decided to show up. They were just coming away from playing one of the games, going by the way they were holding small, stuffed toys, and some candy bags, looking like they'd just received them all. They went and they sat down together from there, and as they all looked to their prizes, Maya could have hugged them all. She'd wanted them to come because she hoped that they'd have a good time on Halloween, like any girls their age, but also there was something to the way they held the stuffed toys they'd won that was so telling of this crossroads they were coming up to, and what would happen for each of them once they made it to the point of crossing. No matter how long they all had left before their due dates, it really felt that everything would go and change as soon as the first of them delivered.

There were plenty of her freshmen around, too, which would likely go the same way it went each year with her new students. Some would be seen around the games, and the maze, all of it, just this year, and after that they'd decide they had better things to do. That was fine. There'd be just as many who would go and return from year to year. Some of them, of course, had already been here, even before freshman year. Haley had been coming most of her life, as had Madelyn, and Hunter Matthews… He was out here tonight along with a couple of others who had attended in the past, if not as frequently as he or the girls did.

Jonah Killian and Martin McNeil had both been at the Friars' Halloween with their older siblings in the past, Jonah with big sister Agnes and Martin with both Rolly and Tre. They were here now without a sister, or a brother, instead teaming up with Hunter. New friendships and old ones, too, were always to be expected as new classes came into the school, and these three had been coming up on that level since early in the year. They had dressed for the occasion and were very soon some of the front runners for the trio and group categories in the costume contest. As far as Maya was concerned, she would have given them the prize already, but she wasn't one of the judges, as usual. She would never be in charge of those decisions, for impartiality and maybe just for fun, too.

Among those who did make the choices this year, they had their two exchange campers making the rounds. It hadn't started out that way, but the idea had come across them and they'd circled back on to it enough times to finally ask Gianna and Brett whether they actually wanted to go ahead and do it. And they'd said yes. Gianna was very involved and enthusiastic throughout the process, which was no surprise. She'd look at everyone and ask after the details when they'd clearly put the work into what they'd put together. Brett, meanwhile, was making the rounds, taking notes, and notes, and more notes, but he looked like he was having a great time, so who were they to intervene? It was hard not to look at him, and see that he was enjoying himself, and think about his situation. There was so much more to him than that, and maybe it was that she was a parent, a mother, and she just couldn't imagine doing that to any of her kids, ever, but she couldn't stop thinking about his parents, and wanting to add to his pile of good memories as often as she could.

Every once in a while, Lucas would send her pictures from the trick or treaters, and she would stop and look at them each time with a great, big smile. Next year, maybe, they'd trade, and she would be with them…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners