August 1st 2023

Chapter 213
We Wish For Family

When the girls had gone off to school on December 1st, their parents had known without any of them saying it, they had just been waiting and waiting for the chance to run over to their friends and tell them about the transformation their house had undergone, regardless of what side of the divide they'd landed on, those who knew the secret and those who did not. They had confirmed this belief when they'd been picked up in the afternoon. What came afterward, being several calls from their friends' parents asking if it was alright if this one or that one went home to play with the Friar girls after group day, was therefore not too surprising either. Of course, they were each of them welcome. Lucas and Maya suspected that some among them, those most Christmas-happy, were equally eager for a reason to go over and take it all in.

For now, at least, there were only children heading over to the house, and a load of them, too, enough that they couldn't have fit them all in the minivan together, which had left them to get someone else to drive the other half. It sort of went with the territory though, didn't it? As many daughters as they had, each of them with growing circles of friends, they were going to run into this problem if ever they had them all converging at once. At this point, Lucas was just waiting for the moment where the jokes between him and Maya about acquiring a bus would stop being jokes and become something they genuinely considered. At this point, he really would not be surprised.

When they all arrived and rejoined outside the house, Lucas was sure the kids would simply rush up to the house and go inside, but they couldn't, no. They were here, and they hadn't seen the inside of the house yet, no, but they could sure see the outside, and it was majestic, to all of them… magical. Lucas smiled. Seeing the wonder in their eyes would never get old, he had never been so sure. Eventually, they had to be herded toward the door, combatting against their reverence. Once they got through the door however, they found their motors again, because how else were they going to look at everything, and try and touch and hold everything?

It was great to see them all in here, sure, but Lucas' favorite part had to be when he got to see his daughters in the midst of it all. A couple of them looked almost nervous at their friends and their sisters' friends grabbing hold of some of the decorations, enough that they could accidentally break any of them. But then it would all still be pretty new to all of them, too, enough that they would forget their worries and get caught up in the playing and observing.

Marianne was a very excellent guide in that respect, whether or not because she was the eldest among them. Lucas would be drawn to record the whole scene, to show it to Carson as he'd call it a very good imitation of the old man, even as he knew that, if she was standing next to him, Maya would claim that the merit instead went to another (former) tour guide. It wasn't as though he couldn't see it, but how exactly would that work when he hadn't been a museum guide since long before any of their girls were born?

While he was in the living room – and eventually upstairs – with the girls, Maya was in the kitchen, seeing to dinner. They always found a way to split who did dinner on any night, whether it was one of them or the other or both at once. With something like this however, Lucas would know well to step back and leave 'the maestra' at work. She thrived in dinner prep where the vast majority of people around the table were children, and so she worked on her own at first, until her sisters came and started helping without prompt. It wasn't as though she wouldn't accept help from them, or from anyone else, and once they'd be there, they'd all be hard to turn away. With her sisters as with the others, there were always perks, and for Nellie and Gracie, it was getting to make up for lost time. That was still what it was about after all this time, wasn't it? They had not gotten to grow up together, the three of them, not with Maya heading out to college while the twins were still toddlers, and it would likely be this thing they all regretted for as long as they lived. It didn't mean they couldn't do their very best to try and fill in the gaps.

They stood together like that, three sisters making dinner for a pack of children and a few adults, and the twins told their big sister about their day, classes, work, all of it. The longer time went on with them in college, they had to think about how they were getting closer and closer to the point where they would have to make something of their studies. They would both speak as though they had it covered, but it really all remained to be seen.

After dinner, as much as they would all have liked to talk themselves into a spontaneous sleepover, it was time for all the kids without the surname Friar – or Hart-Lane – to be taken on home, and Lucas took on the task, leaving Maya and her siblings to see to the evening routine, with bath times and PJs not far ahead in their futures.

Riding along with his daughters' friends, Lucas could sort of feel their presence in their friends, or maybe it was the other way around. He'd see them do something, or say something, and it would remind him of something he'd seen or heard his girls do. They all influenced one another and, Lucas was glad to say, it was a great influence all around. It made him think about stories he'd heard over the years, from his father, from his mother… stories of how he and his friends had been together, at those ages. He knew how good his friends had been to him, and still were to this day. All he could hope now was that, whatever legacy these children had on his daughters, and the same in reverse, it would be as near to as impactful as his friends had been to him.

"Mommy?" Aubrey tapped at her mother's leg, back in her room, as she stood just within touching distance of her while her Aunt Gracie brushed her hair and made it shine gold.

"Aubrey?" Maya replied, matching her tone, inevitably, to see the puzzled look on her face. "What can I do for you?" she finally asked, and after a moment to think again, Aubrey remembered and asked her question.

"When's Finny going to come live with us?" she asked, getting both her mother and her uncle looking at her with curious smiles.

"What do you mean? He already lives with us," Maya reminded her.

"No, he don't," Aubrey innocently persisted, and after a moment to reflect and feed the query through their three-year-old translation, the answer presented itself.

"You mean in here? In your room?" she asked, and Aubrey's smile and nod said it all. "Well…" Maya hesitated, looking over to her brother.

Neither one of them wanted to disappoint her, but the answer kind of boiled down to 'he wouldn't.' He was still little, and perfect where he was, upstairs in the room he shared with Wyatt. And even when he'd get bigger, well… They'd do none of the kids any good by suggesting that they would all keep living together and that Wyatt and Finneas wouldn't sooner or later move out, the two of them together and away from the rest of them. They'd all still see each other, naturally, they were family, but… They'd all started growing up together, and they would be split up in due time… Weren't they all just trying to make up for something like that?

"Well, it's your sisters' room and yours," Maya slowly pointed out, feeling that Aubrey and the others would find it more than easy to circumvent this bit of logic.

As Maya and her siblings tried to work their way out of the corner that they'd backed themselves into, Lucas returned home to find someone waiting for him in the living room.

"All ready for bed, are you?" Lucas asked his firstborn. She looked at him from where she'd been casually rearranging the decorations that had been moved earlier.

"Yup," Marianne confirmed. Her hair was regaining some length since her big cut. She was still a long way away from where she'd been when she'd taken up the scissors, but it already made her look more and more like what she used to look like, but also not. No matter what, she just kept looking more and more grown, even if he would always see his baby girl in that face of hers.

"Do you want me to read you a bedtime story?" he asked, teasing but also very serious, as she would understand in his tone. Her response was to hurry over and plop on the couch, inviting him to join her and at the same time calling forth Yankee and Liberty. The two dogs sat eagerly, entirely unbothered at the prospect of anyone joining them. Lucy smiled and went to sit with his daughter and their New York dogs. "You wanted a story near the Christmas tree, didn't you?" Lucas guessed, and Marianne readily nodded. "Alright, but a short one, yeah?"

"Not too short though?" Marianne asked, holding the dogs near, which worked for all parties involved.

"Two minutes?" Lucas offered.

"Two?" Marianne repeated, her tone plainly saying 'no way, that's too short.'

"What's your offer?" Lucas challenged. Marianne held up both hands, all ten fingers out. He laughed. "Try again."

They got it down to five minutes, and when that was done, as borderline sleepy as she was left, Marianne gave her father a good hug and kiss good night and went up the stairs, the dogs on her trail.

Lucas figured it would be as good of a time as any to start and turn things off, do what needed to be done before they all went to bed. Yes, it was Friday night, but they had the weekend ahead of them, him and Maya and the kids together, so even if they weren't going straight to bed, too, they wouldn't be staying up much longer…

He wasn't so far off from the door, and maybe that was why there was a knock at the door instead of a doorbell's ring. Maybe he'd been seen, standing there. Either way, he was naturally cautious as he went up to see what it was, for more reasons than he could say. And he might have dismissed the whole thing when he peered through the curtain and saw no one on the doorstep, except… there was something there, and he wasn't sure what convinced him to do it, but he opened the door and looked to see what it was.

What it was… Lucas found a medium sized box, open at the top and filled with blankets… not just blankets. He saw a small hand first, peeking out into view, tiny, tiny fingers moving, and as the sight connected with his mind like lightning, he heard the fussing sounds that were unmistakable. He crouched and pulled the top blanket back, breaking open the space left to allow for breath and revealing the baby asleep within and now starting to wake. Lucas could do nothing except lift him up at once and hold him close. It wasn't that cold, but this child looked like he couldn't have been more than days old.

In fact, as the note that was left beneath him revealed, he had been born one day prior, the first of December, that and one more thing.

His name is Ezra.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners