August 24th 2023

Chapter 236
We Write A New Chapter

Dear Mrs. Friar,

I was speaking with my mother earlier, and she told me about Miss Devereaux at the ranch passing away. I didn't know her well, but when my sister and I were little, she used to teach her dance lessons. She loved being out there with her so much, loved her so much. When she had to stop her lessons because she was too sick to go on, she was so sad. Miss Devereaux attended her funeral, and whenever I would run into her after that, she would stop and talk to me, and I knew she remembered my sister and missed her like we did. Even now, she'd send a card at Christmas, and it always made me smile. It's going to be strange not to get one this year. I only wish I could make it for the funeral, but I think she'd understand me not being able to fly right now.

The baby is doing well, growing right on schedule. Desmond laughs about how much research I've been doing since we found out we were pregnant, but it's all in good spirit, and you should see him saying 'so, find out anything new?' He cares just as much, and I know he will be a great father. We have been debating names. Everyone seems to assume that I'll want to give the baby my sister's name if we have a girl. It's not that I wouldn't want to do this in memory of her, but I can't help but feel like I'd be fixing my baby to a life of people putting all their missed hopes and dreams for my sister on to her. I want her to live her own life as well as remember her aunt... if she's a girl, of course.

I'm sending along some recordings from my poetry readings. I've been told that I have a very soothing voice when I do my readings, so I thought your son might enjoy them at nap time, or at night. How's he doing? I'm sure he's having a wonderful time with you and Mr. Friar and your girls. I can't believe that Marianne is ten already. I still hear her voice when she was little and I'd go to your house with the quiz team. It feels like it was only yesterday, but it really wasn't, was it? Here I am, married, about to be a mother, and your family seems to grow at every turn. I think about how I might not be here, with the life I have now, if it wasn't for you, and being in the quiz team, and your class. You encouraged me and my poetry, which I might never have pursued otherwise. And if I hadn't pursued it, I might never have met Desmond, and I might not have this little one, growing in my belly and kicking its little feet.

Please give everyone a big hug from me,
Rosemary Adewumi

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Dear Rosemary,

First of all, I wanted to thank you for your words on Donna Devereaux. Her loss has affected many of us around here, the family here and out at the ranch most of all, naturally, but it is good to remember that her reach went far beyond. For my part, I have heard Donna talk about your sister now and then, and she remembered her so fondly that it might be believed that they had known one another for years and years. Don't you worry about missing the funeral. I would feel confident in saying that Donna would never have wanted you to get on a plane, so close to the end of this pregnancy. You're better off right where you are.

As to your name situation, in the end, the choice will be yours and Desmond's. I have done my own bit of naming in memory of lost loved ones, though our circumstances could hardly be called similar. As soon as we knew that our first baby was going to be a girl, Lucas and I had our minds made up that she would be called Marianne, after Lucas' maternal grandmother. He had loved her so much, and he missed her just as much if not more, and in using her name, he could honor and acknowledge the role she played in his childhood and his life. Now as to you and your baby, if she should end up being a girl, you'll have to decide if she will be hindered enough by the name not to receive it or if having that connection to your big sister will add another layer to the bond you'll have with your child. Deep down, I'm sure you know the answer already, but it might be that you need to wait, to hold that baby in your arms and see its face to know what name is the right name.

Sometimes I do get caught up on another name, on my son's name. It's about the only thing that his birth parents gave him before they brought him to us. And I can't help but wonder, when I think about that note they left with him, the name they gave him, if it might have belonged to someone else before or if it was picked out only because they liked the way it sounded. It's something for us to consider and explore, isn't it? There's nothing else for us to do right now except to keep our ears and minds open and hope that something will connect.

In the meantime, I look forward to getting news about you and your baby, whatever name you finally decide on. Thank you so much for your recordings. I've played them for Ezra, for the girls, too, and I can confirm that your voice has lulled them all to sleep. They might do the trick for the adult set, too.

Take care, and much love to you, to Desmond, and to your unborn child as yet unnamed.
All the best,
Mrs. Maya Friar

X

Sullivan Stables had not been the same without Donna Devereaux. It wasn't as though they were falling apart, no, but they could feel that something was missing, enough that it felt as though they'd fallen into this alternate dimension, a different universe that for the most part looked and sounded like their world but at the same time just screamed of wrongness. She wasn't there… She wasn't there, and that was as wrong as wrong could get. Nothing had prepared them, nothing could have, could it? She'd always said that she would be at the ranch until the end, and she'd been right… of course, she'd been right.

Everyone was dealing with the loss in their own way. Lucas would see it, when he'd be out there with one or both of the boys, and it would take them from one corner of the property to the other, talking to everyone, interacting with this part or that one of the ranch, and maybe that was just his way of coping, but really what it felt like to him was not so much coping as it was him trying to make sure that everyone else did their bit of coping. That was just his way, wasn't it? He'd long had this approach of 'them before me,' and he could see it as faulty, but also he didn't want to. That was who he was, and he was proud of it here. It presented him with a reality that he truly could not ignore. He had been home since December, looking after Ezra, as well he should have, and it was his intent to continue looking after his son this way for a while longer, but now, after losing Donna…

"I need to go back to work," he told Maya one night. She was holding Mackenzie, finally asleep after an unfortunate bit of indigestion, rubbing at her back and seeing to it that she went on sleeping, and then there was this statement to catch her off guard. "I'll still bring Ezra with me, and Finn when Wyatt needs me to take him, but I'm going to go back to doing things like before, the rounds, all of it. I need to be out there right now, you know?"

"Yeah… Yeah, I do," she hummed and sighed, smiled. "Where else would you be right now?" she wondered, and he moved up to press a kiss at her forehead before moving down to do the same for their daughter. She mumbled something that sounded very much like 'daddy,' and Maya snorted before passing her over. Clearly, she knew what she was after, even in sleep, and who would they be to stand in her way? Mackenzie held on to her father like no matter how deep under she was, she would always know when he was holding her, and that would be where she'd want to be, always.

The next morning, after going through their morning routine at home, Lucas set off for Sullivan Stables, just him and Ezra this time around. It would make things easier for this part at least, not that it would be particularly difficult, but it would be a lot harder to focus on setting things in motion for his return if he had to keep track of the boy who was crawling awfully close to his second birthday already. It wasn't as though tending to a three-month-old was a breeze either, but there were for sure more opportunities for quiet, for getting things done that needed doing. Lucas had people to see, things to talk over, and he did a lot of this with the baby stuck to his front, which had to be a pretty amusing visual for a lot of the others, but so long as things got done, no one had anything to say on the optics for one second.

Everyone was looking forward to having him back, him and his… junior assistant, as they would affectionately call Ezra. He mostly slept through his new accolades, though he for sure started to wake up as they ended up at the stables. It was kind of hard to sleep through a horse being so overtly curious at one's presence, especially if it happened again and again. Some of the horses already knew Ezra… sort of, and they would be excited at recognizing him.

When it came time to do anything a bit more hands on, of course, he had plenty of people eager and willing to hold Ezra so he'd be able to get things done. He knew that he'd never have to worry, that there would always be ways to ensure that he got to look after his son and do his job at the same time.

If time permitted – and he would be best placed of all to find if that was the case – they would give as much of their time as they could give toward just being at the ranch, taking it all in, as they had so often done already over the past couple of months. Their favorite thing to do would be to go on walks, and they did that, too, just the two of them. A lot of the claims that he and Maya made on what their baby boy did or didn't like stemmed from interpretation, extrapolation, and that was more than fine. Right here, the assumption went that Ezra was at his most wakeful when he and his father were on their 'walks of the land.' His little eyes would be open wide and looking at everything around him, or so it felt to his father as he carried him along. His sisters would all insist high and low that this was because he was a fairy, and the funniest part would always be that, as he passed from one month into the next, it did feel sometimes as though his ears had a slight sharpness, a point that was really sort of… elfin…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners