A/N: [July 3rd 2024]
September 20th 2023
Chapter 263
We Breathe As We Explore
Every bed they had at their disposal was as spacious and comfortable as the next one, and yet when they woke up the next morning, Maya and Lucas had six of their girls squeezed in between and around them. They had all come along, one after the other, and they weren't about to turn any of them away, so here they were, cozy and warm…
"Good morning," Maya whispered, smiling, as she brushed at Kacey's hair. She was the first one to wake, burrowed in against her mother. "Look," Maya indicated the windows. Kacey blinked her sleepy blue eyes, and oh, how they woke as she saw the snow falling.
She got up now, which soon got the others to start waking up, too. Some would realize that it was snowing as she did and would hurry out to go and stand at the window to have a better look, while the rest would decide that they would much rather stay under the blankets, right where they were. Lucas got up and went to collect Ezra, bringing him to the window so he could see what his sisters were seeing. He had been born on the first of December and it had been snowing, back in Austin, but he would have no memory of it. Now here he was, half a year later, and while he'd seen the stuff on the ground as they'd made their way out from their airport the day before, seeing it fall from the sky now… Oh, he was mesmerized. He touched his little hands to the glass and stared with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. He wanted to touch it, the snow, and he couldn't, not yet, but that would soon be remedied.
They rejoined the Munroe-Friars for breakfast. Everyone wanted to know how Ella was doing, now that she knew about the baby. Her morning had started with some queasiness but nothing more as of yet, and she hoped it might stay that way. She and Taylor went on to explain how, just to be absolutely sure that this wouldn't somehow have been an 'airplane fluke,' he had gone out to get a couple more tests the night before. They had been positive as well, leaving them as certain as they would ever be. It was as surreal as it would ever be, to find this thing out the way they'd done and to now be here with the knowledge. Ella was planning to spend this first day just staying at the hotel, letting the news settle. She would look after her daughter and her brother while the rest of them went out and would hear no arguments of anyone hovering over her, be they husband, parent, or well-intentioned little sister. They would all go and have fun, and she would eagerly await their stories when they got back to the hotel.
It was not what they'd had planned exactly, and the girls were especially disappointed at not having their big sisters with them, but they could at least understand why she wasn't there, and so they accepted the challenge of coming back with thrilling tales as they set off to go skiing. This was not new for all of them, but the few of them who had done it before could not say that they had done it enough times to be very good at it. They would have enough time on their vacation to maybe get better at it, so when they went back home, it might become a thing that they'd take trips where they could practice the sport some more.
On this first trip out at least, the skill levels varied, and not always due to age. As tiny as she looked out there, Aubrey was coming away as the fastest learner and she was clearly enjoying herself, cheeks rosy from the cold and high with an unbreakable smile. She quickly bonded with her instructor and looked forward to seeing the young woman again as often as possible while they were there. Both Maya and Lucas had a feeling of impending drama once they'd go home and she'd likely never see her again, but that would be a problem for later.
Mackenzie had definitely not had the best of times out there, and she was easily the most glad to return to the hotel when time came to collect Ella and the little ones for lunch. She stomped her booted feet into the lobby and went to climb on to the couch where Ella waited, holding her brother in her lap while Sunny stood before her, holding on to her knee for support.
"Hey, how was your morning?" Ella smiled, already guessing at least her little sister's answer. She reached out one arm to wrap it around her shoulders and Mackenzie immediately leaned to her.
"It was amazing!" Aubrey declared, cluelessly merry while her sister pouted. "I had skis on my boots, big like this," she stretched out her arms and Maya casually reached down to adjust the range closer to reality. "And my teacher, her name is Maria, and she's really, really nice, and I went like this…" she mimed again, moving around. "I wanna go again, again, again!"
"I'm hungry," Mackenzie mumbled, playing with the zipper on her coat.
The others got to share their own stories once they were sitting around the restaurant table, waiting for their meals. They would for sure go back later on – most of them – but for now, as they looked to the afternoon ahead of them, the plan was to try out another activity, already before they'd come across Mackenzie's immediate aversion to skiing. At least in this case they knew that she would go in with very workable skills to begin with, same as the rest of them… all but one, of course. With skates on her feet, no one was going to outpace Kacey Angela Friar.
It was the nicest place she had ever gone skating, and to look at her go, she felt like she was in a movie, or a story book… She was like some fairy princess, gliding along… If Aubrey wanted to go and ski as often as possible, this was where Kacey would want to spend the bulk of her time here. That much at least her parents had been able to predict before they'd ever left Austin. While her sisters were off chasing after one another, she was treated to her brother-in-law stepping up and offering himself as a pretend partner. She had never done pairs' skating, but she'd seen more than her fair share, and so they spent most of the afternoon coming up with a great short routine that they would eventually show Ella, when she'd make it out to watch, as she'd promised she would. Tori had designated herself the chronicler of this trip, and she'd already taken several photos and videos since leaving home, but here she skated around and recorded a lot of the 'process' of her father and little aunt's efforts, the better to later show her mother and little sister.
Maya and Lucas started things off that afternoon sitting on the sidelines and looking on. They would get out there eventually, but they had enough of a show in front of them that they were in no hurry to move. After a few minutes of looking on without speaking, Maya looked back to her husband and felt the need to say the words she'd been holding on to. She may not have had confirmation, but everything in her gut said she was right, and if she didn't let him in on it now…
"I know who his mother was," she spoke, and Lucas turned to her. His eyes were fixed on her, on the importance of what she was about to say, for them and for their son.
"You do?"
"I…" she started, paused, sighed. "Not officially, but… yeah. I'm sure of it." He nodded. "It's Agnes Killian."
"How do you know?" he asked, and she could see him try to call up the girl's face, to compare it to their boy's. So, she told him about what had happened at Stella's wedding, when she'd gone to get Ezra back from her, the way she'd reacted, and how she hadn't shown up at her last meet with the quiz team before the trip. She told him all the things she could look back on now, with this thought as a template, that seemed to fit with her having been the one to give birth to Ezra.
"I don't want to force her to talk, but she has to know that I suspect it now, and I want her to know that she doesn't have to run from me, from us… I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do about any of it."
Lucas could see what she meant. Now that she'd told him, it was almost impossible for his mind not to keep circling around the idea. He had seen plenty of this girl in the three years since she'd been in Maya's class, and on the quiz team. He'd seen her in the past several months since Ezra had come into their lives and at no time had he put the pieces together to suggest that she could be his mother. Now Maya had shared her discovery, and he kept thinking about the evidence she'd shared, kept seeing the girl's face, and his son's face, and maybe the resemblance wasn't as striking as it could be in others, especially since Ezra was still so small, but he could see it… maybe… Was he just seeing a connection because he wanted to see one?
And what would it mean that they now had this piece of information? Ezra was their son, they had adopted him, and there was no giving him back. They had the letter, the one that had been sent to Maya and him a while back, and there was nothing to suggest that Agnes would seek to get her son back, or that anyone would side with giving him to her, but… if he could know her? If she could be in his life in some way? Wouldn't that be something worth considering? She couldn't be his mother, sure, couldn't raise him. But she loved him so much, and they knew that with absolute certainty.
There was nothing to be done for it, not now, certainly not here. Once they were back in Texas, they could see what their options were, but while they were here… all they could do was quietly wonder what the future would hold for all of them and their boy.
When they'd be reunited with Ella and the little ones at dinner, the mood would be entirely balanced toward happiness, no grumpy Mackerel in sight. There were tales of the great chase around the ice, and Kacey's routine with Taylor, which would be performed for Ella the following morning…
Both Lucas and Maya were quietly caught up in their Agnes situation, and though they didn't say a word about it, they were in no way surprised to see two or three of their girls looking at them like they could sense something was up. Ella was at the top of that list, as she always was. She could pick up on her parents' concerns like no one else. She might not know what they were about every time, but she would look at them with those questions in her eyes… They might have told her about their earlier conversation, but they chose to wait. They were on vacation, all of them, and they'd had the most wonderful news of her new pregnancy… Nothing would change before they went home, so they would enjoy their trip into this other world of snow, and skis, and skates.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
