February 19th 2023
Chapter 50
We Begin to Move On
One morning, Lucas woke up and realized that it had been one month since his mother had died.
The sun hadn't started to rise, Maya still slept at his side, but the day was upon them, and that number just pounded at his head. One month… but he still felt like he hadn't caught his breath yet. As the days had turned into weeks, it had really gotten to feel like he was there, but he also wasn't, and he didn't know how to break free. Some part of him still forgot, maybe just didn't want to believe it, even now. He had lost count of how many times he'd come so very close to calling her, how many times he'd woken up in the morning, thinking she must have been out there just now, getting ready to drive over and pick up or receive her youngest granddaughters for a wonderful day with their Granny Mel.
But it had been a month… Maya had been back at work for as long as Marianne had been back at school, both of them on the Monday after the funeral, whereas he… For the past week, he'd finally started back at work, half days up to now, but he was working his way up to full days again and maybe he'd give it a try… in a few days. Right now, he didn't want to think of the milestone as an excuse to keep himself back, but he had good reasons to hold out a little longer.
He was going to quietly head downstairs, get started on lunches and breakfasts while everyone still slept, but just as he was coming out of the room and turning to pull the door shut again, he spotted just the hint of a little human peeking out of the door at the end of the hall. At that height, there was no one else.
"Good morning," he whispered, crouching enough that she'd be encouraged to run to him, and she did, right into his arms. He brushed dishevelled hair from his youngest daughter's face and kissed it as she clung to him. "It's a little early, isn't it? Did you sleep okay, Lucky?"
"Yeah, yeah," Aubrey nodded, and that little smile on her, even in the low morning light, it anchored him to the world, and he only wished he could tell what it meant to him at a time like this.
"How come you're up then? Do you need to go? Or did you go already?" he asked, checking her out without missing a beat even as she shook her head. "No, not that, huh? Did you just miss your old man?"
"Yeah, yeah," she repeated, smiling again, and he laughed.
"Missed you, too. Anyone else awake back there?" he asked, but she shook her head. "Alright, just you and me then, come on," he brought her to the top of the stairs.
"Wait!" Aubrey told him at once, turning to press her hands at his chest, like that would be enough to make him stop. Her voice had done the job, but she didn't have to know that.
"You want me to put you down?" he guessed, and she nodded. "Alright, hold on though, okay?" he told her as he set her on her feet. She started on her way down, and she was confident as she went, maybe a little too confident for her father as he trailed behind her, but she didn't stumble, and soon he guessed that it was less about confidence and a lot more about purpose. She was going somewhere. That place was at the landing, halfway down, where she stopped and turned to her father with 'pick me up' eyes. "Here?" he asked as he reached her, but then he knew what she was after, and he felt a jolt. He lifted her up, and she reached out her hand to one of the frames hanging on the wall, touched her fingers to the woman in the picture. "Good morning!" she chirped. "Good morning, Granny." She turned to her father, and he nodded, reached to touch the picture as she'd done.
"Good morning, Mom."
He wasn't sure when they'd started doing it, though he could guess who had done it first, inspiring the others. All he knew was that every morning, over the last several days, the Friar sisters had made a stop on the landing, the better to wish their grandmother a good morning, one by one, without fail.
They'd come down soon and he would hear them when they'd stop at the picture. After breakfast, Maya would take off with Marianne and the triplets, dropping them off at school before she headed to work, Wyatt would take off for class, and it would be just him, Mackenzie, and Aubrey. It wasn't as though he'd never seen to his girls on his own, but after everything that had happened… a month ago… to have these days with them… When he'd go back to work full time, there'd be people there to look after them as there had been before, he knew, but he needed this, needed them, and no one would argue with that.
"Alright, ladies…" he leaned against the kitchen counter, watching them as they so meticulously and just a bit messily worked together to add to the dog bowls. They stood back up and looked at him after a second and then a third attempt to get their attention. "What do you want to do this morning?" he asked them. The girls turned to one another. Of all the things that he'd been able to discover as he spent his days with them, it was the way in which Mackenzie had gone and settled into her position as the big sister between the pair of them, just as Aubrey looked to her in that way, too. Right here, faced with this question, Mackenzie would want to see what her little sister wanted, while Aubrey would trust that her big sister would have a good idea.
"Wanna see Pappy Tom?" Mackenzie suddenly thought aloud, and Aubrey chimed in with another 'yeah, yeah!'
"Oh, I know he'll be happy to see you," Lucas smiled. "Why don't I give him a call, huh?"
After a while, even though they would have happily continued hosting him, Thomas had left Michael and Keith's home and returned to his own. Plenty of them had felt uneasy at the idea of him, all on his own in that house, but he didn't feel comfortable putting it off any longer, and they couldn't force him to do anything but what he wanted and needed to do. They would do their best to help him, to pitch in, without making it look so obvious that they were concerned. He was a grown man, and he could take care of himself just fine… under normal circumstances. It was only that, after what he'd gone through, they weren't so sure that being on his own was the right call. And for seeing how he'd been coping, out there all alone, maybe they had been right to be concerned.
He couldn't be left like this, alone in that house. There were too many memories, and he was drowning in the loss of Melinda. There'd been a lot of talk going on, between Lucas and Maya, and Michael and Keith, and Pappy Joe and Patty. Maybe, given time, he would bounce back, but he wasn't doing it now, and if they let it go on this way, they were afraid that he would only sink deeper and deeper until they couldn't bring him back to the surface again. Whatever the solution would be, they hadn't landed on it yet.
"We can't go see Pappy Tom today," Lucas told Mackenzie and Aubrey, and they stared up at him, perplexed.
"Why?" Aubrey asked, this close to giving him the trembling pre-crying lip.
"He's busy today. But that's okay, yeah? Maybe we'll see him tomorrow." It wasn't what they'd wanted, but if tomorrow was a possibility, then maybe that would be okay. "How about we stick around here this morning?" he asked them. Inwardly, he might have been seeking a reason to be at home and not out and about, in case his father needed him. Either way, the girls were not opposed to the offer, especially once he suggested that they go outside and try throwing the basketball around.
The skill range was about where he'd expect it to be for both of them with their ages as they were. Aubrey, for the most part, was fully content with getting hold of the ball, dropping it on the ground, and rolling it along. She did also love it when someone tall enough would pick her up, ball and all, and lift her up where she could then let the ball go swish through the net. Otherwise, she was happy to watch and clap and hop around.
Coming on three years old, Mackenzie still had a long way to go before she could reasonably be said to know how to play – or even to actively be in the process of learning how to play – but the way she would watch games and participate when they would be anywhere and throwing the ball around, they could see that she was interested in doing more, and they would never hold her back from giving it a go. She especially loved to do that when they'd be at the gym for one of his games with his team… either that or she liked the way her shoes would squeak on the floor.
He hadn't been part of their most recent game and, truth be told, he hadn't attended practice in the last month. The team understood, and none of them would force him to return before he was ready. If it turned out he was never ready, well, they'd cross that bridge when they got to it. He knew deep down that, if he did go back, it would do him some good. He knew that resuming some of those parts of his old life would be the thing to get him back on track, but he still had his hang-ups. He'd make it in time, he was sure of it.
They played outside at the hoop and beyond, all morning, and afterward they got in the car, heading to Nando's Diner. The man was so happy to see the little Friar girls, always, and he was one of their favorite people, but also he would look to Lucas and he'd have The Look, the one that people got when they'd see him and remember that he'd just lost his mother, that there'd been that terrible shock. Nando Garcia at least didn't try and close in on him the way some people did, stifling him with good intentions. He saw to it that he and his daughters had the great lunch they'd been after, and that was all.
After that, they were off to Sullivan Stables for the afternoon. It was at once familiar and comforting but strange now to roll in and spy Juliet walking toward the lot to greet them. He was truly so thankful to her for stepping up the way she'd done over the last month for the overall running of the ranch, and to Bishop for the extra work he did with the horses on top of the dogs of the retreat. They had both done it so freely and readily to aid him in a time of need, but he also felt that he was imposing on them, especially after a month. That was all going to be over soon though; he'd made up his mind. He would come back, full time. He needed it and he was needed. He would miss spending his days with the Macaroon and his Lucky girl… which was all the more reason to make the most of what days they had left, just the three of them.
"Alright, you, and you," he leaned in to start getting them out of their seats and smiled. "Where to first?"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
