March 17th 2023
Chapter 76
We Elevate With Love
So often, when a big day would be coming up for anyone in the family, or when a holiday would roll around, it wouldn't be uncommon for there to be a visitor or two – or three, or six – up in the big bed along with Lucas and Maya. But then that would only ever be anyone from Marianne down to Aubrey, which they supposed was to be expected when their eldest daughter, their big girl, had come to them grown as she'd been. It couldn't be helped, even though they were wholeheartedly her parents, in anything but blood, that there would be certain things they never did with Ella the way they did them with her younger sisters, and she understood it, too. And then the morning came, the last one she would spend as an unmarried woman, the day where she and Taylor Munroe would become husband and wife.
Both Lucas and Maya had been somewhere in the early lull, just awake enough that they knew that they were, but not so much that the notion of moving to rise had entered either of their minds, when they heard someone clear their throat from somewhere about the foot of their bed. They lifted their heads at once, finding their big girl stood there with a great big smile and her arms crossed over the front of the shirt Lea and her friends and classmates back in Houston had made for her bachelorette party, a recent favorite of hers as a PJs top.
"Good morning," Ella told them. "Do you mind just…" she mimed a directive they read as 'scoot apart,' and as soon as they moved to oblige, she grinned and merrily climbed and crawled her way to plop between them. "Hi," she now laughed. She looked like she was so full of giddy energy that she could have danced every second of this day and would still have more to spend, and if they didn't already know how happy Taylor made her, this would be all they needed to see to know those two had a bright, bright future ahead of them.
"Hi," Maya laughed with her, as both she and Lucas gladly took their cues and closed in around their daughter, embracing her warmly. "Sleep okay?"
"Barely," Ella admitted, smiling. "But that's okay, really, I'm so good right now."
"How much coffee have you had so far?" Lucas challenged.
"Only a cup… and a half. Then I came up here," she mimed her big dive. "I just wanted to be with you guys like this, you know? Before it all goes kind of crazy?"
"Not seeing me complain," Maya assured her. "Are you?" she looked to Lucas.
"No complaints here, no, ma'am," he shook his head.
"And then I keep thinking about what's going to happen, all of it, and I almost can't believe it, you know? Was it like that for you two?" Ella wondered, and her parents exchanged a look even as they pondered on an answer.
"I definitely remember not being able to sit still, like a few hours felt like forever," Maya replied, her own smile fed for seeing how the memory settled on Lucas. "What about you, Husband?"
"I woke up early," he recalled. "I couldn't just sit around, so I took the dogs out for a walk… Zay and Dylan came after me like I was thinking of skipping out of town." Maya snorted, while Ella chuckled. She'd never heard this part of the story. "The two of them and Ray and Asher, all ready to give me a good, stern talking to if I dared walk out and hurt her," he nodded to Maya, who gave a sound like 'aw, shucks.' "I just wanted to be married to you already," he told her, and he knew she'd felt the same way.
"What if something goes wrong and his flight is delayed? Or it's just cancelled?" Ella cut in, her worries now overriding her parents' reminiscing.
"When's he supposed to board?" Lucas asked her.
"About five minutes now," Ella quickly reported, as good as letting them know that she'd been keeping a close eye on the situation.
"Want us to wait it out with you?" Maya suggested, and Ella nodded, pulling her phone into view.
So, they waited, the three of them in silence, huddled together. They could not go so far as to say that they were able to read the other's mind, but they'd be willing to bet that the two of them were of a single mind in that moment, and the leading thought went something like 'I can't believe our girl is getting married today…' If not for Ella being in their lives, there was no telling how many years they would have had to wait still before they got to see any of their daughters walk down the aisle. But then they did have her, and they counted themselves lucky for it every day, so they were now mother and father to a bride, hours from her big moment, and her giddy nerves were their own as well, if for completely different reasons.
She'd been part of their family, officially or not, for almost seven years already, and they couldn't see their family being complete without her. The last four years, since she'd also made them parents to a high school graduate a lot earlier than expected, she'd been off in Houston for school, and it wasn't as though she'd been so far that they couldn't see her regularly enough, but they'd felt that two hour distance like they couldn't believe. And now that was over. She was officially back in Austin to stay, as she had been since after her second graduation ceremony with them. She didn't want to move into her new home before Taylor was there, before it could be the two of them together and Tori, too, even if she'd be splitting her time between them and Theo and Lea. So, the two of them were here, at the Friar house, and they would stay together until Tori's mother and new stepfather went off on their honeymoon, which would not be right away after the wedding. They wanted to get the house settled… and Ella and Tori had been apart for far too long; they deserved some time to make up for that.
They were on track to make it all happen now. Taylor made it on to his flight, took off on time… All signs pointed to him having a very smooth flight home and to his bride, not that they would tell her that. At this point, she was so nervous that anything could go wrong that their reassurances would only send her imagining any number of ways that it could all go very, very wrong.
Thankfully, this was about the time that her sisters came running in, looking for her along with Tori, who'd bunked with her aunt Marianne. They all had so much to do in the hours they'd be waiting for Taylor to arrive and for the wedding to begin, so they had not a minute to lose.
"Dad, you're going, right?" Ella asked Lucas when it came time for her to leave the house.
"Taking off as soon as the guys get here," he assured her, feeling – not for the last time that day, he suspected – that skip in his heart, looking at her and remembering… she was getting married, his big girl, his daughter… The next time he'd see her, she'd be about to walk down the aisle, and he'd be getting her there…
"You okay?" she asked, smiling, when she noticed the look on his face. He motioned for her to come closer and, when she did, he hugged her, pressed a kiss atop her head.
"Definitely. You?" he asked back.
"So okay that I can't stand it," she reported.
"Good," he beamed. "Now, get going."
"Going," she nodded, and she went.
Lucas had not been in contact with Taylor that day, but his older brothers had, and his older sister had, too. He'd been expecting Dylan and Kyle for the ride to the airport, but when they pulled up he also spotted Phoebe sitting in the back. When she caught his puzzled expression, she rolled down the window.
"Come on, can't be late!" she called to him and he quickly got in the car. "What's the matter, no girls allowed?" she asked, getting her brothers laughing from the front.
"Pretty sure if I thought that, I'd be in big trouble with… a whole lot of daughters."
"Yeah, and one Maya," Dylan chuckled pointing an admonishing finger which, after recalling the morning of his wedding, reminded him of that day all over again.
"Wouldn't want that," Phoebe laughed. "Anyway, I missed my baby brother too much to keep waiting… or to miss out on teasing him all through this next bit."
They weren't going to argue with that either, so off they went, airport bound. As much for themselves as for the antsy bride, they'd been keeping a close watch on the flight's progress. They were happy to report that not so much as the tiniest tremor of turbulence had disturbed Taylor's advance back to his hometown and to his future wife. By the time the plane landed and eventually saw its passengers exit into the airport, the quartet was there, waiting to greet him. As soon as the door had opened, Phoebe had brandished a sign, self drawn and featuring the words 'TAY-TAY THE GROOM MAN' in bright, bold letters. Dylan and Kyle had snickered upon seeing it, so of course they had their phones out, the better to capture not only the moment when Taylor would emerge and they would see him but also the moment when he'd step out and see the sign. They'd later show it to Ella, over the reception, knowing she'd get such a laugh out of the puzzled and mildly embarrassed look on his face before he finally just laughed and moved to greet his siblings, all three of them piling on to hug him and welcome him home.
"Welcome back," Lucas tipped his head to the young man and, seeing the way Taylor didn't seem sure how to respond as he stood before his future father-in-law, he decided to go ahead and uncomplicate things for him by clapping him in a greeting hug.
"Thanks," Taylor breathed. One look at his face and it was clear that, not unlike the bride, 'Tay-Tay the Groom' had been feeling restless to land, to get to his future wife. Lucas had to sympathize, thinking what that would have been like, way up in the skies with nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit and wait, or try and watch a movie… Now that he'd finally made it this far, they would make it their mission to get him where he had to be.
As they drove, Lucas thought about so many things. He was thinking of Ella, naturally, and he was thinking of his sneaky granddaughter, too. And he was thinking about the young man sat between him and Phoebe, who was busy talking her little brother's ear off about what Myles and KJ had been up to before she'd dropped them off at their parents' house. He thought about how Marianne had adopted him for a brother about as soon as Taylor and Ella had become engaged, and he was reminded of something that should already have been pretty obvious, which was that, in marrying Ella, Taylor Munroe would become his and Maya's son-in-law. It was really the strangest part of all this for them, but at the same time… At the same time, it was kind of great, too. That was going to be part of their lives, too, wouldn't it, sooner or later – in this case much sooner – that their daughters would go and introduce people into their lives who could in time come to call them Mom and Dad, too. He could have gone all overprotective dad on this first one, but it wouldn't have worked, would it? Taylor Munroe was just someone that they'd be happy for their daughter to end up with, and she thought it, too. What more could they want?
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
