March 24th 2023
Chapter 83
We Shine With Stories
"Dad… Dad… Are you awake?"
Lucas cracked one eye open and was met not by the back of his wife's head or her face but by an expanse of empty mattress and a young girl that looked like her, crouched on the other side of the bed, her arms planted before her as she tried to get his attention. He knew she'd noticed him looking as soon as she went and plopped herself down in the empty space and sat there.
"I have a question," Marianne informed him.
"This question is important?" he mumbled. She paused to think for just a second and nodded. Obviously. "Alright, let's hear it."
"Can we have the camp visit the ranch?"
"You already have," he reminded her, yawning into his hand.
"Sure, but we just did the same things that we do on group days, not everything…" Her tone pulled at the corners of his lips, angling them on a smile. He knew she was trying to get at something, knew that he was supposed to at least vaguely know what she was getting at, but… ah…
"You mean the sets?" Another smile. "I'll have to check with them," he told her, and she quickly nodded. Yes, she'd figured as much. "There's a lot of you, they might not want that," he pointed out. "Even if your Nana's their big boss."
"It doesn't have to be all of us if that's too much," Marianne redirected without being discouraged in the slightest.
"It doesn't, huh?" he asked, and she shook her head. "Let's say…" he started to count on his fingers. "Eight of you? Or do your sisters and their friends get to go, too?"
"Whatever works," Marianne smiled.
"Uh huh," he nodded. He opened his arms out and she quickly dove in to be 'captured.' She laughed as he held her. "I'll see what I can do."
The girls were always welcome on set, naturally. It was like an unwritten rule of the contract between the production and the ranch, the same as it was that while they were welcome, they would be kept away if whatever they were shooting that day was deemed unsafe for them, or if there was anything where they wouldn't let anyone not directly tied to the day's shoot have access. They had always respected that, and they would continue to. Now in the case of Marianne's request, that was where it got tricky. She had an open pass, her sisters had an open pass, but that was where it ended. They couldn't just show up with other people without checking in and getting permission. It didn't matter that these were the girls' friends; they were going to do this right.
There was a lot of buzz going around regarding the new series, the spinoff, which would be premiering in a couple of months and unfortunately, because of that, they could not allow the visit. Lucas had sort of figured that it would be the case, but he'd tried it anyway. Telling Marianne, he could see her disappointment, but she did understand. She was particularly disappointed for Haru, as she told her father. The rest of her friends only had to wait a while longer and they might have gotten a reversal on that decision, but the odds were not in their favor for their visitor to still be around by the time that happened, were they? Lucas agreed, and he wished he could have gotten around it, could have gotten just the two of them in there, but that wasn't going to work either.
"So, what's the plan now?" Lucas asked Marianne once he'd told her all of this.
"I don't know yet," she told him. "I just thought it was going to be so much fun. And he likes all of that, too, you know? Movies and TV, all the… behind the scenes… stuff," she gestured to encompass it all in her hands.
Lucas stayed with thoughts of his conversation with his firstborn all day long. She wanted to come up with something, and now he sort of wanted to do that, too. The boy was having a great time in Austin, he was, but he was bound to miss home, too, so she'd wanted to do this nice thing for him, leaning on one of the things she knew about him. It certainly told on their friendship and how easily it had been formed. She loved to make up stories, more vividly than many her age, and so did he.
Oh… He had a thought. They couldn't bring Haru to the set, but they could bring some of it to him.
After a quick call with Katy, they had a plan. They had part of a plan. Getting a few of the crew out to the Friar house could be done, as was sending them there with a bit of equipment. But once they got there, they'd need to have something to do, wouldn't they? What were they going to do? He turned this question over to Marianne, who was already stunned and amazed at the start of the plan. Now for the rest…
"It can be like a time capsule!" she blurted out within seconds. He wasn't even shocked that she'd come up with something that fast.
"A time capsule," he repeated.
"About the family! I read about those," Marianne went on excitedly, the thoughts spoken even as they came to her, he suspected. "Ours, and… well, maybe the Farrells, too. He already said he was going to come back again next summer, so he could do another one then, and the year after that, and the one after that… And we'd see how everyone changed. I know we already kind of do that with pictures and videos, but this would be great, too, wouldn't it?"
She was already so motivated, and, like her mother, she had that glimmer about her that usually told him he would do well to follow her lead. There was no telling whether Haru would actually spend summer upon summer here, though he'd been waiting all this time just to be eligible to come to camp… but it would be better to go forth assuming that he would instead of wouldn't, yeah?
The idea was put to the families in question, to the crewmembers who'd volunteered, and finally to their would-be filmmaker once the others had come on board. They watched him as he was told about the idea, and they saw how his face lit up at once.
Over the next few days, they prepared for 'the shoot.' Some of this happened between the young friends while they were at camp, and the rest was at the house. When he'd be at the house, Haru would talk to everyone, and he would take notes… Marianne would be there, at his side, like his co-producer. Sometimes she'd whisper something to him, and he would take some quick notes which always left them wondering what he was writing about them. Either way, it was kind of funny.
Of all of them, the one who was surprisingly most eager in all this was Wyatt. They eventually figured out why, and they understood. He saw it as a great way of being able to look back as Finn would grow. He was only about a month and a half at the moment, but none of it felt like 'only' to him, more like 'already.' He was always so busy, making sure that he did everything right with him and by him that he was getting to worry that it would all pass him by without noticing.
Finally, the big day came around and Haru was really the most excited, with Marianne right behind him. There was also this sense of bittersweetness to the moment, knowing that their fun little project was coming to an end, and it was enough to nearly derail the shoot until Katy Hunter stepped in to save the day. She went and sat with her granddaughter's budding filmmaker of a friend and had a talk with him about how she'd get nervous, sometimes for reasons that had little to nothing to do with the shoot itself, kind of like what he was having that day. They didn't listen in, did their best to let them have this moment uninterrupted. By the end of it, the important part was that Haru was ready to go, and they shot the Friars' time capsule for the summer of 2038.
"Dad… Dad…"
"It can't be morning, can it?" Lucas turned over in bed that night, and there was Marianne again. "Got another question?" he asked her. She considered.
"Kinda," she replied. He let out a breath and motioned for her to head into the hall as he went and got up to follow. They went up the hall and down the stairs, into the living room, where they sat together on the couch.
"Okay, what's the question?" Lucas asked. Marianne smiled, and he had a feeling he understood her pause earlier, that it might have been something like 'well, it is a question.'
"Can you tell me a picture story?" she asked, her smile growing into a grin, which made him laugh, bowing his head in defeat.
"Now?" he asked her. "It's a little late, isn't it?"
"I know, but it was today, and I was just thinking how it felt right to have one of those now. Doesn't it?" She did have him there.
"Do you have a picture in mind?" he asked, and she pulled one – it felt – completely out of thin air. "Of course, I don't know why I asked. Let me see that," he held out his hand and was handed the photo.
As before, by now, they weren't always sticking to the honeymoon album. They had been doing these stories, him and her, for some time already, and while there were still pictures that they hadn't discussed in that album yet, some with pretty interesting stories she still had no idea about, she often couldn't help herself looking at other albums, or loose images, or picture frames… The one she presented him was pretty good, and he doubted she even had a clue why. All it showed was him, and Maya, sitting almost exactly where he and Marianne were now, smiling at one another over something that could not have been captured on film.
"I think your Aunt Cara took this one," he let Marianne know, and she came closer to look at it again, as though this piece of information would already reframe it all. "That was the day we found out your mom was carrying not just one baby but three," he told her, and her eyes shone. She really wanted to hear this story. "Do you remember your Peabuddies?" he asked. The name clearly sparked memories in her. She nodded at once. "That's how she told me," he revealed, and she frowned. She wasn't following. "Yeah, that was kind of my face, too," he told her, which was encouraging. "You remember how many peas there were in that pod?"
"Three!" she smiled again now, catching on.
"Okay, well, it's a lot easier to get it now, you've got all the other answers," he defended his own slower uptake. "Your mom had to show me the ultrasound that had 'baby A, B, and C,'" he mimed, and she responded with the most sweetly patronizing shoulder pat. "Anyway," he got back to the story, smiling, "Once I did put it together, it was just… so much. We were just so happy you were going to be a big sister, but we had no idea it was going to be by that much, three of them at the same time."
"Yeah," Marianne hummed like she could just imagine it.
"Do you remember when we told everyone? The magnets?"
"I gave them those," she nodded, laughing. Everyone who'd gotten them still had them, stuck to their fridge doors, five years later. "Oh, that's why… the peas," she tipped her head back in exasperation at herself. He laughed, and she gave him a very Maya-like affronted look. "Okay, story over, good night, Dad," she patted his arm and scrambled to run upstairs.
"Love you, pumpkin," he called after her, snorting at the self-frustrated noise that came in response.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
