April 19th 2023
Chapter 109
We Color In Orange
Even before her sisters had moved into the house, they had made it very clear, in one way or another, that they were so excited about being on hand for tending to the pumpkin patch along with the Friars. They had started and made the most of it that they could after moving in, then fallen back a bit once they had started their first semester of college, but as they'd settled into their new rhythm, they had found one where the pumpkins were concerned, too. Both that and their sister's 'regular' garden situation had fallen almost fully into Nellie and Gracie's hands and had thrived there. It was as ever a means for them to relax, and did they ever need that now...
They didn't always do it all alone. If anything, the gardening had been one of their nieces' favorite activities to do with them. And when it came to the pumpkin patch, it went without saying that their constant care companion here was Marianne 'Pumpkin' Friar. She was so happy to take her aunts into her world, and as they'd advanced into October, nearer and nearer to Halloween and her birthday, she'd been even happier about getting to do one of her favorite pumpkin things with them: it was time to collect the ones that they would use around the house for Hallowannie, and the ones that would be decorated. There were those that her mother would paint and put out for her birthday, but those weren't hers to handle. Then there were those to be carved and gifted. And that was the height of pumpkin season for her.
If it wasn't enough for her to have that to think about, Marianne - like her sisters, and her parents, everyone in the house and beyond - had another very big thing to think about and get done before it was too late. She needed to get her costume sorted out.
Costumes were never an affair of the last minute, certainly not in the Friar house. Most of them would go and start thinking about it as soon as the seasons turned from summer to fall, and it would be a constant topic of conversation. Marianne Friar was in a class of her own. She had been born on Halloween, born in the midst of a Halloween party in her own house, up in her parents' bed. It was easy to see how and why she would come to hold the season and all it represented as part of her personality. The older she'd gotten, the more it had gone from a cute affectation to something deeply important and all encompassing.
So, she had a journal, a very special journal where she scribbled ideas for her costume months in advance. She wrote in it, and drew in it... She stuck images between the pages for inspiration. If there was anything she wanted to draw and didn't know how to, she would run to her mother and ask for her help. Maya would always be very happy to guide her, and she'd be treated to her daughter's focused gaze all the while before she gathered up everything, thanked her mother with a quick kiss, and ran back to wherever she'd been working before showing up for a 'lesson' with her.
For this year's costume, she'd had the whole thing figured out easily since mid September, and were it wholly up to her, she would have had all of it ready to go before the turn of the calendar page. She'd had to be convinced to wait, if for no other reason than that it would feel more Hallowannie-esque for her to do it in October. Plus, she could still change her mind. They still had to decide for sure what everyone else was going to do, what they were going to be, and that could very well make Marianne want to start over from scratch.
"What if I had two costumes?" she asked her parents, as the great pumpkin harvest drew nearer, and the talk of costumes choices turned serious.
"Two costumes," Lucas repeated, knowing that it would be all she needed to hear to launch into a likely very researched response.
"One for school and one for the party here," Marianne told them both without missing a beat. "You always say that the kids at school 'aren't ready for my spooky vibes,' so fine. I'll do the kid-friendly version for them, and then at the party I can do what I really want to do." Going off her emphatic gestures, there was no need to wonder how excited she was at the prospect.
Her parents had not forgotten the talks they'd had with Marianne's teacher last year, and some of the parents as well. They were all so concerned about the effect that her spookitude was having on her classmates, and they preferred if she would just tone it down. Some of the parents had definitely used less kid friendly words about it at times, which had not earned them any points from her parents. Marianne wasn't unreasonable, she could keep herself in check, and she mostly did.
She was so lucky this year – as she would say so herself – because she had a teacher who not only accepted her vibes but encouraged them. Ingrid McAllister was a lifelong theater nerd, who'd set aside aspirations toward the stage in favor of those toward teaching, but she had maintained that attitude about her, which explained very well why Marianne liked her as much as she did. She would be just the kind of teacher she'd regret losing at the end of the year, the kind she'd go back to as often as she could so long as she still went to that school, and once she left it… well, they'd cross that bridge when they got to it in a few years' time.
It was just to be expected by now, with how many kids there were in the house, how many people, really, that they would have to do their best in order to maximize their time. That weekend, along with everything else they usually had to do, the pumpkins were being harvested, and seen to by their designated carvers, and delivered where they belonged. And at the same time as the pumpkins would be delivered, there would be bits of costumes for them to pick up along the way.
"We're going, too, right, Daddy?" Lucy asked, turning up those eyes so like her mother's. She probably had little to no idea of the power she held in those baby blues.
"You want to give some pumpkins, huh?" Lucas guessed, and Lucy nodded with a smile. "Well, we're going to be making a few trips today. We're going to go out and back again, over, and over, so you're not all going to come at the same time with me and Marianne, but you're all going to get to go at some point, I promise."
It clearly wasn't what they all wanted to hear, but at least they had the trade-off of getting to keep watching the pumpkins being carved… and some slightly more 'one on one' time with their father and big sister. In the meantime, the drop-off/pick-up marathon began. Of course, Marianne was along for the whole ride. This all went back to her and her birthday, didn't it? She had prepared, all set for the day and their many trips, by making a checklist. She'd actually had to start it over a few times, as it had been pointed out to her that there would more than likely be some changes to the order of things, and if she went in expecting everything to go the way she'd organized it, she would more than likely be in for some disappointments and frustrations.
"Okay, let's go!" Marianne called out almost as soon as her seatbelt had clicked into place. She turned her head to look at her father, and Lucas held her gaze for a moment before they both nodded: they needed music. Marianne went about picking their playlist while he slowly drove them out on to the road and up the lane. Maybe for being her mother's daughter as well as anyone could be, she had them set before very long at all, signalling that they were in the clear to take off in earnest. And so they went, Marianne giving her very best show of singing and moving along to the music while Lucas did his best to accompany her while remaining very mindful of what he was doing and who was at his side the entire time.
This would carry on even as he would eventually have precious human cargo in the back of the car as well. One by one, Lucas and the girls would hit the various destinations on the list, including the trips back to the house as necessary. Pumpkins were delivered, costume things were picked up, then dropped off as more pumpkins were collected. It all made for a busy day, as was to be expected, but it was the kind of busy where you were having too much fun to really realize that time was speeding along. As predicted, the plan took some detours, but they accomplished everything that they'd set out to do, and that was what mattered. Lucas did his best to chronicle the day, the parts in the car as much as out of it, so they could show it all to Maya later on. That way she'd get to be part of all of the things she'd missed while she'd been back home, working on the pumpkins. She and the others would get to see their hard work be delivered to their intended recipients, to see how happy it had genuinely made them all.
She didn't miss them all. She got to see and be involved in the very last drop-offs, which came after the last of the pumpkins had been made and Lucas and the girls had gotten all the costume things. These at least were last by design. They dropped one off across the road, at the Hart-Lane house, which involved the girls playing their sneaky bit of subterfuge, the better to make it so that their grandparents would not see them coming. They dropped one off at the Hunter Hart house, where Nellie and Gracie went along together to treat their parents to the year's pumpkin, knowing very well how much they had struggled for seeing their first children in a long while leave the house and head to college. And they dropped one off at the Friar house, for Pappy Joe and Patty, naturally, but maybe for Pappy Tom most of all.
Somewhere between dipping into fall, getting closer to winter again, and the awareness of Marianne's birthday coming up, knowing how it was such an important day for her, Thomas had been thinking a great deal about his late wife lately. It made him miss her more, made him feel it as heavily as he'd done. It was never over, only a wave, going up, and down, and up, and down, and lately he'd been on a peak, which made everyone else concerned for him all over again. If anyone needed a bit of pumpkin joy, it would be him. And as much as Lucas could have seemed like an obvious choice for who would carry that pumpkin up for him, the correct choice, as Lucas himself would attest, had to be the upcoming birthday girl, the pumpkin queen herself and Melinda Friar's soulmate of a granddaughter.
To see him get that gift, it was a reminder to Thomas Friar and a very needed one at that. It reminded him that, of the many ways for him to honor his Melinda just now, getting into the full Hallowannie spirit would be the absolutely best one, and that was what he would do. That was the day they had become grandparents, and it had been such a life changing moment for the two of them, both on their own and together as a couple.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
