June 6th 2023

Chapter 157
We Could Grow Together

He would try and alternate the order when he'd do pick-ups. One day he'd track down Marianne first, others he would collect Kacey, Lucy, and Remy and then they'd all go find her. On days when none of her parents were available to do so and he'd be the one to collect Tori, he'd go and get her first, and that never changed, much to her happiness. Today was not one of those, and Theo would be bringing her along to the ranch, but in the meantime, Lucas still had four girls to get, so he made his way around until he finally found his firstborn.

He wouldn't have been surprised if she would have been there regardless, because with the school year drawing to an end she was going to be sad for their time to end, too, but now with what had come to light a few days back about her daughter, and how the two of them and the other Mrs. McAllister had visited them, he was not surprised at all to find Marianne with her teacher, in her classroom. They were looking at the books on Ingrid's shelves, the thing that had been an immediate pull to the tall blonde from day one, and Marianne now informed him that she was helping to pick out what books the next year's third graders would read in class.

"Dad, she gave me a list of books for next year, can we go to the store? I don't have to get all of them right away," Marianne insisted as she brandished the piece of paper for him to see. Maybe Miss Ingrid was going to miss her student, too, with the sheer number of titles crammed on that list, and the smile on her face.

"I'm sure we can figure something out. Right now, let's go get your sisters."

"Okay!" she told him, taking a quick detour to grab her things, thank her teacher, and tell her she'd see her the next day. Mrs. McAllister waved them off, and on they went.

"You know, I think I have some of these in a box somewhere in the basement… or at your Pappy Tom's… They're probably kind of worn, and I definitely spilled things on a couple of them… I wasn't as much of a…"

"I'll take them!" Marianne gasped, like she couldn't wait to go digging for these at once, far better than brand new copies ever could be. Knowing her interest in genealogy and local history, he kind of saw why that would be. He hadn't even told her how his mother would leave notes in his books when he was a kid, and suddenly he was kind of looking forward to this hunt, too. It would be good for the both of them to touch base with their memories. There would never be enough, not for them.

The triplets were found in a midst of some kind of game with their friends involved hiding, tagging, taking prisoners, and freeing them. They didn't want to just give up in the middle of it, even as they were reminded that they would all be together again in no time, over at the ranch. It was true, yes, but they still gave some excellent moping faces as they – temporarily – said goodbye to Barry, Sammie, and Felicity. That only lasted about as long as it took for them to get into the minivan with their sister, take off, and get the radio going. Friars and singalongs just went together like that.

Once they got to the ranch, green bandannas on and reunited with their friends, they weren't so caught up in their lost game anymore – they would have plenty of mornings, recesses, and afternoons at school for that – and a lot more on the first stop of their time at Sullivan Stables that day. They were going to see the horses. They could generally count on there being one or two kids, sometimes more, that needed time to warm up to the animals. Lucas remembered very well the days when Harper Beaumont was that way, and to look at her today, you wouldn't even know it.

In this group, they'd definitely had a few of those, and they were all going at their own pace as far as getting around it. Some of them still had a lot of road to travel before they'd get there, no doubt, and maybe they'd never get there, and that was okay, too. Clearly, they liked being here enough that this one thing didn't get in the way of their attendance. One that was new for Lucas and this group was any kid who'd started out unafraid and backtracked herself across the line into the other group. Sammie, Kacey's best friend and their unofficial 'quadruplet,' had had zero problems with the horses before, had even looked like she just couldn't wait to start lessons, and ride the way she'd seen bigger kids like Marianne do.

She had a big sister, Susan, who took lessons at the ranch, too. She was fourteen, was due to start high school in the fall. She was a great kid, wonderful energy out there… and she loved horror movies. She hadn't meant for her little sister to see any of those, except she had, and the part she'd seen had involved a horse was… not the nicest. She'd been terrified, having nightmares unless she could crawl up into her big sister's bed and stay with her ever since. It was a wonder she still showed up at the ranch at all, and when they went to see the horses, these days, they did her a kindness by leaving her in the company of Donna Devereaux, who redirected the five-year-old's attention toward the wonders of dance… and sparkly accessories. When they were done, they would go and have her rejoin her fellow greens.

Today, as she was led along by Kacey holding her hand, Sammie and the rest of the group would be guided to an experience as yet unmarred by any age-inappropriate movie. They were going to visit the dog retreat. They have five dogs in there at the moment, which was about as many as they'd ever had at one time. They'd all been there anywhere between a month and a half and nearly a week, some big, some very small… They had the fretful, the weak and the wounded, each one as certain as the next on one thing at least, and that was that a pack of four and five-year-old children was something they could all appreciate.

The group had all been well taught over time about how to behave when they went into the retreat. Most of them had a sort of reverential softness to them when they'd step into the building without prompt, and the ones that didn't, overall, needed very little to be shown why that might have been the way to go. It never got old, seeing how they just got it with very little prompt.

"Hey, guys," Bishop greeted them as they walked in, moving away from the desk where he'd been talking with Cristina. The B&B's manager was as good as splitting her duties between the big house that was also her home and the retreat, working alongside her boyfriend. Her favorite part was managing the 'guest book' for their canine guests. She was also holding their newest resident, their smallest, who was not shaky around people in the slightest, only recovering from surgery, and she very much appreciated some good cuddles. The kids saw the puppy and flocked at once.

"You want to say hi?" Cristina smiled, moving to crouch and kneel with them. They closed in – respectfully – and the puppy perked up, tail wagging with curiosity. "This is Star," Cristina told the kids, who laughed and squeaked when Star the pup responded to the sound of her name. They started saying it back to her, and she looked at them all, seeking each new voice.

"Daddy, she looks like Squeak," Lucy commented to her father after getting her chance at petting her. Lucas smiled, looking at Star. He could see it, for sure. She was a Yorkipoo, and so was their lost dog. They hadn't forgotten her, or Crowley, though every month that went by since they'd disappeared only made it less and less likely that either of them would ever be seen again.

"Yeah, when she was that little," Lucas told his bun-bun girl. He could just remember Marianne standing there, in the animal shelter, smaller than Lucy was now, with the puppy in her arms. Lucy was five, almost six, but she had that same look in her eyes as she stared up at him, that 'can we keep her, Daddy?' look. If Maya were there with them now, she'd be staring at him with the best of her 'Look at you, Huckleberry the Girl Dad.' The best part, to him at least, was that even if she might have caught on, Lucy never used that power for tricks. Maybe, once Star was doing better… who knew?

That 'who knew' got a lot harder once the greens ran into the reds up in the arts and crafts room. They'd always have two groups up there together, and they'd switch it up every time. Today, this brought four of his girls together, the better for Lucy to run up to her big sister and tell her about Star, and how she looked like Squeak… Marianne was immediately intrigued by this and wanted to go and see her as soon as possible. Suddenly, as much as they all loved being up in the colorful room to create something together, the mystery of the dog was too much for them to push back until later, enough so that Lucas finally agreed to take the two of them and the twins, as they weren't about to sit back while Marianne and Lucy went back to see the dogs.

It was purely by chance that Marianne hadn't seen the new dog yet, but now she was going to, and almost as soon as she stepped through the door, they heard sharp little barks, calling out. Marianne came to a stop at once, and Lucas knew where her mind had gone. She sounds like Squeak! They went and found her, and Star was just losing it with excitement, waiting for them to get close. She didn't have to wait long, not once Marianne spotted her. She hurried over and reached to pick the puppy up, and when she turned around to look at her little sisters, all of them crowding around her, Lucas saw that she was crying. It wasn't Squeak, no one could mistake one for the other, but they looked alike enough, and there was that instant connection between the little dog and Marianne, and there was nothing else to think about. Star had nowhere to go, not yet, and his girls wouldn't let her go anywhere else than home with them. Looking at her, the dog wouldn't have wanted to go anywhere else if they'd tried.

"Dad? Do you think they can be related?" Marianne asked, after he'd taken the triplets back to arts and crafts. She hadn't moved from where he'd left her, sitting on the floor, with Star asleep in her lap, lightly petting her. "They have to be. Can't you feel it?" she asked, looking up at him. He didn't want to get her hopes up for nothing, but he also knew what it would mean to her to get even part of her lost dog back like this. And if he was honest, it was sort of peculiar, how she'd reacted to the girls, but to Marianne most of all. Maybe all that this meant was that girl and dog were meant to have one another, but he chose to go with settling down the middle.

"Maybe they are related, pumpkin. Maybe they're not. What I do know is that she is going be very happy with you when we take her home. What do you think?" Her smile could not have been any brighter or happier if she tried.

"We're going to take such good care of you, Star," she whispered down to the dog. "You'll be home before you know it."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners