July 13th 2023
Chapter 194
We Cultivate For The Day
After an enjoyable but long week of field trips, nothing could have been better than getting to spend a couple of days surrounded by their family, by their daughters most of all, and this would be particularly true today for so many reasons. One of them, where Maya was concerned at the moment, was the image she was treated with as she went looking for her firstborn, up at Mel's B&B. She heard her before actually seeing her, as the strum of the guitar and the sweet voice reached her ears. There she was, sitting on the front steps, playing the instrument as she held it and looked at where she placed her fingers as she went through her song. It wasn't as though she didn't know what she was doing at this point, but then she just wanted to better herself all the time, so she'd always be looking to find the parts where she could improve, her very own critic and teacher. As far as Maya was concerned, she was under care so long as she was on the case.
"Do you want to keep at it, or would you like to come and help us? I mean, it's up to you," Maya shrugged, hooking her thumb over her shoulder in a much more casual way than Marianne's scramble to get up was by comparison. Her? Sitting out the 'Halloween-ification' of the ranch? Surely not! She'd only been waiting for them to say that it was time to get started, after they'd started so late that the month of October was already well under way. Didn't they know that the decorations needed to go up with the turn of the month (or earlier, really), just like the Christmas ones when the fairies came around?
They'd be all over the property today, teams here, there, and in every spot in need of transformation. They would give the archive a good, spooky vibe, the better to go with its special display for the month, showing their traditions for the beloved holiday across the years. They really had not struggled in the slightest to find materials. If anything, they'd had much too much of it and had to dedicate part of their upstairs section to it as well. It was a wonder that Maya hadn't found Marianne up there, elbows deep digging in one of the drawers.
When they got to the dance studio, they were not surprised in the slightest as they came to discover that the work had been done already. Donna Devereaux had waited for the rest of them, sure, never let it be said that she wasn't a team player, but they had better believe that the moment they would finally catch up with her, all she would have to do would be to go and collect all the things she'd been quietly preparing along with Britt and getting them up. Marianne loved her that much more for it.
Then it was off to the dog retreat, and along with the decorations – which were handmade and kept to the theme of 'Halloween, but make it dog' – the Friar sisters were very happy to discover that their new idea was being used. They had asked Bishop, all through October, to let them know if any dogs came to stay at the retreat and had no name of their own. Some of the dogs did, and these were honored, but some simply had none. Well, they wanted for the nameless of the month to get names that befit the season. The newest addition was that day given the name of Ghost.
It was right back to the B&B before long, and Cristina, Rafa, and Evangeline really had a handle on things, along with Bishop's ex-wife and Evie's mother lending a hand, but they of course welcomed the added help. Leona and Maya would recall their days as waitresses over at Isabel's in Houston and how their former boss would get deep into the spirit of the holiday herself, and they would have some good laughs over it still.
"Wait, Dad, you can't come with us," Kacey put up her hands even as her fellow triplets did the same, creating a wall, short as it was, between their father and building ahead of them.
"I can't?" Lucas asked them, pointing up to where they'd been headed, and he got three head shakes and three pairs of determined blue eyes lifted to him. "I can't go in my office?" he asked, and they all said no at once, as did the little sisters and Marianne. "But I have to work?" he tried.
"No, you don't," Lucy frowned at him like she couldn't believe he was lying to them.
"Alright, you got me," he raised his hands. "So, what am I supposed to do? Wait here?" He was. "How long?" They looked at each other, the younger ones turning to Marianne.
"Until we come get you," she declared, and the others nodded before following her to run inside.
"Until they come get you," Maya whispered as she passed him by and followed their daughters.
"Mutiny!" he called after her, grinning.
"Aye," she cackled before disappearing inside.
The transformation of his office – offices, because even his clinic space had been visited – was much appreciated, and he promised that he would enjoy it every minute of every day that he spent there before Halloween was behind them. But for now, with the last of the ranch's decorating done, it was high time that they hurried back home. The day was only kicking off its specialness, and now they were due to finish up the cake that they had started right after breakfast, ahead of driving to Sullivan Stables. It had been mixed, and set to bake, before being taken out and allowed to cool, as promised, by Wyatt while he sat out the ranch in favor of a paper he was working on, and now it was ready to be given its toppings and decorations, ahead of the night's dinner, to celebrate the twenty-fifth birthday of the Friars' eldest daughter.
Doing anything with more than one person's hands on the job could be tricky. Doing anything with seven people's hands wanting in on it was its own kind of choreographed affair. Lucas was keeping his hands to himself, 'supervising,' as Maya would say, while she and the girls all did their part for the cake, set on the table with all of them surrounding it. There was for sure at least one or two instances where they feared that the cake would be knocked over, either one layer of it, or two, or the whole thing, but they made it to the end, and so did the cake, and when they were done with it, they all stared at it with personal pride and a collective one as well. They'd all done that, for Ella, and she was going to love it. Lucas stepped in when it came time to put the cake in the refrigerator, and it was possibly the most stressful part, with all of them staring at him like they were holding their breaths the entire time.
The birthday girl saw none of that. When the Munroe-Friars pulled up, everyone was ready for them and so excited to see them all. Yes, sure, the scales were tipped just enough in favor of the youngest among the quartet, but what could they do? Miss Sunny, two months old and thriving as she was, was impossible not to turn to when she was brought into their midst. She would be welcomed by a pack of smiling aunts, and a couple of grandparents ready to hold her and never relinquish her, and several happy dogs, and her aunts' aunts and uncle, one of them very eager to remind her again and again that she, too, was called Sunny sometimes, while her sister was called Mouse-Mouse.
If being a small, adorable baby didn't draw everyone over, having it be your birthday would do it, too, and Ella was never free of at least one pair of arms embracing her, not for a few minutes, as her parents, sisters, aunts, uncle, and tiny cousin all took their turns, some more than once. Finneas won the prize for repeat hugs and kisses, whether he understood why everyone kept doing it, too.
"Come see what we made!" Lucas and Maya just caught Marianne whispering before leading Tori into the kitchen, the triplets and little sisters following right behind at a run.
"They made something?" Taylor asked.
"Make?" Maya blinked so innocently that she might genuinely have fooled him if Ella didn't bite back a laugh and look at him.
"Yeah, no, never mind," Taylor chuckled, scratching at the back of his head.
"We'll chalk that up on sleep loss, huh?" Lucas addressed his baby granddaughter as he held her. Sunny stared back at him, fascinated as ever, and imitated him to the best of her abilities when he nodded. "There, see? No problem."
"Have you guys heard from Lea and Theo?" Ella asked her parents, still holding Finn perched in one arm.
"They'll be here soon," Maya promised. "Last I heard, he'd picked her up from the airport, so they should be here in a bit."
The longer Lea was out in New York and the more they were hearing of her Broadway run, the more it would get to feel as though some plan would have to be made for her and Theo, and for the two of them and Tori. They were making it work as best they could, with her out across the country and the two of them here, the three of them missing one another, but it just couldn't work forever, could it? Sooner or later, they were going to have to make a choice. Theo and Lea were not slowing down, and Lea and Tori's bond corresponded easily to the one that the girl had with her stepfather… No matter what they did, they knew, some of the choices would be very difficult, but they knew just as well that not making them might make it even harder.
But they were all there today, and the way they all missed each other when they were apart would correspond to how glad they would be to be reunited, and there was another round of repeating and unending hugs when Lea Sullivan-Reyes was returned to them, between the two best friends and former roommates, and between the young girl and her would-be stepmother most of all. Tori might have Finn beat, with her father's girlfriend, as far as return hugs that day.
As they celebrated their Ella's birthday that day, both Maya and Lucas were struck with the new awareness of how close they were getting to a decade with her in their lives, her and Tori both. They still had two years ahead of them before that anniversary, but they knew it was coming now, and it was several volleys of disbelief – for it having been that long and only that long at the same time – and happiness. Eight years was good, but twice as much would be better. Twice, three times, all the years they could get. Every now and then, they would consider what her life might have been like if things had gone differently, for her and Tori both. They had only ever done what came naturally to them, and looking at their eldest now, thinking of how far she'd come, every birthday with her felt like a thank you to the universe for bringing them all to collide as they had done. It wasn't so much about what she would have been like without them, and a lot more about what they would have been like without their big girl, or their sneaky granddaughter, and now their son-in-law, and Sunny with her bright little smiles.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
