A/N: One day behind...

A/N2: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!


August 12th 2023

Chapter 224
We Try To Make It Great

She had this memory of being very little and trying to make a cake for her father's birthday. She couldn't have been more than three or four, but that wasn't about to stop her, no. Did she have the faintest idea what went into a cake at the time? Some of it, absolutely, so she'd gone into their little kitchen and pulled out anything she knew she needed and what she figured she might need, too. She'd found a big bowl, and she'd started putting everything in it, all at once. She'd gotten it all mixed up, and then carefully carried down the heavy thing from the counter and stuck it in the oven. If her mother hadn't come in right then and there to find her stretching up to push at the buttons to find the one that turned it on, she would probably have burned the entire building down.

For the longest time, she hadn't even been sure whether or not it had happened for real, not until Marianne had herself been three years old and her mother had recalled the incident in passing. If they hadn't already had reasons to instruct the girls in what not to do in the kitchen, this would have done it. Still, every year when she woke up on either Lucas or her birthday, she had that memory playing back through her head, thinking that maybe one or more of her daughters would have gotten a similar idea in her head. It hadn't happened yet, no, but these were her children, so she wouldn't put it past any of them even as she hoped that they'd take after their entirely more cautious father.

"Thinking about your dad's cake again?" Lucas mumbled, making her smile.

"Maybe…" They both lay quietly for a moment, listening… smelling… "I think we're good."

"Great," he yawned as she turned to face him. "Good morning," he smiled, and his barely awake face never ceased to amuse her. She took hold of it with both hands.

"Good morning," she replied.

"Happy birthday…"

"Thank you very much." They both leaned in at once, meeting halfway for a kiss, after which she burrowed herself nearer to him. "So, I've got a very important question to ask here…"

"Hit me," he nodded. She might have asked him something along the lines of 'how does thirty-eight look on me?' but she would already know the answer he'd give her if she looked at him for even a second. No, that wouldn't have been the question she asked anyway.

"You and I are getting real close to 'The Big 4-0,'" she spoke in a mighty tone that made him chuckle. She wasn't wrong. After this one of hers today, they were each two birthdays away from the 'big' one. "What are we thinking here?"

"I'm thinking… mine's in almost a year and a half, yours is in two…"

"Right, so we're cutting it close," she tapped his chest.

"No, right, you're right, absolutely," he nodded.

"Right? Break out that paper and pen there, Huckleberry, we have to get on this," she teased.

"Hold on, are you suggesting we plan this in the open? No secrets, no surprises?" he challenged, giving a fair approximation of her raised brow.

"Well, no… no," she amended, "We need surprises, obviously. But it's a big one, so we can at least have some input, right?"

"You make an excellent point," Lucas agreed.

"Yeah, I often do," she smiled before moving to rise.

She was at the crib before he started to cry, as though she might have sensed he was about to wake. He was soon up in her arms, and for that the crying was quick to recede. Ezra… her sweet fairy boy… If he wasn't a great birthday gift on his own, she didn't know what was. Sure, he'd been with them a month and a half already, but to have him there, morning after morning… Sometimes she still couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that she got to call this little peanut her son. For his sake, would she have wanted him to get to stay and be raised by the ones who'd made him? Naturally. But they couldn't do it, for whatever reasons, and they had entrusted him with Lucas and her. How ever he'd ended up here, he was here, and he was a wonder.

"Morning, bud," she quietly greeted him. He blinked his eyes at her, so young and already so full of wonder. Maybe that was just her imagination, but then she'd seen her daughters for who they were when they'd been as small as him, and she hadn't been wrong yet.

She might have waited for them to come around to wish her a happy birthday, but she decided instead to peek into their rooms and surprise them instead. Looking just across the hall, in the triplets' room, she could see that they were all awake, in their own beds. They all gave off the instant impression that they were waiting for something, probably a signal from Marianne or something. But then they spotted her standing there with Ezra and they immediately shut their eyes and pretended to be asleep.

"Do you guys really think that's going to work?" Maya laughed. They still played as though they were asleep. Remy threw in a fake snore for good measure. "Wow, fine, I guess you guys are asleep. It's very tiring to be six, you need a lot of sleep." She knew she could get one of them laughing despite herself, and she knew it would be Kacey. When she did give herself away, the other two were stuck between admitting that the game was up and attempting to regain control of the situation, but once Kacey got up and went to hug their mother, Remy and Lucy finally went ahead and joined her. No way they were going to miss out on this.

"Mommy!" Aubrey's voice sounded just before her small arms could be felt clamping on from behind.

"Hey!" Maya laughed, turning her head to find that not only had she been drawn from her room but so had Mackenzie and Marianne. "Look at that, I'm surrounded…" That was just what they wanted, going by their grins, and they followed this up by piling her up with birthday wishes from every direction. Each of them was thanked with words and a kiss, which required for her to spin carefully in the middle of that ring of girls, making them all laugh for how silly she looked doing it.

"Don't worry, we didn't make a mess," Marianne informed her, and she squinted.

"Did your Nana tell that story to everyone?" Maya asked. All six girls nodded at once. "Of course she did," she sighed, smiling. "Did you all learn what not to do at least?" she asked them, and they nodded again. "Good, that's good," she breathed. "We'll have to come back around to that one with your brother when he's a little older," she informed them, but they weren't listening to her now.

She frowned, wondering what they were… No, hold on… She could hear something, too, she could hear… music… They were all looking back at her now, giddy, and they guided her to move down the hall to the green room, the better for her to look out the window looking down to the Hex, the pumpkin patch… and a whole lot of people gathered outside, many more people than she had any reason to expect at this time of the morning. Some of those people were the members of the Hexes, and they were out there with their instruments, playing the birthday song.

"Daddy's there, look!" Mackenzie pointed before waving at him, standing there with Ezra in one arm. Lucas waved back, that great Huckleberry grin on him.

"Yeah, I see him," Maya wanted to pretend to be shocked that he'd pulled a fast one on her, but she could only smile, uncontrollably, seeing all those people out there. They had seen her up here, of course, and now they were singing along to the band's music. She wasn't against surprises like this, but maybe she hadn't appreciated how good they could feel until just now.

As the girls would all try and explain to her at once while she made quick work of changing into something slightly more presentable than her night clothes and then headed down the stairs, this had been their big plan. The way they saw it, as fun as birthday dinners were – and she would still have one of those – they knew that her favorite meal was breakfast. It was theirs, too, so they fully appreciated that it was hers. With that in mind though, it really felt as though they needed to lean into that for her birthday and have a birthday breakfast, too. Naturally, it had been one thing for them to have the idea and another for said idea to be brought to life. Their father was the one who'd gone about reaching out to everyone and suggesting the plan. He'd told them that it might not happen, and that it would all depend on what people said, but as she could now see, getting people to wake up and make their way out to the Friar house that early in the morning had been no problem at all, not if it was in order to wish her a happy birthday.

When she stepped out the back door, they were there to greet her, and so she was surrounded some more, as people came up and stepped back in turn to give her their birthday wishes. It was all just a bit overwhelming, but the good kind of overwhelming, so she took it all in gladly. All the while, she could spy Lucas, grinning as he looked on, with Ezra still in one arm – asleep again – and his phone in the other, the better to record the scene. She made sure to give him some good and completely thirty-eight-year-old mature faces in return.

"You know how much we love you?" Sophie asked as she hugged her. Maya laughed, understanding without her needing to say it how complicated it had probably been for them to get all the kids up, dressed, and out of the house to make it out here like this.

"As much as I love you guys?" she guessed.

"More," Sophie promised with an extra squeeze for good measure.

"I smell food…" Maya declared as one hug was released and replaced by another, Riley pulling her in as she might have done from their earliest days, back in New York.

"Dylan and I were out there across the road, helping them get everything ready," she revealed, nodding for her to look and spot Abigail, James, Maisie, and Dylan carrying everything out. They didn't struggle for help in getting plates filled and distributed. Everyone was already hungry before they caught the scent of pancakes, eggs, bacon… Maya was rendered speechless all over again. "Coffee?" Riley offered.

"Please," she breathed deep, laughed when Dylan waved at her as soon as he'd set down his burden. She waved back at him even as he hurried over to her and caught her up in a big hug. "Easy, okay!" she laughed on.

She had the whole of TXNY around her, here and there, and the Hexes on top, looking as though they might have pulled an all-nighter to be ready for their early show. They swept in to greet her and grab plates, which were emptied so fast, once and then a second time, that by the time they resumed their posts on the small stage it was a wonder that they were able to play without being sick.

Maya got caught up in watching them all up there, listening to them play in the early January morning. They had all been a constantly evolving entity since they'd first come together, and as much as she'd loved each version they'd presented, this one was really feeling to her like the strongest. Olivia, Jenny, Kelsey, Ash, newest member Kinsey, and Ava as their songwriter… To look at them now, it was clear that they were feeling it, too. There was no telling how long they would get to carry on in this way, with them all being at different stages of their lives, some in high school, in college, or beyond, but they wouldn't worry about that. They would just keep making music as long as they could.

"Alright, what did you guys do in all this?" Maya asked of her in-house siblings. Wyatt played innocent, holding Finn in his lap as he helped him through his plate.

"We let them in," Nellie and Gracie spoke together, nodding to their younger brother and sister and their parents. MJ and Haley pretended to be sneaking spies, which got their parents laughing.

"You two were snoring in the backseat the whole way, you know that?" Shawn informed his youngest two, who shook their heads to indicate they had no idea what he was talking about.

"I know why you were up late last night, so what's your excuse?" Katy pointed from MJ over to Haley, who turned to look at her.

"I was helping him," she nodded to MJ. He confirmed this, patting his little sister on the shoulder. "Studying, you know? So that he can get into college, move out here, and give me his room."

"That's the deal," MJ confirmed, then looking to his big sister, "Right?"

"Right," Maya nodded gladly, making her brother smile. The twins were as happy at the prospect as the rest of them. Glad as they were to have made it to this point in their lives, they looked forward to having their little brother back under the same roof as theirs, if for just one more year before they finished college and moved along.

"Yeah, you can take our room when we're gone," Nellie told MJ, who tipped his head in renewed gratitude to her and Gracie.

"Then it's down to us and you, huh, 4H," Shawn pulled Haley into a side hug, making the freshman roll her eyes and raise her hand.

"Can I come, too? You can drive me to school!" she told Maya, making them all laugh.

Breakfast carried on into more and more of Lucas and the girls' plans, and it wasn't until much later that they all got to have the house to themselves again, just Ella, Taylor, Tori, Sunny, Marianne, Kacey, Remy, Lucy, Mackenzie, Aubrey, Ezra, Lucas, and the birthday Maya. It still made for a crowded and noisy table, but it was just the kind they were used to, and it was just what Maya wanted. Thinking about the day she'd had with all of them, her earlier claim that they needed to start planning for the two fortieths in Lucas and her future did not seem so silly. This had been such a wonderful day, grand and cozy all at once. She didn't know how they were going to top it when this one had been perfect to her.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners