A/N: One day behind...


August 28th 2023

Chapter 240
We Look As We Grow

Very early on when her sisters had started taking their garden as seriously as they did, even as young as they'd been at the time, everyone had fallen in line, taking them just as seriously. Thus 'Hunter Garden' had been born. This had included Maya being commissioned – the twins had insisted, and they had paid her ten dollars for it which Maya eventually used to buy from them – to create a logo for them. That was all she'd needed to do, and from there Shawn had done everything else, and it did feel as though he'd done everything else. He'd gotten business cards printed for them, labels for their products, boxes… t-shirts and caps, tote bags… It had all been worth it. The small home business didn't exactly go and pay for their college educations, but it gave them something they were so proud to have, to do together as sisters, as a family.

When they had moved out of the house to go on to college – and their older sister's house – there had been a decision to make about Hunter Garden. They wouldn't abandon it, and they could for sure expand into the Friars' garden, even manage a part of the pumpkin patch, but they couldn't be at the house to tend to the original garden the way it needed tending. There was some plan for them to transplant everything over whenever when they went and found a place of their own, but that was all very much a thing in the future. In the meantime, they had entrusted everything on to those of them still at the Hunter Hart house, their parents, their grandparents, but MJ and Haley were in charge and proudly so.

"Alright, come on, folks, we have deliveries to make," MJ addressed his siblings and his nieces as he stood before them, straightening up his Hunter Garden cap. It looked so out of place on him, clashing with his personal style, but as he'd insist, he made it work. He'd made some modifications to his matching shirt, which definitely helped to split the different. "Some of these people are very impatient about getting their orders in."

"Please, you just flash them a smile and they are putty in your hands," Haley insisted, miming a hand full of goo, up in her brother's face. He dodged away, sent her cap off center, which made her yelp and reach to fix it. "Tell me I'm wrong," she challenged, squinting at him and looking like her mother and all of her sisters at the same time.

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that," MJ 'humbly' shrugged. Nellie cleared her throat. "Right!" MJ clapped her hands together. "Let's go. You two, get up here, you are rocking those caps, they're going to flip when they see you," he reached to move Mackenzie and Aubrey to the front of the pack.

They didn't have so many deliveries to make that they needed so many of them. It was all really out of Marianne and her young sisters wanting to go with their uncle and aunts that the rest of them had ended up being part of this, but they'd had fun, which was really what mattered. The siblings got to spend time together, Hunters and Friars alike, and however their recipients reacted to their arrival, everyone was amused, the Hunters most of all.

They were moving on foot, as most of their deliveries were going to neighboring streets, so as they moved from one address to another, they would have plenty of time to talk amongst themselves. Clients aside, they all had plenty to discuss, and on that one day, the topic that kept on coming up was MJ and his approaching graduation from high school, leading right into his start in college, where he had now officially been accepted, setting his relocation to the Friar house on track to happen by summer's end. Haley was already going along like the successor to the head of Hunter Garden, as her partner would soon be settled with their Friar division.

They were all looking forward to it, getting MJ to be part of the household. The girls were already going around as though their uncle would be moving in that week. They wanted to make sure he had everything he needed, to know where he would sleep, where he would sit at the table, on the couch… On his side, MJ was really looking forward to getting started on his program. As he'd say it, he had long outgrown high school, especially under their current leadership. He'd told his older sister more than once that he would have liked for her to come and teach at the university, except she was needed at the high school, 'fighting the good fight.'

With deliveries done, the next step on their garden day was to move over to the Friar house and start again. Neither Maya nor Lucas could say that they had expected gardening to become such a part of their lives in adulthood. But then here they were, and there were so many factors to bring them to where they were now. The first one, the thing that had gotten them started, was easily and simply their house, the former home of Joseph and Susannah Friar, specifically the land around it. When they'd moved in, with the land becoming part of their lives, it had just called to them to tend to everything, to make use of it. Then the idea of the pumpkin patch had come about, and they'd had Granny Lizzie with them, who had been so good with it all, and they'd had Melinda Friar, showing up sometimes completely unbeknownst to them. These women had cared for this garden, these flowerbeds… In their memory, what else could they do but keep on doing it now that they were gone?

"Hey, is it true about Portia getting to work for Ree Forster now?" Gracie asked her sister as they saw to the flowers around the Hex.

"Where did you hear that?" Maya asked, to which Gracie responded with a vague shrug and gesture. Here and there. "Well, it's sort of true," she slowly nodded. "Ree will be involved, yeah, but Portia won't be writing songs for her specifically. It's for her daughter."

The news hadn't been announced officially, which was why she'd been surprised that anyone should know anything yet, but then again, this kind of news did have a way of traveling fast, didn't it? Yes, Portia Keller would be writing songs for Christina Sutcliffe's debut album. The young woman had been no older than Maya's firstborn when she'd first met her, but she was twenty-two now, and after spending the last few years working alongside her mother as a backup singer, she was finally stepping to the front of the stage for more than a duet here and there. Ree herself was penning a few songs for this album, so was Maya, and in wanting a third writer in on this project, it had been Christina's own idea to recruit the girl who'd been making a name for herself as of late with the songs that she'd written for Maya to sing. The two of them both had close relatives in their lives who were already known, they both knew what it was to want to try and make their own way. They would work well together.

"I'm waiting for her to get through with this, but then I was thinking I might connect her with Shayla," Maya shared, smiling at the thought of her young friend from her Houston days. She had done so much since then, and she would be just the one to appreciate this opportunity.

It was easy for her to facilitate these connections, to see to it that these talents that surrounded her could be taken further, be discovered for their truest potential. It all just made her happy, as it gave others opportunities that they might not have attained on their own, for whatever reason. But at the same time, it was impossible to ignore, especially in moments like these, where she could just sit back on her legs and look up to see her studio, that she had hopes and dreams of her own to chase after, too.

It wasn't that she was struggling to come up with something. She knew and she held to the fact that something like this, a great next idea, could not be forced. It would all come when it was supposed to come. Nowadays, it also felt like her greatest obstacle was not her own mind and creativity near as much as the way she was having to devote so much of her mind over to her school and whatever problem Sandra Davenport would saddle her with next.

That really was the problem, she was the problem, all for the hold that she had over the school, because even though Maya didn't have a specific idea in mind, she did strongly feel that it would involve the school, the students. And right now, that would be impossible. It would never be allowed, and she could tell herself that nothing, no one could stop her if she tried hard enough, but it really would be foolish to push right now. It was not the right move, and this battle with the principal very much felt like that, like a battle. And they couldn't afford to lose it.

When the day of gardening was done, Maya and Lucas had six very tired young girls on their hands. It was enough that they had to play dress up doll with each of them, getting them changed and tucked into bed, as they'd all fallen asleep in a heap on the couch and neither of them had the heart to wake them. Once this had been achieved, it became increasingly obvious to both Maya and Lucas that they themselves could do with a bit of tucking in for a long night's rest. No one was going to accomplish that for them though, so they went about getting changed and crawling their tired selves into bed. Maya wasted no time in burrowing herself in his hold, and Lucas happily welcomed her, closing his arms around her and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"Thanks, Huckleberry," she mumbled, and she could feel him smiling against her hair. "You know, sometimes I wonder if we're going to overdo it at some point with how many people we have living in this house. Now we'll have MJ on top of everyone else…"

"You still want him to come, yeah?" he had to ask, even though he knew well enough what the answer would be.

"Of course, I do. Getting to live with them all, even if it's only for a few years, I wouldn't give it up… If you would though, I mean…"

"No, never," he promised her, and she smiled. "MJ said he wanted to bunk in Wyatt's room, be all brothers together," he reminded her. Maya snorted. "So they'll be fine, the two of them and Finn. We could even turn the third room up there into a room for him, if Wyatt was up to it. We haven't run out of space yet, we'll be fine. And if we do run out of room, then… we'll figure something out when we get there. Go to sleep," he kissed her hair again.

"What about when Ezra is bigger, where's he going to…" she protested, so he moved his kiss to her lips, which was as convincing of an argument as she would need. She smiled, but whatever thought floated through her head just then, it never landed, as she drifted off to sleep, and Lucas followed right after her. That night, both of them had very similar dreams, where their house stretched high into the clouds, and deep into the earth, the better to host just about every person they'd ever known and cared for.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners