A/N: [July 8th 2024]

September 29th 2023

Chapter 272
We Ask For Time

All their August girls had blown out the candles on their cakes now, all but one, and in what felt like the perfect bookend to the month, they were starting and ending it with one of Ella's girls, the first one, who had made grandparents of Lucas and Maya much, much sooner than either one of them would have anticipated. Today, Victoria Friar was nine years old, and they had known her for nearly all nine of those years. A few weeks from now it would mark just as many years since Maya had brought both mother and daughter home with her, not yet realizing they would become family. Thinking about it now, they couldn't think of what life had been without either of them in it.

She may not have been one of his own children, but she was as important to him as they all were, and so today Lucas was on his way to collect her, the better to take her for her own ice cream trip. He almost didn't get to leave with her, not because she didn't want to go, but she was sitting on the couch when he arrived, her little sister sitting over her as they watched a movie together, and whenever Tori tried to leave, Sunny pitched a fit. She didn't want her sister to go away. Lucas almost didn't dare suggesting that they simply bring Sunny along, not wanting to break the tradition for Tori, but looking at his elder granddaughter, he could believe she'd actually agree with the plan. In the end, Taylor stepped up, assuring that he'd see to Sunny and get her right back to smiles while the two of them went and had their thing. So, off they went.

It was not how they would have liked to get this started, but there was no turning back now so, when they sat in their seats and had buckled their seatbelts, Lucas turned to look at his granddaughter, briefly caught up in how she just looked more and more like her mother the older she got.

"So," he told her, giving his best Pappy Luke smile in hopes of getting a laugh out of her, which he did. "I did tell wish you a happy birthday, yeah?" he asked her, and she nodded, smiling back at him. "And is it a happy birthday? So far?"

"Yeah," she promised, and he was happy to hear it. "Mom and Dad got up early with me to give me one of my presents, and then we watched some of Great Nana's old show, the one with the aliens? She looks so different, I couldn't tell it was her at first."

"Yeah, I almost couldn't either," Lucas recalled with a chuckle. "But then she kind of reminded me of your Nana, so I knew it was her," he explained, and now he imagined Tori telling Katy about all this later on. Katy would be thrilled to hear it.

They went on talking about Katy's series as they drove to the ice cream shop and as they waited for their selections, once they had been ordered. The teenaged girl who served them clearly remembered him from his trip there with the triplets just a few days before, and she was intrigued about this until Tori told her about both the tradition and the 'season' of the August girls. As it turned out, she was an August baby herself, and days away from beginning her freshman year in high school. Lucas noted her nametag and smiled to himself. He didn't go and ask if his suspicion was correct, because it would have sounded strange, but he was almost sure that she was one of the names that Maya had traced on to one of her new diaries at the start of the month. He told as much to Tori once the girl had moved away, and she was so amazed that he had to explain why it might be best not to go and confront her with the query. She saw his point, though she did ask for one of her grandparents to let her know once the debate was settled.

They were finding their way to a table and back to their previous conversation when Lucas spotted not a familiar name this time but a familiar face. There was Agnes Killian in the corner, accompanied by her younger brother, Jonah. The two of them looked to be waiting for an order of their own. He was doing something on his phone, and she was reading a book. Neither of them spotted him, and that was fine, that was actually a good thing, probably, but still…

A lot of thoughts went through his head in the time he spent looking their way, trying not to look their way… It was maybe the first chance he got to see her properly in a while, and all he could do was look at her, look for evidence of some kind that this girl could be Ezra's mother. It was possible that he could be biased in his observations, that he could think he was seeing some resemblance because he wanted to find it. Maya had told him how she had been having that same issue, and he knew now just how easily it could happen.

The rest of his thoughts, happening concurrently with the rest, revolved around Jonah Killian. He looked at this boy, who bore a noted resemblance to his sister, and tried to use him somehow as an easier bridge to cross in order to confirm Agnes' connection to Ezra. And at the same time he found himself taking a strange little detour, like what if they had it all wrong and it wasn't that Agnes was Ezra's mother but rather that Jonah was his father, and his mother was some other girl they were unaware of. Wouldn't that make more sense why they never saw anything with Agnes? But then her behavior since Stella's wedding, it couldn't just…

"Pappy Luke?"

Lucas blinked and looked back to Tori, who was staring at him now, puzzled. He apologized for his distraction, told her he was trying to remember something but that it didn't matter, that it could wait. It wasn't a total lie, but it was as far as he could go without it sounding like so much of a lie that he'd feel bad about it. He never lied, not to her, not to Maya or any of the children, not if he could help it, but this would have been too much to put on her.

"So, how does it feel? Being nine now?" he instead asked his granddaughter, and she briefly thought about it, gave a small shrug.

"It's not a big number or anything," she pointed out, and he had to chuckle. "Next year though, I'm going to be ten."

"Double digits," he stated, a familiar chant he'd heard out of Marianne just a year ago.

"Yes!" Tori nodded, then off a thought, "Were you excited about turning ten, Pappy Luke?" she asked. Now he had to laugh.

"Oh, that was a long time ago," he had to sigh as he admitted it. Very soon, he would be closing his fourth decade, and she was asking after his first… "I tell you what, as excited as I might have been… and I probably was… my mother was definitely more excited than I ever was. Either that or very, very sad… maybe both."

"She was sad? Why?" Tori was baffled at the idea. Lucas smiled, the way he would now, whenever he remembered his mother.

"She was seeing her baby boy grow up, and it was hard to see that time in my life get left behind. I can promise you that your mom is feeling a lot of that with you right now."

Two things happened at nearly the same time. Just as she'd finished her ice cream, Tori went to the bathroom, and over by the counter, Jonah Killian was moving to leave the store, while his older sister remained, looking annoyed with him and with the fact that she still had to wait. She still hadn't noticed him sitting there, but she had abandoned her book in her frustration, and it was much likelier now that she would look up and notice him, something that would be infinitely easier – and stranger – if she saw him looking her way. He had to make a choice. And maybe he had the solution right there, one that would help them all… so he hoped. As badly as he wanted to know the truth – whatever it may be – it was more important to him that this girl have what peace of mind she needed. And right now she didn't have it, he was sure. She was staying away, trying not to cross them, but school was coming, and she would have to. How could he help her be at ease… except to convince her she could be?

"Hey, Agnes, I thought that was you," he addressed her with a jovial smile as he came up to the counter. She raised her head, and he could just see the flicker of panic in her eyes.

"M… Mr. Friar… Hi," she blinked, tried to pull herself together and mostly succeeded. "What, uh…" she looked around.

"Oh, I'm here with my granddaughter. It's her birthday, and we have this thing…"

"Yeah, I know," she nodded, then, "I mean, Mrs. Friar told us, when it was Mackenzie's birthday, I think? That's nice, that you do that," she stated.

"I tell them I just really love ice cream," he grinned, and he got a smile for this that felt genuine. "So, school's starting real soon, huh? Senior year already."

"Yes," Agnes nodded, breathing out, and he was glad to see that she might actually have started to relax already. "It's going to be a lot, I know, but I've got a plan, so I think I'll be okay."

"Glad to hear it. Maya gets kind of emotional about her seniors, you know, so it's a good thing she'll have you around. She always says how good you are, helping the others in class."

"She does?" Agnes asked, looking like she didn't know how to take the compliment.

"She does," Lucas promised her, and she sat with this for a moment. He could just catch the hint of a smile.

The conversation ended when the future freshman place a cake box on the counter and called Agnes' name. She said she had to hurry it back, that it was for her grandfather's retirement party, and she was gone with her cake, just as Tori returned from the bathroom.

When he brought her back to her house, to be surprised with the party her parents had prepared for her, he caught Maya's eye and indicated for her to come outside with him. She followed him, and they went to sit together. He told her about how he'd seen Agnes and her brother, how he'd ended up talking to her for a couple of minutes. He didn't bring up the Jonah theory, because he'd chased it away as quickly as he'd thought of it. But he had to get to the part at the end, the part that had him fully convinced now.

"It's her," he told Maya, and she stared back at him, unsure how to respond except to ask why he thought so. "Right when she picked up the cake box, I saw the tag, with the order details, the message they had them write on the cake for her grandfather?" He didn't say it, but he didn't have to. Maya's eyes widened as she understood.

His name is Ezra. That was what it had said on the paper they'd left with the baby, that was how their son had gotten his name, and they'd never given it that much more thought, but now they had this new piece of information that completely reshaped their knowledge. Agnes Killian had chosen to give up her baby boy, for his own good, but she had sent him into the world with a name that was important to her. She had named her son after her grandfather.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners