A/N: [October 14th 2024]

October 14th 2023

Chapter 287
We Aim to Become

They would joke, him and Maya, about how they could be doing anything in the house and know upon hearing the children's play, whether or not they were doing anything or were about to do anything where either one of them should intervene. Every so often, they would get something that fell somewhere in between and, on this morning, it for sure felt like one of those to him, as he saw the girls going by and grabbing their coats and putting their shoes on and helping their baby brother to get ready for outdoors, too. Ezra looked mildly confused about where he was headed and, when he spotted him, started calling for him, stretching his hands out toward him.

"Hey, it's okay, bud, it's okay," Marianne scooped him up, and Ezra did calm some, though he still looked to Lucas as he came toward them. "It's okay," Marianne went on in her most soothing voice. She pressed a kiss to her brother's head, and he leaned to her shoulder.

"Where are you all headed?" Lucas casually asked.

"We're taking Ezra to see the pumpkins," Lucy informed him with a smile.

"Come with us, Dad," Kacey requested, and her sisters backed up this suggestion at once. There was really no other thing for him to do, was there?

So, he put on his coat, too, and soon they were out behind the house, Ezra on his feet and being led to and through the pumpkin patch by his big sisters. It was impossible to know for sure what was going through his head as he took it all in, but he was for sure having a good time. He was in a garden of wonder and he wanted to touch everything.

"What are you looking for?" Lucas came up behind Marianne and she startled, turned to him, smiled innocently. "Looking for your littles?" he whispered, making her laugh. That was what they'd gotten to call her birthday pumpkins, the ones her mother would paint each year and post outside her room on the morning of the thirty-first. Eleven of them this year… They were going to have to come up with a different system for these as she got older, weren't they?

"Maybe," Marianne told him. He silently imitated her, and she laughed again. "She already got them, didn't she?"

"Don't know why you're asking me, I don't know a thing," he shrugged. She didn't believe him for a second, but she just smiled to herself and played along. She could not have reminded him of her mother more if she tried. All he could think of was the way she'd go and try to nudge surprises out of him, never actually wanting to pull the truth out of him. She only enjoyed messing with him, and it would be a fun game between them. Now they got to play it with their girls, and it made him happier than he'd ever imagine.

The excursion into the patch had been as good of a way for them to kill time until they could move on to what they were hoping to get done for the day. Once Maya returned with her grandmother and sisters Eliza and Emma, everyone rushed back into the house at once, battling the urge to simply dump jackets and shoes on the floor and instead putting them up where they belonged. They wanted to try on their costumes. Grangie and the Hart-Lane sisters had been responsible for making the pieces that they needed help with, and they'd happily jumped in.

The only exceptions came with Marianne and Shonagh, as the former had been intent on learning and on making her own costume as much as she could. She'd been working on it, same as Shonagh had done, but there had been parts she'd wanted to get right enough that she'd preferred to leave it in the more capable hands of her aunts or her great grandmother, and so she'd been left to wait on her costume to be returned to her. Now, she finally had it, and hurried up with her Irish friend to go and change.

"I hope I got it right," Angela breathed, looking up to the ceiling. Several seconds went by before they heard giddy squeals from upstairs.

"Looks like you did," Maya smiled at her grandmother. Even after all this time, even having been in her great grandchildren's lives for as long as they'd lived, there was still this small tremor in her sometimes, showing how she had not forgotten those long years where she and her husband had been without news of their firstborn, of their granddaughter, of any other children of hers… She cherished her presence like privilege.

The triplets were very excited for their costumes, too, these having been put together by their aunts. It was always a bit of a battle of desires for them when it came time to decide what they'd get dressed up as for Halloween. Were they going to match one another in some way? Were they all going to dress completely different from one another? Over the last few years, they would start wanting one thing, but then they'd go and change their minds at least once or twice before making up their minds for good.

This year, they had been given a gift in the form of a brand new animated series that they all fell in love with, a series whose leads happened to be triplets, sisters… two identical, one fraternal, just like them. Well, they weren't human, so they weren't exactly like them, but it was fine by them. It wasn't all they could think about, every second of every day, but it was pretty close. So, when it came time for them to decide what they would get dressed up as for Halloween, there really had been no other option for them. The only thing they really needed to figure out was who would be who. They all had their favorites, and they weren't necessarily the obvious ones, so would they dress as their favorites, or would it be the twins as the twins and fraternal as fraternal?

In the end, it would really be up to them, as it should be. There was nothing to stop them from doing it both ways. They could swap costumes, doing it one way at school, then switching things up for trick or treating, and the games… It was their choice to make, and they were thrilled.

Their little sisters had not gone into this Halloween with so clear cut of a plan for their costumes. At five, Mackenzie was just as one might expect if they'd gotten to see her grow up. She had her impulses, her curiosities, and to hear her go, she might have needed about fifteen costumes, all at the ready to switch around every half hour. They had done their best to get her to make up her mind, but that didn't work so well, and then she'd go and get overwhelmed, and she wouldn't want to think about any of it anymore. Grangie had gone above and beyond on that one, making three whole costumes, though she didn't tell her that so long as she wouldn't have to.

With Aubrey, it was complicated at first, too, as the four-year-old was still 'finding herself,' as her grandparents would lovingly tease. It had actually been thanks to Shonagh that they'd figured out the solution. There'd been some talk about names, as the little sisters had wondered about their guest's name, and she'd told them about its origins. This had led them to tell the story of how Aubrey had gotten her name from a book. Why not dress like her namesake this year?

"Okay, these ones are kind of our favorites," Eliza beamed as she presented her sister and her brother with their little sons' costumes. Wyatt couldn't help but laugh as he received Finn's outfit and turned to the two-year-old presently gripping at his leg and looking right up at him.

"That's amazing, El! Thank you! Finny, look! It's for you!" Wyatt crouched down.

"Wow!" Finneas loudly replied, making his father and aunts laugh.

"Amazing, definitely amazing," Maya agreed, looking at Ezra's costume. He couldn't well decide what he wanted to go as, so it was up to them, but that in itself was harder than they would have expected. Maybe it was that, up until then, they had been looking only to costume their daughters, and this was their first time with a son. But they'd figured it out in the end… their fairy boy… Peter Pan, who else?

"Well, he likes the hat, that's something," Lucas laughed as he watched Ezra move away whenever anyone reached out anywhere near the green thing as soon as it had been set on top of his head. They were going to have to work a while to get it off and get him changed into the rest of the costume.

"Can we paint our faces and everything?" Remy asked as the triplets came hurrying down, right behind Marianne and Shonagh. Mackenzie and Aubrey had gone and gotten changed right there in the living room, thinking no more of it, so it was down to the boys, so they saw to them, too, the sisters playing instrumental parts when it came to parting Ezra from his hat. When he'd gotten changed into his costume, they returned the hat, and the crying subsided.

"Ready to fly, Pan?" Maya crooned, lifting up the boy and giving him a light spin. In an instant, it was as though he'd never cried at all, and he was laughing instead.

From there, with all of them in their costumes, everyone got to pretend that they were the people they were dressed as. If Katy had been there, she would have called this a 'character workshop.' Maya mentioned this, and it made Angela laugh, imagining her daughter doing just that, leading her granddaughters in becoming their costumes. Lucas recorded the whole thing, the better to show her later. Marianne was a pro at this, to no surprise, and she gave her sisters suggestions. They all listened to her with great intent, and they did as she told them. Some of them did better than the others, but even where they failed, they were perfect. They were happy, and that was what mattered, wasn't it?

"We've got time, we can practice," Marianne promised her sisters.

"Next time, we do it the other way," Kacey suggested to her fellow triplets, and they were on board. Really, they could have gone and switched right then and there, just to see how they did with the other characters, but they were so excited to be in the costumes at all that the first thing on their minds was to go and watch their favorite show, 'for research.'

That night, after the children were all off in bed, Lucas walked back into the master bedroom to find Maya sitting up on their bed, a sketchbook set in her lap while she drew. It was such a familiar sight to him across the years, a comforting sight, and it made him smile. She wasn't even looking at him, but the way she smiled back, he knew she was aware of him, aware of the expression on his face.

"Is that for us?" he asked as he went and checked on Ezra in his crib before moving to join her. He'd just recognized the shape of two humans on the page as he went and, with all they'd been doing earlier, it was an educated guess.

"I should have gotten started on these a while ago," Maya sighed. "Things just got a bit too busy."

"They tend to do that, don't they?" he agreed. Taking a seat next to her, he was able to get a better look at her sketch. Sometimes he couldn't get over how he had gotten to see her evolve as an artist for more than twenty years. She'd already been better than most back in middle school, and he could still find her style in her work today, but he also saw the woman she had become, far more than the girl he had first met.

"What do you think?" she whispered, jiggling the sketchbook with her knee.

"I think we're going to look great," he replied, and she beamed. They would, wouldn't they? She couldn't wait to see him in his costume most of all, to no surprise.

As she continued to draw, they both talked about this and that, about the kids and their costumes, about the ranch, and the school… She brought up her desire to take another pass at the former cheer coach, and he tended to agree with her that it was time to take things to another level with their principal, that they were all coming up to some final face off, with the 'winner' still on the line. He moved them away from that subject before long, not wanting her to dwell on this too long, to have it populate her dreams. They had plenty of avenues to travel in order to do that. The year-long projects with each grade were just the source she'd need, as she could go on and on about all of that. She also spoke of her relief in knowing that Freddie Jacek had gotten in touch with her face, as it had been offered to him as a lifeline. Whether or not it would be what he needed, whether or not it would get him to land on his feet away from his foster family, time would tell, but this was a start.

It was not uncommon for the Hart-Lanes and the Friars to visit one another at all hours of the day, including in the evening, after the kids had gone to bed, if only to have a chat in person rather than call when they were so near to one another. They would tend to start with a knock at the door which, at this time of day, would travel up to anyone awake in the house easily enough. It reached the master bedroom and drew the pair of them away from the sketchbook.

"Hey, come in, come in," Maya smiled when she saw her stepmother. Abigail walked in and turned to her and Lucas as the door was shut. She was delicate, but she didn't put off the reason for her visit any longer than she needed to. She was here at Shawn's request, that she could be told directly, and her siblings as well, that just an hour before, paramedics had been called to see to their grandfather, to tell them that despite efforts made, Tanner Clutterbucket had passed away. It hit them both, how could it not? Just now though, all they could think about were the people upstairs who'd have to be told, but also those who'd already know… Angela… Katy…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners