February 17th 2023

Chapter 48
We Wonder What To Do

The Friar girls were usually so immediately happy whenever their parents were at home for several days, not expected at work. It would be the perfect occasion for them all to spend more time together, to play or just relax, go places, see people… The days that followed Melinda's passing were not like that. Yes, Lucas and Maya were home, or they weren't at the ranch or the high school at least, but it wasn't a simple vacation. There was something dark and unsettling hanging over them, and the girls felt it, too, each in their own way.

Juliet had offered her services and taken up looking after things at Sullivan Stables again until Lucas was ready to return. It was really the least she could do. She was as devastated as so many of them by the news, as any of those who had been at the ranch long enough would have to be. They had known Marianne Sullivan, years ago, and they had known her daughter in turn, so for her to be taken so suddenly like this… They were all just doing their best to keep everything going for Lucas and his family, in their time of mourning.

Maya could not even think about her absence and the Sandra Davenport of it all. Just now, there was something so much more pressing for her to attend to. Anyway, Barton Day had stepped in at once to sub for her classes, being thankfully available, and if she was going to trust anyone not to let the principal gain an inch while she was out, it would be him. She was only going to be able to take so much time off for this, but she was going to take every second of it that she could. Her children were distressed, and her husband… her father-in-law… They all needed her, as she frankly needed them.

Mackenzie and Aubrey were home with them, though whenever possible they would try and get the two of them out somewhere with family or friends, so they didn't have to be at the heart of funeral plans and other things that a couple girls still months away from three and two years old shouldn't have to be submitted to. It was impossible for their parents not to be stalled by the thought of how many days the two of them usually spent with their Granny Mel. It made Maya think of all those afternoons she'd spent with the woman, the two of them sitting on the bench outside school and talking while the little sisters played around them or sat with them. Thinking of how they wouldn't ever have those meetings again would hit her with such sudden and unforgiving pain, and it wasn't the only one of its kind. Her mother-in-law always had such a presence in their lives that to remove it felt like surely something would fall, wouldn't… hold.

The triplets were still going to preschool. As their parents had expected, they heard from Miss Alma that the three of them were reverting to the way they'd been in the beginning to some degree. They would stick together throughout the day. They had their friends in there, yes, and these friends would stick with them, too, but the triplets would be back to trailing one another, going to the bathroom together if any one of them had to go… No one would tell them to disperse, certainly not now, as they were still coping with what had happened to their grandparents.

Marianne had been home from school since the day she'd found out about the accident. That first day, they'd kept her home, knowing that it would have been impossible for her to focus on anything in class. She'd just stuck to one parent's side or to the other's most of the time, usually Lucas, and when she disappeared… They would find her somewhere, up in her room, or down in the basement, up on the second floor, and she'd have tears in her eyes. She was eight years old, and she was heartbroken at the loss of her grandmother, but she didn't want to show her tears. She thought her parents needed to see her be strong. Maya and Lucas both had a talk with her, assuring her that this wasn't so, that she could be as open about what she was feeling as she needed to be. Her grief was as valid as theirs, and they would support her through it. On the second day, they'd asked her if she wanted to stay again or go back to class, and she'd asked to stay home again. From that point on, whenever she was feeling a swelling of emotions, rather than isolating herself, she'd approach one of her parents and one look at her would have them open their arms to receive her. They would hold her and let her cry, sometimes cry with her.

She'd tried to go back on the third day, but she'd made it all of an hour before Maya took a call from the school, asking to come and pick Marianne up again. She wasn't ready to go back, and they weren't going to force her. Maya was more than capable to keep in touch with her teacher and see to keeping up her work with her. Marianne was all for it, and it would be a strangely helpful time for both mother and daughter. Sooner or later, they would both have to go back to the schools where they were teacher and student respectively, but that time wasn't now, and they were in no obligation to chase it. The funeral felt like as good of a target as any. They'd get through that, and they would see how they felt afterward.

"How was it out there?" Maya looked up as she came down from setting Mackenzie and Aubrey down for their nap, with big sister Marianne there to supervise, right as Ella came through the door. Maya could see past her to where Lucas and his father were still getting out of the car.

"It was… rough," Ella estimated, in a tone that showed she'd expected no less, just as Maya had, over Thomas and his son walking into the former's home for the first time since he'd left it with his wife the day of the accident.

Thomas had been staying with his brother-in-law and his family since then, not one of them trying to hurry him along in any way to return to his house if he wasn't ready. He hadn't even been out to his son's house since then. He and Maya both had been to see him, but he hadn't wanted the girls to come along, didn't think he was in any condition to see them, and they'd respected that, even as they could see how badly their daughters missed their Pappy. They'd seen how he was still struggling to cope with his loss, how he would barely sleep, or eat, or speak… The way he carried himself just now, coming up to his childhood home, he looked to Maya like he might have aged ten years if not more.

He barely made it through the door that they heard a great rumble of feet from above, and Marianne came speeding down the stairs, stopping just short of tackling her grandfather before throwing her arms around him. The moment she was there, it was automatic for him, and he hugged her back with so much emotion… Neither one of them moved to separate for a good two or three minutes. They had always said that Melinda and Marianne were soul mates, their bond so very special, and just now, it felt like all this time, as patient and understanding as she'd been toward her grandfather's needs, Marianne had been waiting to see him, to share in her grief with him because she felt so deeply how much he would need it, just as she would need it. All her life, her grandfather would tell her stories of her grandmother from before she was born, and it would always be so amusing, especially if Melinda was right there to hear it and laugh. If Thomas continued his stories now, and how could he not, it would be different for the two of them, more difficult in some ways, but also just necessary to both of their healing.

"How are you, my Annie girl?" they heard Thomas whisper, when he and Marianne finally looked at one another. He'd walked away from the accident with very little physical hurt, all things considered, and by now there was hardly anything for anyone to see unless they really looked, which might have been one of the reasons why he'd kept away if not the primary one. To no one's surprise there, of course, Marianne absolutely saw it, and she reached up to inspect her grandfather's face with gentle hands, which he submitted to.

"Not okay," she told him, and it was a bittersweet notion for her parents to hear. They had been doing their best to show her that she didn't have to say that she was fine if she wasn't, even before all of this had happened, and they were glad to see that she was able to express it even if it reminded them that their child was hurting, and they couldn't help her the way they'd want to. For her grandfather, the same was true, although seeing as he was feeling that way, too, it also left the door open for him to see that he was in a safe space where he didn't have to keep his sadness bottled in when he was with her.

"Neither am I," he told her, and she nodded and hugged him again.

"It did him good to be here," Maya later reflected, after the girls were all in bed and Michael Sullivan had come to collect his brother-in-law again.

She looked to where Lucas sat, at his desk in their room. She doubted that he'd heard her and, approaching him, she saw that he was looking through a small journal she recognized well. It had belonged to Melinda, the latest in a string of what was somewhere between a planner, a diary, and a record of whatever things she'd see or think of doing that she felt the need to put to paper. There would be any number of pictures and clippings and folded notes slipped between the pages, all of it kept as secured as it could by the elastic in the cover. Maya knew, from Lucas telling her, that Melinda had been keeping these for as long as he could remember. She'd never seen it out of the elder Friars' home, usually somewhere in the kitchen, so she guessed that he had picked it up when he'd been at the house earlier. When she touched his shoulder, he looked back at her, blinking before turning back to the pages open in front of him.

Mackenzie's 3rd birthday – April 24th 2038

"I think she had enough ideas in there for at least five of her birthdays," Lucas spoke, his voice allowed to drift as it would, when he wasn't trying even a little to sound normal, which was how it had been, whenever it had been just the two of them over the last few days. Maya came to stand behind him, hugging her arms around his neck, hands at his shoulders, and he leaned to her.

"Good, then she'll be there with us," she told him, and it was just as he'd needed to hear it. For days, even as he'd had to see to his father, to the funeral, and his own grief, he could not ignore their girls, and the thing he couldn't stop thinking about as he'd watched them go through this loss, from the very aware Marianne to little Aubrey who still seemed to be looking for her Granny, was how so few of them would genuinely remember who she was, how she'd loved them and how they'd loved her. There would only be so much for them to do, to keep her memory alive in them, but they would do it, they knew. They'd find a way. They'd do it together.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners