March 12th 2023

Chapter 71
We Elevate Toward Summer

The closer the turn of the page had come, there had already been this energy settling into the house, but once it had finally happened, it had definitely gotten to feel even worse. June had arrived. As much as that could mean many familiar things to the Friars, the end of the school year especially, this time around there were a few other things revolving in their minds, and none of them were spinning nearly as fast as the one originating in Wyatt Hart-Lane's mind. His baby was all of weeks away from being born, could reasonably come at any time at this point.

Any time his phone rang or got a notification, he shot to grab it, occasionally missing the fact that it was right there in his hand already. He was on edge all the time, and his family worried for him. There was little more they could do to help him except to keep doing exactly what they'd been doing, which was just to be there for him as they all did as he was doing: they waited for the day when the call would be The Call.

In a situation that was almost too similar and entirely too tricky by comparison, there was a very real chance that, when that moment would come, three of his big siblings would be clear across the country. None of them wanted to be anywhere out of reach from him when the time came, which was enough to make them consider not flying to New York. Wyatt himself was left to battle his own conflicts and maybe ask them not to go, which would mean asking them to sit out such a thing as the possibility that their years of work could be rewarded so grandly and suddenly.

They hadn't even looked at it like something that could actually happen, not even a little. Yes, their musical was out there now, and it was doing very well for itself, and it was very, very surreal especially for the trio who'd composed it. But the Tony Awards? Those Tony Awards? They never thought…

Someone who did think it very much was Marianne Christine Friar. The girl could have received an award herself for the performance she handed in the day the nominations were announced. Not only had she managed to watch the nominations – at school – but she'd then played sick enough that her mother had been called to come and collect her and take her home. It wasn't until they were both out of the school, in the car, and about to leave that Marianne had dropped the act and very excitedly told her mother about how she and Sam and Cara, the whole show, had received several nominations that day.

Maya was already so stunned by the way her daughter had been faking earlier that it took her several seconds more in order to grasp what she was saying. She was about certain that her brain had come this close to pulling itself apart into pieces. The fact was that she would have found out by herself earlier if she hadn't been drawn away from anything except 'I need to get to Marianne right away.' It became very hard to focus on the situation right before her instead of thinking of what she'd just been told, but she pulled it off. She was not happy for this stunt, as well intentioned as it had been.

"If you guys win, do you know what it means? You would be half an EGOT! You know what that is, right? That's a…" Marianne carried on, undisturbed in her excitement.

"No, I know what it means," Maya cut in, which finally alerted Marianne to the fact that she was in fact in trouble. "Baby girl, I know this is a big deal, I do, but do you understand that you lied to your school, that you made me lie to my school, that I had to leave to get you?"

"But… you weren't lying… I-I mean you didn't know…" She paused, bowed her head. "I'm sorry…"

"I know you are," Maya sighed. "I'm still going to have do something about it, you know that?" She did, and she would take it.

For her sake, knowing that her good intentions and her manners could mostly guarantee that she'd know better in the future, they'd kept it all quiet, letting the incident be handled 'in house.' It was very easy for it all to get lost in the shuffle of everyone's flipping out over the nominations. She didn't get to go and ride with Truffle for a week, instead doing a few chores around the ranch – none of the ones she actually enjoyed – and while she still had soccer, she came home right after instead of going off to June's house with the others.

That was all behind them now. Now, the awards were drawing nearer, as was the birth of Wyatt and Alicia's child, one or both of those happening before the end of the school year, though that, too, was falling into place. Sports and clubs were seeing some of their finals coming up, the art auction was right around the corner, the musical was mid-run… The month of June had always felt like their most loaded one, making it fly by in the blink of an eye, but this one could easily take the top prize and stand undefeated for a good long while.

They wouldn't know it for looking at how the Friar girls were taking it… most of them, anyway. One of them was very much hyperaware of this month, and this for a completely different kind of stress coupled with anticipation. At this moment, Ella was juggling the end of her final semester out in Houston, closing up her life out there, four years of living with Sophie and Chiara, as she prepared to move back to Austin… She had a house she was getting ready to move into, a very heartfelt gift from her parents for both her upcoming graduation and wedding, which would bring her back, after a very painful parting, to share a home with her daughter, and at long last would see her living with the man she loved… who at this very moment was on the home stretch of his time in Indiana before he, too, graduated and brought his life back to Austin. The compasses on their arms would soon be full, and they would be able to upgrade themselves from nearlyweds to newlyweds…

Now, the bride's little sisters, all six of them, were being granted protection, that they might experience as little or none of the stress running through their parents, big sister, or uncle, which was easy enough for the triplets and the little sisters, although it depended for some of them. Mackenzie and Aubrey were both all too aware of the fact that they were about to be separated thanks to the former's entry into preschool as of the coming fall, what with how many times it had started to come up in conversation… They were not looking forward to it, no matter how much everyone at home was trying to talk them into it. Mackenzie didn't want to go if Aubrey wasn't there, and Aubrey would cling to her big sister the moment anyone started talking to her about next year.

The triplets were all very excited for summer to come along. They were especially excited about going to camp along with their friends. It wasn't so long ago that this wasn't so, that Kacey didn't have Sammie, Remy didn't have Barry, and Lucy didn't have Felicity, but that had all changed, hadn't it? The six of them had started with this trio of sisters each finding a pair partner in their new friends, but sooner or later that would turn the six of them into a group, and that could be as fun as it could be just a bit frantic at times. The triplets had always had one another, and all their personalities, different as they were, easily melded together. They had all befriended their new pals for the connections they had made. Did it mean that Sammie, Barry, and Felicity all got along with one another, or even with their friend's sisters? Not always. That would be where the problems sometimes came, leaving Maya, Lucas, and the other kids' parents to have to field some very four and five-year-old problems, which could more often than not feel just a bit silly to anyone who wasn't concerned with the same sensibilities as the little ones.

Well, who knew, maybe summer was just what they would all need to get any issues settled. They were all looking to a big change of their own, with their 'graduation' from preschool on to kindergarten. It didn't seem possible that they should have arrived there already – mostly from their parents' perspective – but here they were, and they'd have plenty of time for that importance to reach Kacey, Lucy, and Remy. Until then, they had a bit of time left with Miss Alma and all their classmates, more time with their green group buddies until they stopped for the summer… and they had piano lessons with Marianne.

It was absolutely no surprise to her parents that their little empath would be plenty aware of the stress wave being felt by her family even as she was mostly kept out of it. She'd try and look out for Wyatt whenever she could sense that he was on edge, and they'd more than once found her sitting on the couch with him in the middle of the night, both of them watching television when he couldn't sleep, which would fill Maya with very striking memories of late nights on the phone with her father when he was having issues, if for wholly different reasons. Marianne was thrilled for her sister to return to Austin, for her and Tori to be back together again, and for her brother-in-law to finally become that, and she was definitely eager for the big awards, even if she wouldn't get to attend the ceremony…

Those times when she could be found sitting at the piano with her little sisters would get to feel like short respites for everyone, like nothing would bring peace to settle over their house quite like a trio of four-year-old girls – almost five, they would now point out – playing notes as instructed. They had only been at it for a couple of months, but they had a diligent instructor in Marianne, who had insisted on their setting up a regular time for these lessons, one they would have on the schedule in the kitchen like soccer, and figure skating, and karate, and swimming… Maya had happily obliged her, especially once she'd had the thought to refer to these as 'Pi-Annie' lessons. It had made Lucy, Remy, and Kacey giggle, while their big sister had gotten just the biggest proud grin for it.

"Is that…" Lucas paused, listening to the tinkling music from below. He turned to Maya, paused in the midst of their packing for New York.

"Would it be anything else right now?" Maya smiled. As soon as they'd gifted her with her copy of the sheet music for the musical, she'd looked to the thing like she'd never owned anything so precious. She could play it all by now, some pieces better than others, on all the instruments she could play, which admittedly was only two at the moment, but to hear her, that was only the start. And if she was playing their mother's songs, then the triplets would want to be playing them, too, or at least using them when they had Pi-Annie lessons.

"Think they're trying to convince us to bring them?" Lucas wondered. Maya sighed, and he knew this was not so much a sigh about wishing she could have their daughters there with her that night and much more about wishing she didn't have to leave her little brother to potentially become a father in her absence. "They'll be alright. All of them," Lucas told her, his meaning just as clear to her. They weren't going to have it both ways. The best they could do was move forward and hope for the best.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners