April 2nd 2023

Chapter 92
We Change Into Something New

In the short time since Nellie and Gracie had moved into the house, Maya had been made to reflect on her sisters, their relationships as children, as adults, as a bit of both all together... It was the first time the three of them shared a house since the twins had been no bigger than their youngest Friar niece, when she herself had been their age. She had long lamented not getting to grow up with them, so having them here made her as excited as it made them that they'd get to make up for lost time.

Of course, at the same time, she would get to see them in parallel to her own daughters, her little ones, a pack of sisters who did not have such a severe age gap between them save for their eldest one. It was so easy to look at Marianne as though she was her, and Kacey and Remy were Nellie and Gracie... and it was sweet. Most of the time. Other times...

Maya went up the stairs, aiming to head to the second floor, but her path was redirected as she moved toward the second stairway but paused, hearing the piercing shrieks and rumblings that came from down the hall of the first floor. They were all used to plenty of the noises that came with raising so many young girls at once, and while a lot of it was born of play, of merriment and love, some of it went the other way. Whatever was going on back there that morning, there were some very not-happy young people. Even as she got closer to the green room, she could pick out voices in the mess. She could hear Aubrey loud and clear, and her screeches said, 'I don't like this, make it stop.' She could hear Mackenzie, and her shouts said, 'I love everyone, I don't know which way to go.' And she could hear Lucy crying, stuck, could hear Remy raging and Kacey matching her with a twinge of Lucy's distress. And she could hear Marianne, upset and accusing… All of it added up to more or less exactly what was really going on.

For the most part, Marianne was an open door with her little sisters, but there were also things of hers that were hers and hers alone, and this was for the most part understood and respected. The problems arose, more often than not, when the boundaries were breached, innocently though it might have been done. And this incident – once they could get to the bottom of it – would be just that, even if the results could not so easily be swept away. It would remain unclear exactly who had done what exactly, but someone or two or three someones had gotten into Marianne's Georgie Box, her secret treasure trove… and a couple of things in it had been broken. As rightly upset as she had been, they had to acknowledge that her little sisters, freshly five years old, were not undeserving of more mercy than what she gave them. She'd been hurt by what had been done, and everything had fallen apart from there.

Lucas had seen to the triplets, back in their room, while Maya had done her best with Marianne in hers, while the little sisters did their very best – sweetly so – and attempted to quietly pick up everything that had been sent out of place. For all that, they didn't expect to make everything better in a heartbeat. Some tears could be flipped into laughter in the blink of an eye, but this was not one of those times. Everyone stayed a little mad, and quiet, and cold with one another, which was not something they wanted to see on any day, but on this one especially, when they had all been looking forward to it…

It was the first day of classes for the college students in their household. In keeping with the constant thought of how they hadn't all gotten to grow up together like most siblings, there had been this whole thing planned, the better to be milked for all its potential in laughter. They were going to treat it like a first day of school not unlike the ones they'd had for Marianne and the triplets when all of them had started preschool, and then when Marianne had started kindergarten, and first grade… There would be especially picked outfits, and pictures taken, and for added comical potential apples would be worked into the pictures, to be given on to one of their professors if they dared. The girls weren't up to it anymore when the time came, and they had only two choices: either they'd take the pictures anyway, or they'd have to wait, even if the moment would be behind them. When put to that choice, it really didn't feel like a choice they could make: This had been something they'd sought to do with their nieces. If they weren't going to be involved, then what was even the point, right?

"I'm so sorry, guys," Maya looked to her siblings after catching them up on what was going on… as though they hadn't heard it from upstairs.

"Don't worry about it," Gracie promised. "We get it."

"Yeah, really, we do," Nellie added, turning a look to her twin that was mirrored back to her. It said enough for Maya to fill in the blanks.

"Well… maybe it's not completely lost…" Wyatt told her, and Maya smiled back at him. She would have respected his choice if he'd ended up leaving school behind, but she couldn't pretend that she wasn't glad he'd decided to stick it out and see what would happen.

He'd asked if she would drive them, and of course she would. She would bring the three of them to their school, with Finn along for the ride to see his dad off for day one of year two, and she would give each of them a good and slightly embarrassing big sister/mom hug and a kiss before sending them off together. She would get to see the twins spot their friends and boyfriends off ahead, even as they'd convince their brother of sorts to go with them. It would make her smile, thinking of Lucas and all his one-year-down friends back in school.

They'd all have a few days to settle into this new routine of theirs, with studies, with homework, and work-work, and everything else, before another first day of class would come along, this one for Maya, for Marianne and the triplets at the elementary school, and Mackenzie at preschool. It had been everyone's hope that, by now, the big 'tiff' would have smoothed out, but it had not gone that way in the end. No, it had been a very split sisterhood in the Friar house for all those days now, no matter how much everyone tried to bring peace and laughter back to them. And now that the day had arrived, it only seemed to get worse.

"No!" Aubrey cried when she was reminded that Mackenzie would be going to preschool while she got to stay with her Pappy Tom. It just didn't matter how much she loved the man, not when she was made to stay behind and not go along with her big sister, the way she'd always done, as far as she knew. "No, no, no, NO, NO!" her wailing intensified, until it got Mackenzie going, like whatever uncertainties she might have felt about going out there had now been confirmed for her.

"I don't wanna go, Daddy!" she informed Lucas, face full of New York Maya, it felt, because he nearly agreed with her.

"Sure, you do," he told her, and he saw the flicker of realization come to settle over her face, briefly, before she found her determination again.

"No!"

It was only going to keep spinning around like this unless someone came up with an idea. There was some hope that this would be the thing to get the sisters to rally again, and in some ways, it was, just not together. As the minutes ticked by before they really had to get going or else they would be late, there were a few separate appeals made to the little sisters, reminding them of all the good things they had been looking forward to about this day, no later than the night before. And while Maya and Lucas might have preferred to have a united front in this, they got the result they were after in the end, so they supposed they had to take what they were given. Their daughters were ready for school.

They thought better of bringing Aubrey anywhere near the preschool, as it was likely to create a situation where she wouldn't want to leave, so she was taken to her grandfather's house, there to be taken in by him and by her great grandparents as well. After that, it was off to the preschool, where Miss Alma was entrusted with the fifth of the Friars' younger daughters. She was so beloved already by Marianne, Kacey, Lucy, and Remy – which had been one of their biggest selling points – that once she was in her presence, Mackenzie couldn't help but be thrilled to be there. The fact that her parents were very emotional at seeing her take that step never actually reached her.

Moving on toward the elementary school, the car wasn't exactly quiet, especially not when they had music going, but the gaps were visible enough if they knew to look for them, and Maya and Lucas definitely saw them. The triplets were all very curious about their new school, but they didn't look as compelled as they should have been to turn to their big sister – who went to that school herself – and see what she had to say about it… and she wasn't giving any of it up either, was she? She was going to be in the third grade now, a shock of time for her parents every single year, in every new grade.

All the girls had people they looked forward to seeing once they got to the school, so as soon as they got to see those people, they wanted to go to them, leaving Maya and Lucas to split off, the former taking their firstborn and the latter escorting their second, third, and fourth. They wanted to take comfort in how they saw them all be truly happy to be there that day, as they were, but once they'd left the girls and reunited, the visuals faded back. They looked to each other and followed the impulse to hold hands all the way back to the minivan. Even after taking their seats, they didn't leave immediately, just sat together in silence.

"How long do you think this is going to keep going?" Maya asked.

"I can't believe it lasted this long already," Lucas admitted, and she let out a breath. He reached out and took her hand again. "They'll get there. They love each other."

"I know," Maya nodded. "I just keep thinking… I… We should be able to help them through this, to fix this. But we haven't, and now today… I know this wasn't how they all wanted it to go, and eventually they're going to regret that it did."

"Yeah…" Lucas frowned. He'd imagined it all as much as she had, as much as their daughters had done, but now they were the only ones still holding to that image. What else could they do? "You ready to go?" he asked.

"Oh, Sandra Davenport couldn't even touch me right now," Maya hummed, and Lucas felt a smile twitch at his lips.

"She never could," he told her, and that made her smile back at him. His confidence in her never ceased to feel like the truest thing in her world, right when she needed it to be.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners