A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

May 13th 2023

Chapter 133
We Remember The Last Time

Dear Mrs. Friar,

Even though I do call you by your first name now without feeling awkward, I found myself sitting here to write to you and the first three words I put down were 'Dear Mrs. Friar,' and it made me smile, so I decided I would leave it like that (and write a whole explanation on top of it apparently). That's just how the two of us always communicated in these letters, isn't it? Why break tradition?

I miss being with all of you at school and I'm looking forward to coming back. I still hear about what's happening out there, from you and others, and it makes me feel strange to know that I'm not there to be part of it. That is strange in its own way, too, I mean, think of who I am as a person, I've never been the most confrontational, but then something about becoming a teacher, you know?

And now on top of that, I'm a mother. I'm still getting used to the idea somehow. Like, of course, it was what we wanted, and then we had the pregnancy, and now we have our Mattie, and she is everything. But then to identify myself as 'mother' still makes me stop like 'they can't mean me, can they?' I don't know how to explain it any better, and I guess it's going to be like me and you and learning to call you by your name.

In the meantime, as much as I still need to adjust, and as much as I am looking forward to going back to school and my classroom, I wouldn't give up a single second with Mattie. I can't believe that she's almost a month old already. She's still so teeny, and fragile looking sometimes, but then she will hear my voice, or François' voice, she'll feel our touch, we'll hold her, and the effect it will have on her, again and again… He sings to her, every morning, and every night, and sometimes if he goes out during the day, he will call, and I will hold the phone so that she can hear him sing to her again. I've played his albums to her before, and it does something to her, too, but I swear she can tell the difference when it's really him, the live experience, even on the phone.

He got an offer to appear on a show back in France. He would have to be out there for a few weeks and he's not sure what to do about it. Obviously, it would be a great opportunity, career wise, but it would mean being away from home for all that time, and neither one of us wants to have to fly her out there right now, so if he went, he would be away from her and me for all those weeks. He would miss so much, and he doesn't want that, neither do I, but a part of me feels like he can't ignore what this might mean for him in the long run. I'm not sure what we're going to do about it, but I will let you know when we do.

Thank you for always being the willing ear that we need,
Love,
Stella Buckley

.

Dear Stella,

I have gotten to a point now where 'Mrs. Friar' feels as natural as my given name, so don't even worry about it. You call me whatever you want to call me, and I'll just be happy to be talking to you.

I remember feeling very much the way you're feeling on my maternity leaves, every time, from Marianne down to Aubrey, and this wasn't even when our school was under its current leadership. There isn't much for any one of us to do about it unfortunately. The best I can tell you is simply to let us handle things while you're away and, in the meantime, just enjoy and take in every second you've got with your little chick. You're really lucking out, getting to spend your days with her, but hey, if you ever want to call in Auntie Maya, she will be happy to sub in. She's got some songs, too.

Speaking of songs, I can only imagine the difficulty of this choice for François. The closest I came to anything like that, my baby girl was still growing in my belly, and I knew that I would be out of it by the time she came around. It would be easy to say that Mattie is so young, and she wouldn't remember her father being gone, but then on the other side, of course, he would remember and regret missing this time in your first child's life. I am sure he will make the choice that is right for all of you in the end, you both will, but if you need to talk some more, you know where to find me, whatever name you choose to use.

I am supposed to go and visit you and the baby bird later today, so it might be that I could just hand this to you in person, but I think I will mail it anyway, the better to keep up this routine of letters with us. Sometimes, it might make sense to skip that step, but this is not one of those...

As I await snuggles with The Young Mattie,
With love,
Mrs. Maya Friar

X

He could go to the ranch, and he did. He didn't go often, but he made a point of going in at least once every week. Despite all this, it was plain to see, most of all to his family, that Lucas still struggled with being there, and he hated that he did. He hated that being in this place that meant so much to him had been made to make him feel this way. In return, it was often their presence alongside him that made it so that he felt better and didn't feel that urge in him to turn and leave as quickly as his feet would carry him. Whatever needed to happen for whatever kept trying to hold him back to lose even more of its grip on him, he'd been certain that it would come from them, too, from his wife, or one of their daughters, or their granddaughter. They were his strength in so much of his life.

"Hey, I heard you were here today..." Ella came striding toward him as he sat watching one of their riders and horses going through their paces together. He liked to come here after a while, to just let the sense of peace he'd always found in watching these pairs go together slowly take him over.

"I went to see how Sylvie was doing, her first week back. I didn't want to come on day one, but now that she's had time to settle in..." Lucas explained to his eldest.

"Yeah," Ella nodded, sitting next to him. "She didn't stay very long on the first day, but that was the plan. I worked it out with her, didn't want to overwhelm her."

"Good call," Lucas smiled with pride; he couldn't help it. She was taking her place, showing she would be a great fit to their team. To him, she already was.

"We try not to leave her on her own so much. If she's going to be by herself for anything, there's going to be someone nearby if she needs them."

"She looked like she was doing alright when I saw her. Looks like everything is working out alright," Lucas told her.

Ella smiled, and for a few minutes they did nothing but sit there and watch the rider and horse go around. If he just sat like this, with her, he could probably have spent the entire day there, not a worry in the world. She must have sensed as much. She leaned her head, rest it at her father's shoulder, and it made him smile. Now it was even better, just him and his big girl.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?" he asked, turning his gaze down to look at her. She turned her head up to look back at him.

"So, last November was pretty strange for all of us, after... everything that happened to you, to Sylvie," she started, and he could only nod. "Everyone just did their best to cope. Taylor and I, we had this whole thing of just not getting caught up in the bad things that happened, the bad ones that could have happened, and remembering that we were all alive, and surrounded by people we loved and who loved us..."

"Sounds like the right way to go," Lucas nodded, not entirely sure what she was getting at. She just looked at him, and she smiled.

"So, all this to say... Here we are... a couple months later, and... I'm pregnant," she told him.

Lucas blinked, stunned for a moment as the words and their significance caught up with him. His big girl... she was having a baby, she was having her second child, the first with her husband, and this child would be his and Maya's second grandchild. It didn't hit the same way as it did the last time, it couldn't. Tori had become their grandchild almost in increments, as Ella wasn't even their daughter yet, so now... now... a baby...

"I was going to tell you and Mom and the girls together, but we were here and... it felt right, you know..." Ella explained, just as Lucas turned himself so he could embrace her. Right in that moment, no amount of residual pain could do a thing to him. His daughter had just given him the best news...

"I do, I promise I do," he told her, hearing in his own laughter the happy tears that he was shedding. "Maybe not how I expected to hear about it," he added after a moment, and now she was laughing.

"I wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't important to the story," she let him know, and he had to agree. It had been very important. What it came down to was that, out of all the pain and trauma, something wonderful had been created. He wouldn't forget it.

"Who else knows?" he asked.

"Taylor, the people at the clinic... You're the first one I've told," Ella revealed as they finally pulled back to look at one another. He could almost see it in her face now that he knew, which made it very difficult for him not to go and happy cry even more. "We were going to tell all of you tonight. We're supposed to tell Tori after we get her from school, before going to the house."

"You need me to pretend like I don't know yet? I can try and do that, but I think we both know your mother will not be fooled."

"Didn't think she would be," Ella agreed with a chuckle. "I guess we'll just have to go with it. I would leave it up to you to try and document the whole thing, without giving it away."

"You leave that up to Pappy Luke," he grinned, and she just laughed, so he hugged her once again.

Getting through the rest of the day was maybe the easiest it had been in a long time. Before he knew it, he was home, and the girls were back, waiting for their big sister, their brother-in-law, and their niece, so they could have dinner. Lucas was not ashamed to say that he hid his secret keeping by spending the whole of this time playing with his daughters. It wasn't as though he wouldn't have done that or wanted to do that even if he didn't have this monumental news to hide, so no one thought very much of it, and they made it to Ella's arrival without incident.

Lucas knew that Tori knew for sure about the baby as soon as he saw her, especially as she hurried over to him as soon as she could and whispered that she knew that he knew. Oh, she was as excited as future big sisters could ever get, and her little brother or sister couldn't come soon enough for her.

There was space to say that pulling a fast one on Maya was never easy, but it was doable if they were careful. Ella knew her mother very well, and so she managed to pull her aside and tell her first, with both Lucas and Taylor there along for the ride. The tale shared was just as it had been at the ranch, and by the look on his face, Taylor felt very awkward to be there for the telling in front of his in-laws. It wasn't going to matter though, not once Maya learned what it all led to, that he and Ella were expecting a baby together.

As much as she could usually be counted on when it came to being discreet, this was one revelation that defied everything, and when Maya was told of her soon to be second grandchild, she let out enough of a cry of surprise that it reached the sisters and their niece in the other room, compelling them to run over and see what was going on. When they got there, they found Maya holding tightly to her eldest and crying messily, about two seconds before she also reached over and yanked Taylor to join this hug.

"What's going on?" Lucy asked, as baffled as the others around her. Seeing all this, Tori decided it was her time to do as her mother had agreed to let her do and tell her aunts the news.

"My mom's going to have a baby, and I'm going to be a big sister!" she loudly revealed, causing a mass eruption of small girl outbursts, all of these surpassed by Marianne's voice, instantly the most directly excited of the six. When Ella was finally out of her mother's hold, her eldest little sister hurried to take over. Ella welcomed this hold, anxious as she had been to have Marianne know for reasons all her own, same as there had been for Maya, and for Tori, and for Lucas. They had all been parts of her transformation from teen mom Summer, all on her own, to the Ella she was now, and they meant the world to her.

Lucas and Maya would have their own loaded hug as they contemplated the news together. Grandparents again, and this time from the start. It was the best thing they could have asked for just then, and they were so beyond excited for what the next months would have in store, all the way to the coming summer, the birth, and everything that would follow. The future was wide open ahead of them.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners