A/N: [July 11th 2024]

October 3rd 2023

Chapter 276
We Return in the Fall

The boxes sat up by Maya's desk now, each book within having been given a cover design - except where the students claimed not to have had a good enough idea yet - and one page (or two) filled in on the inside - except those who had forgotten and had not handed them in. Two weeks had gone by in the new school year already, and when it came to the students up in Maya's classes, that was one thing, but when it was the girls, at home...

They had found their routine, and it would see them all through to June. The part that amused Maya and Lucas the most, apart from the stories that they'd be told every day, would be homework time.

Maya had plenty of memories of being their girls' ages and how much she'd struggled at the assigned work she'd be made to do, and she always went out of her way to make sure her daughters were never made to feel that way. It had been so especially when Marianne was the only one of them to have anything to do. But then the triplets had joined her, and the number alone went a long way to help each of the girls get her things done.

Now it was the four of them, and Shonagh, too... but also the little sisters. They didn't have homework, no, but where they could have just gone and played, they instead chose to go and sit at the table with their sisters and draw in their very own diary sketchbooks, complete with their names on the spines and the cover design they'd asked their aunts and uncles to help them with. Their older sisters never argued to their presence or the validity of their 'homework.' They were part of homework time, and that was that.

Now though, today, as soon as they were all done with their work, they could not wait to put everything away - though they did - and move on to the next thing, because the next thing was something they had been looking forward to all day.

It was that time of year once again, the time where people started to prepare for the coming of the fall festival. Where the Friars were concerned, it wasn't even a debate. They would be out there when the festival opened, and in the meantime they would be helping with all the preparations, wherever they might be needed. It was one of those things that had been part of their lives for as long as they could remember and, for that, just felt as though they were bone deep, part of them.

This would be Ezra's first fall festival, of course, although even as they realized this they were also forced to realize that they were running out of those firsts with him, the yearly traditions, the closer they got to December and his first birthday. That was alright though. Hitting seconds, and thirds, and fourths would only mean he'd been one of them for all that time.

For now, even though he really couldn't do much more than sit and observe them all, it was as much about preparing for Ezra's first fall festival as it was about getting him involved in his first fall festival. The girls were just loving this, getting to turn to their little brother and tell him what they were doing, recalling previous years and what they had done at past festivals. Ezra would listen to them all with the rapt attention of a baby boy surrounded with a pack of sisters and their expressive faces.

"It's too bad he can't remember this," Lucy declared, then, turning to her parents. "Can't he?"

"Probably not, no," Maya had to confirm, and it might have been more disappointing if the girls had had any real hope that the boy would actually be able to recall going to the festival as a baby.

"Half of you had your first festival before you were even born," Lucas pointed out, and this was a wild thought for all of them, as they looked to one another and tried to understand what he was getting at. Marianne was the first to put it together and reminded them that she would have been in their mother's belly at this time, as would Mackenzie, as would Aubrey, if barely. They liked that.

"We only really knew when it was Marianne though," Maya stated. "She was almost done baking," she smiled to her firstborn, who smiled right back while her little sisters looked five different shades of puzzled.

"Like a cookie?" Mackenzie tipped her head.

"Try not to think about it too hard, Macadamia," Lucas tapped the five-year-old on the head and she squeaked and laughed.

He definitely remembered that festival, just as Maya did. The two of them out there, not yet parents but so close to changing this that they were so anxious to meet their baby girl even as they would wonder the kind of parents that they would be. They'd spent weeks travelling with Ree Forster, where they'd been in this strange sort of limbo, or parallel world, knowing that their daughter was growing and developing even as they did about the least 'impending parenthood' thing they could have done and went on a world tour, where Maya performed her part, night to night.

By the time they'd returned home, the final miles to the finish line felt as though they had no choice but to be all about their Marianne and her upcoming birth. The fall festival though… That had been big for them, when Maya had first moved to Texas, and so it would have been impossible not to share that moment with their first child as soon as they could. They had pressings of fall leaves they had collected from every fall fest they had attended, each identified with the year it had been pressed, and when their baby girls each came along, well… Those were the most special ones.

It was this tradition that had been the first signal for the festival's approach, two weeks back, on the first day of class. She had spent her pause between seniors and sophomores to reset the room – without Assistant Coach Megan this time – and to think about the kids that would be joining her next. Her thoughts went to some of them in particular, for all too obvious reasons, and when the first students came, it was just who she had been thinking about. She heard her little sister's voice first, soon realizing that she was talking about her leaf pressings, and that she was talking about it all with Madelyn Carter.

When the two of them stepped into the room, they stopped, as did Maya. Sure, Madelyn had been back in class before the end of the previous year, so it wasn't as though she was only now returning from having had her baby, but it still felt as though this was her proper return. She was turning to a new page, making a fresh start… She'd gotten her hair cut over the summer, nothing too drastic but still enough to make her look like a new version of herself, same with her clothes. They all suited her very well. Haley had expressed her concerns to her sister before, wanting the very best for her best friend but also knowing what their classmates could be like. Madelyn might have wanted to keep the past in the past, but they wouldn't make it that easy for her. Some of them would love nothing more than to try and take her down a level or two, and they'd have to do what they could to keep them from succeeding.

If they needed backup, they could have it right there at the ready in the form of Hunter Matthews, Martin McNeil, and Jonah Killian. The boys may not have been at the top of the high school food chain, but they were right up there with some of their best, if Maya could say so.

They had all had a year to establish themselves in the school, and in her mind they had definitely done that in style. Martin was just cool, had already been cool, but he had truly flourished here, and his classmates had gotten to see it happen before their eyes. Easily the funniest part of it was how several boys in his year had attempted to take up ballet, as though it was the key to making them anything like him. It wasn't, of course, and a lot of the boys quickly let the ballet thing go, discovering how difficult it was and maybe gaining more respect for Martin, but a few had stuck it out, and whatever the reason why they had started, they were learning, and they were doing well for themselves.

Then there was Jonah, drummer extraordinaire. He hadn't started the band he'd wanted to start, not yet, but that didn't stop him from testing the musical waters over the past year. And if Martin was cool, Jonah… Oh, he'd had his fan club from day one, students who would see him go by in the halls and practically swoon. Haley had been one of those before she'd gotten together with Rafa, but that was all behind her now. Jonah very likely hadn't even had a clue. He had enough of a carefree attitude that it would turn right back around sometimes until things could just pass him by.

In the first two weeks since school had resumed, the one she'd had her eye on the most was Hunter Matthews. The boy who had been named after her father had made enough of a name for himself over his freshman year that the fact that his father was a teacher at the school hardly mattered anymore. Still, it felt to her like some things were changing with him. She couldn't put her finger on it, though she tried, or at least her mind wandered that way every now and again. She didn't want to intrude, only wanted to be sure that Hunter was okay. He was practically family, wasn't he?

It wasn't even that he looked distressed, simply that there were things on his mind, and they were keeping him distracted. Much as he was his own person, he echoed so much of his older sister and father, to Maya at least, that she couldn't help but look at him and feel connected to something she couldn't put into words yet. Whatever it was, she knew, it would find its way to her if or when the time came.

In the meantime, well… She had been thankful for the fact that both Hunter and Haley sat at the same station as Jonah Killian did. It made it easier for Maya to get away with looking in his direction. This wasn't about figuring out whether or not Agnes was Ezra's birth mother anymore, they knew that at 99.99% certainty now. But also, having that certainty opened new doors. They had always said how Jonah was like the male version of his older sister, that they could have been twins. And now that she knew that Agnes was Ezra's mother, that made Jonah Ezra's uncle, and having him there, she imagined her son as grown, as possibly looking a lot like him, and it set her mind to wander and wonder who he would turn into.

Much as she wondered what he knew, if he was aware of his nephew, Maya had been trying to rein in her curiosity, not to let things out of hand. Whatever or whoever Jonah was in all this, unless it all came out in the open that there was this connection between them, she wasn't going to have him wonder why his teacher kept looking at him. Oh, it was going to be quite the year for all of them, she knew. If they had all grown so much in one year, what would a second one bring them?

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners