A/N: [July 11th 2024]

October 4th 2023

Chapter 277
We Return to the Routine

By the end of week three, the new school year felt less and less like 'the new school year' and just became school, as the great part of any year would be. Between having Maya as a teacher, and Lucas being in charge of the afterschool program at the ranch, and their various 'college lodgers,' and then the Friar girls off in whatever grades they were in, school couldn't help but be omnipresent in their lives. That was more than fine by them, truly. If they were going to have something take up so much of their day to day, then school was fine by them. It was so important to them, in whatever position they held, to be involved. They knew, Maya and Lucas especially, how much it could do for people to have the right network surrounding them, helping them move forward in life.

"E-Zeeee!" Finneas squealed when he came through the door, guided by his father after being picked up from his grandparents' house. On the living room floor, the baby boy looked up at once at the sound of his name, his nickname courtesy of his cousin. He let out a squeal of his own and went scooting on his way to approach him. The older boy crouched, knelt, and sort of crawled the rest of the way until he could put his little arms around Ezra. "Hiiiii, E-Z!" he gave his best smile. "Hi, hi! Hi, hi!"

"He couldn't wait to get back to him," Wyatt informed her sister and brother-in-law, and they smiled. They were well aware. As far as Finneas was concerned, Ezra was his baby brother, and none of them were going to suggest that he was anything else.

"Uncle Wy, look!" Aubrey came skidding into the room as though she'd heard his voice from off in the kitchen and immediately come running to find him. She wasn't alone in this, as she'd barely handed her drawing to her uncle before her sisters and their guest came hurrying out to join them, the better to greet him, too.

"Wow, is that for me?" Wyatt asked, long versed in how to respond to such offerings from small children, especially those he was related to. He went so far as to crouch and get at eye level with the four-year-old before him. Aubrey responded by putting her arm around his neck, looking down at her work along with him.

"Yeah, see?" she pointed to several squiggles that could indeed be said to spell out Wyatt's name.

"I do, yeah. And that's me?" he asked. It was. "That's so good. I like my shirt," he pointed. Aubrey was pleased.

"I did it today. There was rain, we played inside the class. I like doing drawings with the rain," she mimed, and they could imagine just what she was saying.

That was something that her mother loved, too, sitting up at her desk on the second floor on a stormy day, the rain pattering on the large windows, the skylight… and Aubrey and her sisters had all spent so many of those moments sitting near her, doing the same… Now they were taking that memory into the world and knowing that it brought them comfort, peace, happiness… Maya could not have asked for more. She was doing so well in her solo year at preschool already, and to know that she was thriving in this way, their lucky seventh, their youngest girl… It meant so very much.

The unfortunate part of their look back on the start of school so far came with regards to Mackenzie. When they had been preparing for the new year, their biggest concern had been about how Aubrey would do without Mackenzie with her, in preschool. What they had never even considered was how Mackenzie would do without Aubrey, once she moved up to kindergarten. It wasn't as though she hadn't been on her own without her little sister before. She'd done her first year of preschool and only on the second was she joined by the youngest Friar girl. Things hadn't been so bad in the beginning, even though her best friend, Alia Song, was not in the same class with her, but by now it did feel as though the absence of both Aubrey and Alia had started to feel very angst-inducing for the five-year-old. She would hate to be dropped off in the mornings, and she would almost run for whoever picked her up. From what they'd heard out of her teacher, the part in the middle was not much better. This coming out of Mackenzie of all people left Maya and Lucas wondering what they could do for their daughter.

They did not have to worry so much or at all when it came to the triplets. Kacey, for instance, was doing so well that her teacher was suggesting they might test her to advance up a grade, maybe even two. This had been a surprise to her parents, but also not, having seen firsthand the way she was progressing, and they absolutely wanted the very best for her, but that fact in itself was where everyone seemed reluctant to move forward. Would Kacey really do better if she was taken away from her sisters? As different as the circumstances would be for both of them, Lucas couldn't help but think about how he'd been made to restart a year because of his suspension, taking him away from all the kids who'd been in his classes since the beginning to then start again with a new group. Yes, he had been so very fortunate in that it had brought him to friends who were still his friends all these years later, brought him to the love of his life and the mother of his children, but that was not a given, so how were they to decide what would truly be best for her?

Someone who would be very vocally willing to share their opinions on the matter would have to be Remy, and she did not want her twin to be in a different year than her or Lucy. Who could ever think this was a good idea? They hadn't even wanted to bring this up with her or any of the girls until they had a better idea of how they would proceed, but then it hadn't taken long for them all to put two and two together when the triplets' teacher had asked to speak to Lucas that day. The three second graders had been right there in the class, and Kacey had told her fellow triplets about the questions she'd been asked… Lucy tried not to intervene, but Remy would just not have it. Part of them could see her being a bit jealous at the idea of her and her twin being seen at different levels, and that was for sure a thing, but at the heart of the matter, Remy just didn't want to think that she and her twin could be permanently split up in school, and there was nothing to be said against that.

Lucy was doing very well in class, too, maybe not to Kacey's level, but enough that she was really enjoying her new grade, more than any part of her being in school so far. It was the first year that she wasn't just in school because it was what she was supposed to do, but she was in school, and she looked forward to it. With everything that was going on with Kacey, and with Remy by extension, it was not unexpected that she did experience her share of uncertainty, of anxiety, at the thought of her sister moving up ahead of her, but even as she wouldn't dare go and pronounce herself, her behavior would go and speak for her. She was happy for Kacey, proud of her, and she would support her if she did go up to third grade or fourth while she and Remy stayed behind… she just wouldn't speak that support out loud, for fear of making Remy feel bad. The important part was that Kacey seemed to be aware, and she was thankful in just the same way.

When it came to school concerns, these past three weeks, they'd had plenty for their daughters, but they'd also had plenty for their Irish guest, too. Everything had been great fun, being at the ranch, and at the house with them, but then school would likely be the one thing to really remind her that she wasn't back in her hometown, with the kids who'd grown up alongside her. They'd been sure that it would be the easiest path to her feeling homesick, for reality to set in, and they had been mostly correct. She never had to feel lonely, with Marianne and all her friends, and she had been a very good student back at her own school in Ireland, but it wasn't the same in Texas, and she was getting to see it. The best they could do was point out how it would be fun, just for this year, to experience it all a different way, to see both sides and compare them, and it seemed to be working. She would come home every day with stories about what she'd seen and done that day and call up tales from home, and they would give her their full attention without trying.

It might have been the best thing that Shonagh was there that year. It gave Marianne something to ground herself as she wrestled with her feelings for her new teacher. She thought him okay some of the time, but then other times she was barely managing to hold her tongue about how unfair she found him to be. His worst offense yet had been when he'd said something and made Winnie cry. She'd just about had a fit with that one, but then the next morning he had gone and apologized for his behavior and explained himself, insisting that it was not to excuse himself but to share context in the hopes that it would never happen again. Marianne had not known how to feel about it all at first, and she'd said as much to her parents, but once they'd discussed it together, she'd come out on the other side with the decision to accept this and give him a chance. Maya and Lucas had a feeling that this year as a whole would be this for their firstborn and her teacher, a journey toward understanding. Their biggest feeling was that, when the year would end, Marianne would have come to a place where she would be upset at saying goodbye to this teacher, too, just as she'd done with Ingrid, and with Zay. They supposed they should want this much for any of their children, in any of their years at school.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners