A/N: [November 5th 2024]

November 5th 2023

Chapter 309
We Wake From Cover

Times were rare when the Friar girls did not look or sound eager to go to school. Really, those times came when they had to return to school, after a break anywhere from a full week to the long summer holidays. Those were the times where they would get to spend more time at home, with each other, with their parents, and anybody else they cared about enough, so it was only normal, to be expected, when they would go and begin talking of the return in earnest. In the fall, they had the benefit of back to school shopping, which was one of their favorite times of the year. In the winter, as they were coming off of Christmas, and New Year's, and all that fun…

"Do we have to go back?" Lucy asked of her mother one afternoon. They were in the master bedroom, where Maya's bun-bun girl was helping her get the diaries back in order in their boxes. She just enjoyed doing it, but on this occasion, Maya suspected this might also have something to do with her daughter's wanting to be near her, to appeal to her. The mighty blues were turned on her like they might make her consider the possibility that maybe Lucy and her sisters didn't have to return to school and they could instead stay right as they were, at home, together.

"Weren't you the one who got so upset at the idea of being away from your teacher for two whole weeks?" Maya inquired. "And all your classmates? And the lunch ladies? The secretary? The janitor? Do you need me to go on?" she asked, having seen each new addition wear down her daughter's resolve.

"Yes…" she admitted, sighing before she could move over and wrap her arms around her mother.

"You'll be fine," Maya whispered, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "The reunion at the end of the day, that makes it worth it, yeah?"

Sounds from up the hall drew her out of the room, Lucy on her heel, and she looked into the green room to find Marianne sitting at her desk while Shonagh sat on her bed, working on what looked like homework. On the open computer on the desk, Maya could recognize the face of her firstborn's faraway friend, Haru.

"What's up?" Marianne asked her mother and sister, the picture of innocence, and it was a credit to her skill that Maya felt genuinely unsure about this hunch that the girl was up to something. It was not something that many of her daughters could claim.

"We heard a noise," Lucy reported.

"That was me," Haru raised his hand, looking around in search of the voice who'd spoken. Maya and Lucy moved into view. "I knocked something over," he reached out of frame and brought up an empty glass. "I'm not supposed to bring them here. At least it didn't break, huh? Don't tell my mom? Please?"

The children were left to their chat and the day carried on. Lucas had been out at the time, along with the twins and the little sisters, and once he returned, he and Maya caught one another up on their respective afternoons, including the glass 'incident.'

"She's been dropping hints about this summer, you know?" Lucas smirked.

"Yeah, you have to hand it to her, she won't be subtle if she doesn't think she needs to be," Maya hummed. "So, what do you think?"

"What do I think about sending her away for the summer?" Lucas asked, looking as though his brain had already started turning the idea over.

Even though they had yet to talk about it together, they could both guess that their minds were more or less in the same place about this one. If their daughter wanted to spend the summer in her friend's hometown instead of having him come to hers like they'd been doing all along, it really felt as though she'd become old enough to decide. They had known Haru's family long enough to trust them with her… Really, the only 'issue' here came at the idea of being parted from her, and her from them, of her missing out on summer the way they usually had it. But then Haru had done it before, as had his older sister, their campers, and their young Irish guest… When they'd all been in school, Farkle and Isadora had spent some summers in Austin with them, too… Marianne would love this, they knew.

"Guess we should go ahead and talk it over with her at some point," Lucas finally replied. Maya let out a hum, moved into his arms.

"Does it have to be today?" she asked, with the sad little eyes she'd passed on to some of their daughters.

While Maya saw to bath time that evening, Lucas was on kitchen clean up duty, getting a few things ready for the following day. With how many of them there were in the house, it was the best way they had to make sure everything would go smoothly, especially on these days where the kids wouldn't be setting off for school after breakfast.

"Dad… Dad!" a whisper drew his ear… and his smile.

"Yeah, Pumpkin?" he asked, and she came to stand by his side.

"Does she know?"

"No, we're good, don't worry about it," he promised, and she smiled, giddy anew.

Maya's 'blind spot' toward Marianne's sneakiness at times could very much work in their favor, if Marianne was careful about how she presented herself. In this case, it allowed her and Lucas to coordinate efforts and plans for Maya's upcoming thirty-ninth birthday. One of those plans involved a gift, Marianne's own idea. This gift required the assistance of her favorite and most helpful aspiring filmmaker. Haru had been more than happy to work with her, and so they'd been at it, at every chance they got. Lucas couldn't wait until the secret was all out in the open and he could tell Maya about these covert calls, covert from her if not from him, and how happy they had made their daughter.

"How's it coming along?" he asked Marianne. She had gone ahead and picked up a rag to help him dry some of the clean dishes. He could watch her and her sisters at this task and be fully entertained, noting how they each went about it in their own ways.

"It'll be done in time," Marianne nodded. "It's going to be amazing, Dad. She'll love it."

"I know she will," Lucas smiled at her.

Marianne's project was not the only thing they had been preparing ahead of Maya's birthday. Even Marianne herself would insist that this was not enough, not for their mom. All the girls, from Ella on down, had given input on the project. As for presents that one could hold in their hands, the search for just the right thing to give was as difficult as ever, though easier for some than others. The triplets were so often huddled together in quiet conversation that it was easy to guess what they were up to. And whenever they would visit one another, Mackenzie and Aubrey would hurry to their eldest sister, easily suggesting who they had elected as the best source of inspiration.

Lucas hadn't exactly allowed all this sneaking around to be obvious to his wife, but he hadn't tried to keep her from seeing them either. The way he saw it – and on this Marianne and Ella agreed – Maya would expect this part, and she would innocently make as though she saw nothing. She wasn't going to spoil the surprise, for them more than for herself. What she wouldn't expect – not if they played their cards right – would be this project with Haru. The other presents would act like a shield, and when she realized they'd actually managed to pull one on her… Oh, she'd love it more than any of them. The closer they got to the big day, the more the girls were looking forward to seeing that reaction out of her. Now, the one thing that was helping them, keeping them from breaking, was the last piece of their many presents, was their attempt to come up with a present that would genuinely feel as though it came from one-year-old Ezra.

Along with his own present, Lucas had been seeing to the party. The girls had plenty of ideas on that side, too, but he had the means to bring it all together, and so he would. He could think of so many things that would make his wife smile on that day, and that was one of his very favorite things to do in life. He would have a tall order for the next year's party, when she would be turning forty, just as he was about to do in a few months' time, but that didn't make this year's party any less important. Every year, every party needed to be as glorious as the one before and the one after, because they were all about her, all about celebrating the fact that she was alive in the world and in all their lives. That very notion had been playing through his mind all the while, and he'd been slipping money into the Huckleberry Jar every time it did. At this rate, they'd be deciding what to do with that money in no time.

"Is it just me or…" Maya asked, later that evening, once the kids were all off to bed and they were getting ready for bed. Lucas looked over and saw her motioning to the jar, to where the money stopped and somewhere below that line, as though to say 'I remember it being lower.' She looked at him, eyebrow raised almost more out of his expectation of it than anything else. He shrugged, and her smile was barely containable. She approached him, intrigued. "What have you been up to, Huckleberry?"

"I think you know," he smirked, gesturing to the jar.

"Oh, sure, I do. I've known you more than half my life, I know how you work. But I'm intrigued," she declared, only stopping herself once she'd come to stand close enough to him that they could feel the breath rise and fall in one another.

"You do that a lot," he reasoned, and if they were trying to see which of them would break into laughter first, it was a losing battle on both sides. Because he did care about whether or not she'd figure out what they were up to, he pulled her into a hug and tipped them on to their bed, the better to enable a change of subject.

The upcoming return to school was an easy one to turn to, and so that was the one they stopped on. 'Back to school' was as much about Maya and her job as it was about their daughters and their classes, and all of it was keeping them both as busy as ever. Their daughters were not on their own as far as the struggle to break from this extended family time went, and that was the biggest thing for Maya and Lucas, but then her job was right up there, too, every year. This year, it couldn't be denied, the big thing that was pulling their focus was this notion of Sandra Davenport and just how badly they needed to get her away from their school. The battlefield had been quieter this year, but none of them were foolish enough to think that this was a sign that they were tipping the odds in their favor. Maya still believed that this would be the year where something happened, for good or ill. Either they managed to remove Sandra Davenport, or she would pull their school past the breaking point, and there would be no turning back. Maya wasn't about to let that happen, and even if he didn't work there with her, she would always have Lucas there to back her up.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners