A/N: [November 25th 2024]

November 25th 2023

Chapter 329
We Live To Make Memories

Between the two of them having grown up as only children, whether they had one parent or two, the concept of large family dinners had been so far from anything they knew. Sure, Maya had attended some dinners with the Matthews family, and Lucas had a few aunts and uncles and cousins, but compared to what they now saw as the norm today, those were quaint, small scale affairs. Tonight, at least, they were not the hosts, though anyone who would host them would have to add many more plates to their preparations, seats as well. As it was now, they were headed across the road to the Hart-Lane house, and so would all branches of their growing family. Abigail, James, Maisie, all the Hart-Lane kids, spouses, children… and for all that most of them knew, a regular family dinner. Only a select few of them, three of them, knew what would be happening, knew that this could turn into a night they would all remember well. Lucas had done very well in holding in this secret for Abigail and James, for Dakota Day most of all.

"Look, Emma! It's beautiful!" Shonagh came running out from the Hart-Lane kitchen when it was announced that Emma and Dakota had arrived. Emma had very recently offered to make a dress for the Friars' guest after she'd mentioned wanting one like it, and it had been dropped off the day before, just in time for dinner.

"It looks so good on you!" Emma smiled as Shonagh turned to show her the back as well. When she had made back around to face her, she stepped up to hug her, and Emma hugged her back.

"It's just like I wanted. Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome," Emma told her, looking so happy to see her happy. By her side, Dakota was smiling, too, taking in the scene, the happy girl and his girlfriend… soon his fiancée, if she said yes… He'd been the one to drop off the dress, and he'd told them how much she'd enjoyed working on this project for Shonagh. She'd worked on it as much as needed to ensure that it would be ready for this night's dinner, and it had worked out very well, as he told Lucas in private, to keep her from noticing his own preparations.

Emma had had some help on the project as far as tracking down the needed materials. She'd had her sister, best friend, and now business partner, Eliza. She arrived next, with Ben and their Hannah. Already coming on two and a half, she was like a tiny, female version of her father, but she'd also watched her mother work for almost as long as she'd been alive. Now, she had the means to play and pretend that she was making clothes, too, and Eliza had been figuring out how best to get her started with real little projects, knowing that the pretend would only do for so long. She'd want the real thing, and Eliza had been looking forward to sharing that with her, too.

"So pretty!" Hannah intoned when she saw Shonagh's dress. She was allowed to come and touch it, invited even, and she reached up to do so, trailing her little fingers along the patterns.

"Favorite words right now," Ben informed Maya, and it made her laugh. "She's been going around the house, judging everything she sees," he went on, putting on a very observant face to mirror his daughter.

When Teddy and Priya arrived with Lily, Shonagh was spinning slowly to make her skirt spin, too, just to make Hannah happy, and she was that, giggling and clapping her hands together. Now, both girls turned their attention to the trio… nearly a quartet. Priya was all of a month away from giving birth, and she was so, so ready to get there. They were all ready for their own reasons. She was eager to be relieved of the discomforts she was experiencing daily, and Teddy wanted that for his wife, too, while both of them could not wait to meet their unborn child, the great kicker that they were. To hear it out of her though, no one was as excited for this baby to come than their big sister Lily. She had been coping with the wait by informing herself as best she could, to take care of her baby sibling when they would come along. They could probably have quizzed her on anything, and she would have aced the test.

Shonagh's dress was a big hit with them, too, and she never missed a chance to give the credit to Emma. They knew what she could do already. At Priya's baby shower, she had been gifted with a few outfits that both Emma and Eliza had worked on together for their future niece or nephew, and they had been enough of a hit that they'd started to talk about making this their business, or part of it. For now, they couldn't wait to do more, for this baby, or for Lily, for any of them. Eliza had been making most of Hannah's clothes since she'd been born, taking her inspiration from her daughter.

"Where's everyone else?" Lily asked, and she was directed to the kitchen, where she ran to find them.

Lucas was there, in the kitchen, having joined the effort of preparing the great meal for the family still arriving. He was aided there by several of his daughters, those who weren't helping with the table set-up, as well as Abigail, James, and Maisie. The youngest Hart-Lane was leading her nieces in their careful cutting, or measuring, or mixing, and she was doing very well for herself. The girls looked up when Lily came along, beelining for Abigail and James, who turned and welcomed her at once, brightening as they would with any of their grandchildren. They loved them all equally, of course, but while it would never be a question for any of the others, they were always intent on making sure that Lily knew she was very much one of them. To look at her now, there was no doubt that their efforts had not gone unnoticed. They were her grandparents, and she loved them as she did her birth father's parents, who continued to be in her life even though he hadn't been for most of her life.

Ever since they'd arrived earlier, Lucas had been so amused at the sight of his mother-in-law, the only other person who had been told of Dakota's plans – aside from Ezra, who wouldn't breathe a word of it – and no one could have been as eager as her today, waiting for her girl's moment to come. Lucas had joined the kitchen team almost exclusively in order to be there to help her keep it together until the very end, when there would be no more needs for secrets. To look at her, it wouldn't come a moment too soon. Lucas could say for his part that he didn't believe Maya was on to him, but with James and Abigail, it was hard to say. He could have started to wonder what was going on with his wife over the past few days, and today most of all.

"Hey, we're not late, are we?" Wyatt asked his sister when he arrived, hand in hand with his son only just as long as it took for him to see everyone else. When he did see them, Finneas sped ahead, where he went for his aunt Eliza like a rocket and was picked up at once.

"Hey, Finny!" she smiled at him, kissed his cheek. How she and her younger brother could have become parents so close to one another, it still felt funny to think about it sometimes, but then they'd see Finn and Hannah together, the closest of cousins, and they were already so much like his father and her mother as they had been when they'd been little, as Abigail remembered best, only now without the four-year gap between them. No one loved this fact more than Wyatt and Eliza themselves, and Maya had this thought that, if and whenever Wyatt and Finneas left the Friar house, they would end up very close to the Landaus, as close as they could get.

The Arroyos were next to come along, announced ahead of their ever getting to the door as Finneas and Hannah had taken up their post by the window to see when the rest of their aunts and uncles and cousins would arrive. When they spotted a car, they started talking over one another, announcing 'car!' over and over again. The third and fourth of their little group were both in that car. Two siblings so close to one another, and to these two cousins, as first they'd had Manny Arroyo, and Finneas Hart-Lane just three months after him, and Hannah Landau four months after him, and lastly Sara Arroyo three months after her. All four of them, in just under a year, their own family baby boom, and now they were all walking and running around, learning to talk… They were becoming the best of friends.

"Hey, bud," Maya beamed when she was joined by six-year-old Felix, who came through the door carrying the dessert his father had made.

"Hi, Auntie!" he smiled so brightly, an echo of both his parents in him. He looked like he wanted to hug her but didn't know what to do with the container in his hands.

"I'll bring this to the kitchen, yeah?" Cara stepped through, brushing at her eldest's hair with a grin before taking the dessert. Maya and Felix watched her go before turning back to each other.

"Gotcha now!" Maya pulled him up into her arms, and he laughed, hugged her back, and held tight. "I thought about you the other day," Maya told him. "Ezra was so happy about the rain."

"Mom showed me his pictures," Felix nodded. He was just too sweet of a little guy, always. Ezra would be so lucky to take after him.

All they were missing now were the Calaharts, and they arrived shortly after the Arroyos. The more time went on, it would feel impossible to think that it could have been so long since Maya had very coincidentally run into her half-brother at his school in New York. One second, he'd been a kid, the next he was a thirty-year-old man, with a wife and three children, a published author and artist… She was so proud of him, and maybe it was just that, in her heart, he would always be her kid brother, a bond like no other she had with all of her siblings. He'd been the first, in every way.

"Hey, Sammy," Maya grinned as he came up through the Hart-Lanes' door with four-year-old Tim draped at his back, arms around his neck like a cape, and the very recently turned one-year-old Dottie in his arms. "Nice… carry-ons," she teased. "Mind if I steal this one?" she nodded to Dottie, who was already on board with this exchange.

"She might take issue if I did," Sam laughed, passing his youngest over.

"How are you, Dottie girl?" Maya asked, signing along. She was being raised to learn the language, same as her siblings, though in her case it was about more than being taught for her mother. Same as her siblings, her hearing had been tested from day one, and while Francesca and Tim had tested well all along, their baby sister had been at the other end, sharing more than a name with her mother.

"Tim's trying to teach her 'bad words,'" Francesca informed her aunt as she came up with her mother. At Maya's curious look for the air quotes, the nine-year-old looked to her little brother, now stood on his feet. When he demonstrated the signs, his parents and his aunt tried not to laugh at what was considered 'bad' by the four-year-old boy.

"Everyone's here?" Lucas asked when Maya walked into the kitchen, Dottie balanced at her hip.

"Full compliment," Maya confirmed. They were silent for a beat, looking at each other while Dottie played at her aunt's necklace, and to Lucas it felt like… prodding, like digging. Curiosity…

"What's up?" he asked, knowing that he was on thin ice with what his response would tell her.

"I don't know, you tell me, Huckleberry. Something about all this is starting to feel a bit… fishy," she reported, tagging this by signing 'fish' at Dottie. The baby girl imitated her. "Good job! That's right! Uncle Lucas is fishy," she spoke and signed, and it made her niece laugh.

"Is that what I am?" Lucas asked, looking to the one-year-old as he signed. "Am I fishy? I thought I was silly."

"Oh, you're that, too, every day of your life," Maya informed him with a smirk. That, they both knew without a word, was a very good thing. "So?"

"So?" he replied in the same tone.

"Alright… That's how we're playing it… Alright…" she backed up slowly, squinting at him 'suspiciously.'

She didn't have too long to wait. Everyone became a bit spread out after arriving, but sooner or later they had to reconvene for dinner, and when all of them were there, it took a while to get everyone seated, especially the many children among them, but they got there in the end. Lucas could see the gears turning in Dakota's head, like he was waiting and looking for his moment, and so long as he was left in this hold position, he was as nervous as anyone could get, on the verge of such a big moment in their life. But sooner or later that moment would present itself, and it did. When the moment came, he didn't hesitate for a second. Part of the reason why Lucas had been told in the first place had been to act as his launchpad, and he played his part well.

Dakota was incited to share a story, and he did so, a memory that led him to speak of his girlfriend, there at his side, and how much she meant to him, how much she had brought into his life. Emma smiled as she listened, but even as some of the others around the table started to see where this might be going, she remained clueless, right up until the box came into view, and they could have heard her heart ramming in her chest with how quiet the others became, even the children by some chance. He asked his question, and it only took her two seconds at the most to tell him yes, and then the voices were heard, cheering happily for the newly engaged couple as they embraced and shared a kiss. The cheers were still going, but Maya and Lucas exchanged a look, and she gave him the 'fishy' sign again.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners