March 4th 2023

Chapter 199
Onward

It never took very long to figure out whether or not Jamie was having one of his more clingy days. He continued to carry this impression in him like he'd lost some position ever since his baby brothers had been born. It wasn't all the time, and they all knew that he loved Simon and Jackson as much as the rest of them, but he was just two years old, and he needed to adjust, so they did their best to give him space to do that. All the while, they would gently remind him that the babies needed the attention they got, just as they'd all done when they'd been babies like them.

That morning, the second after the older three kids had gone back to school and Lucas was working again, Maya had a feeling, even before she ever got a look of her Tadpole boy, that they'd be in for one of his more… dramatic days. They'd had one day together, just him and her and the babies, and it had gone well enough, but now she fully expected an appearance from cranky, baby Jamie, and she got it. Lucas had gone on to get breakfast started for everyone while she sat with one baby and then the other for feeding. Simon had had his turn and she now had Jackson, the little Peanut looking like he was ready to go right back to sleep as soon as possible, when she spotted the small boy out of the corner of her eye. As soon as she acknowledged his presence, he came scurrying over to her, resting his head at her knee.

"Hey, good morning," Maya smiled, one arm supporting the baby while her other hand went to brush at his big brother's hair.

"Mama, wanna go to the park?" he asked, turning clear blue eyes up to her. She could see him try and negotiate coming as close to sitting in her lap as he possibly could in that moment, never going so far as to try and push his baby brother out of the way but near enough.

"The park, huh?" Maya replied, splitting her attention between her sons as best she could. "Sure, we can do that. Gotta wait until Nana gets here though, alright?" He gave a little whimper, and she slowly nodded, understanding. He wanted it to be just him and her, no babies, not even Nana, and he loved his Nana so, so very much… just not the same as his Mama. "You know, it's really lucky that she'll be there. Without her, we wouldn't get to do very much."

It didn't completely flip his mood the right way up again, and he was still very much in his feelings, ready to start and cry at any moment, but she was sure that some part of him, somewhere, was finding the logic. He didn't move an inch from where he was, and he stayed right there until Jackson was set down along with his twin, after which he wasted no time in climbing up the rest of the way for the Mama cuddles that he'd been after. The way he clamped on, Maya sometimes expected him to try and get at her shirt, as though she still fed him the way she did the twins. She had no way of experiencing what it was like, to be his age and in this situation, but she still empathized. She never wanted him to feel any less loved than he was, which was wholeheartedly.

By the time Lucas came up to find Jamie and let Maya know that breakfast was ready and her mother had arrived, the two-year-old was snuggled up and asleep in his mother's arms.

"I'm helpless, okay?" Maya whispered in 'defense,' and Lucas smiled, approaching to look in on the twins, lying side by side and awake together, before leaning to Jamie. He brushed at the boy's hair and, in his sleep, he only stuck nearer to his mother, letting out a whimper to make it clear he wasn't going anywhere. They'd had people telling them that they needed to get this behavior to stop, to not encourage it, and they understood where this came from to a certain degree, but at the same time… Jamie was two years old, the babies not quite two months old… He was adjusting, and they would help him along that road, but they would not rush him, not ever.

So, Lucas went about getting the twins downstairs while Maya carefully got up and carried the sleeping Jamie down the stairs. The way he hung on to her, she could probably have let both her arms down without concern that he'd fall, but she wasn't taking chances. Anyway, the journey down – and possibly the scent of the food and the voices coming from the kitchen – slowly but surely made him wake again so that he looked around as they got there.

"Good morning!" Katy moved from having greeted her youngest grandsons, the better to move to her daughter and her third son. Jamie perked up when he saw her, and he gave little to no resistance when Katy held out her hands to take him from his mother. "Just woke up, huh?"

"Jamie wants to go to the park today," Maya informed her, and Katy gave the very appropriate response of gasping with interest.

"That sounds like a really good idea! We are going to have so much fun, aren't we?" she told Jamie, giving enough of a good sell that Ava, Elliott, and Noah all looked up from where they sat at the table with expressions like they would have liked to go there as well instead of school. As for the one who would get to go, his smile managed to start and come in earnest at last, much to his grandmother's delight, as she peppered him in kisses and got him all the way into giggles.

After breakfast was over and Lucas took off with the school bound trio, the park group only had to get ready and head out, which they did. Katy gladly saw to the babies while Maya went and helped Jamie. They figured out together what he would wear and then he started to dress himself. He couldn't fully do it on his own, especially if his clothes would be the right way around, but he would do what he could and, when he got stuck, they'd be there to help him out. Did it sometimes seem like he got it wrong on purpose just so that they'd step in for the assist? Absolutely. Clever as he could be, he didn't succeed so much at fooling any of them, but they appreciated the effort and the cuteness that came along with it.

"Now, where is my little Tadpole?" Maya wondered aloud as she worked to get his shirt the right way around before pulling it down over his head. When his face appeared, he blinked from having kept his eyes shut and then hopped for his big 'ta-da!' reveal at the same time, nearly tripping over his feet in the process. His arms were not yet in the sleeves, so he braced himself on his mother, who kept him from falling. "There you are," she laughed and crouched down to finish getting his shirt on.

"Mama, your turn now," he told her.

"What, you mean I can't go to the park dressed like this?" she inspected herself, especially the few stains here and there that could be any number of things, thanks to her bouncing baby boys. Jamie shrugged, like he genuinely had no idea about this and she might have been fine without changing after all. "Yeah, probably a good idea to freshen up. Come on, you can help me pick, yeah?" Oh, could he ever…

So, they went to the park, the three Friar brothers, their mother, and their grandmother, and they had a grand old time. Maya and Katy would alternate staying with the twins and going off to play with Jamie. It would always be the funniest thing to see how the two of them would have the balance so figured out that Jamie never noticed a thing and continued to enjoy his play time, barely noticing the swaps. And when they finally left the park, intent on stopping somewhere for lunch, they only had a short walk to take and they were at Nando's diner, promising a stop over at the neighboring Friar & Olsen's bakery for dessert… and a chance for Jamie to put on his apron and stand behind the counter, naturally.

As Maya and Katy watched him interact with the customers, being his charming little self, they were all smiles. Maya told her mother about the morning, back home, with Jamie's clingy mood. Katy nodded knowingly, no stranger to her grandson's moods.

"I get that it's hard for him with two babies now, I just…" Maya shook her head with a sigh. This was not a new conversation for them, far from it, and it didn't seem likely to be put to rest for a while still. All Maya could do was try and show her Tadpole that he had nothing to worry about, in as many ways as he needed her to. It didn't make it easier to see her son struggle in this way and be unable to make it better.

"You're doing just fine, baby girl," Katy promised. "Look at him."

She did look at him, and she smiled, seeing how happy he was with his apron, standing up behind the counter, watching everything around him. He caught her looking and waved energetically at her, calling a loud hello over to where she sat. She laughed, waved back at him. Keep going… That was what they told themselves, as often as they needed to. Many times, over the years, when their situation would leave them feeling in any way inadequate in their parenthood, they'd had to remind themselves of this. Whatever was going on in the moment, they knew that, if they got to the other side, they would feel their doubts recede. They would see their children, happy and thriving, and themselves along with them. Jamie would be shown, day after day, that his parents' love for him never decreased, not by the smallest of measurements, and that it never would, no matter how many new siblings he got.

"Thank you, Tadpole!" Maya gasped as he came walking slowly – but looking like he wanted to run – and handed her a small box, a single cupcake. "For me?" she asked, and he nodded. She leaned closer, gave him a kiss. "How about we split it, you and me?" Yes, he liked that idea very much.

X

Lucas had been made to promise, upon dropping Noah off at preschool, that they would get to go to the park on the way home that afternoon. He wasn't surprised that the request had come, what with the looks he'd gotten when Jamie's request had been granted. If Noah hadn't done it, he was sure he would have gotten it from Elliott or Ava at the elementary school. He did get something from them, too, though it wasn't to do with after school. No, they had their mind sets on something just over a week away. The two of them had gotten to talking while he'd escorted Noah into Miss Alma, and now they were bringing this discussion to him.

Maya's birthday was coming up, and whatever meaning this day had had for him, for as long as he'd known her, it would be completely different for them. Elliott, like his younger brothers, looked forward to his Mommy's birthday, and Lucas could at least consider it from that perspective by recalling how he'd felt, as a child, whenever his own mother's birthday had approached. The older he'd get, the more he would remember it and look to the day with marked interest. And then Ava…

Ava had not even known Maya on her previous birthday, which felt so odd to consider. The month of January rolling around did mean a year going by since he'd first met the girl who would become their daughter, but now this, Maya's birthday… It would be the first one that Ava got to celebrate with her, with her Mama, and naturally she'd be deeply excited at the thought of being involved with it. Even as Elliott was the one to tell their father that they'd been working on this idea together, Lucas could see the big, giddy smile on Ava's face, too, and it felt impossible then to look at anything they suggested as unimportant. No, whatever they wanted, if it was in any way possible, he would make it happen.

His first idea, after he left them both at the school, required for him to call his father and ask if he'd mind very much if he was late arriving. He must have sounded like whatever he had in mind was very important, because his father had responded by chuckling and insisting that he take his time. They had no appointments before lunch, no big things to get through in a timely fashion… Thomas would await his arrival with curiosity, but he would wait.

So, Lucas made his way to the mall. He headed, first of all, to his former workplace: the bookstore. Oh, it made him so happy whenever he came here nowadays. Already, it was so amusing whenever he brought the boys and his former co-workers and regular customers saw them; they'd be so thrilled, sometimes overwhelmed at how fast they were growing… Elliott, Noah, and Jamie had all grown up with a love of books nurtured in them, and that was great. But then their big sister had them beat without even really trying, didn't she? Books, reading… It was a way of life for her, and her shelves before and after she'd come to live with them were proof enough. Lucas would be thrilled then whenever he'd get the opportunity to accompany her here. A lot of the time she'd come along with an idea of what she was planning to get, but that never stopped her from browsing for new things she'd yet to know about.

That day, he wasn't looking for any novels, no. He needed a journal, and he knew just the one. Ava had stopped and looked at it on a previous visit, and that told him it had to be the one, so he picked it up. When he left there, he visited Maya's former workplace, the art store, where he was guided by their friend Judd for just the kind of pen he was looking for, to go along with that journal. It was going to be Maya's birthday, not Ava's, but he was very much of a mind that, in order to prepare for something as important to her as this was, she needed to have special equipment, and he could provide that for her.

"What do you have there?" Thomas Friar asked his son when he arrived at their office and placed the one bag on his desk.

"For Ava," Lucas explained, smiling, before expanding on the morning's request from his two eldest children. Thomas' smile was as much one of deep knowing and full amusement, which suggested to Lucas that he must have looked as eager as his son and daughter had done earlier. He would proudly bear it.

It was not lost on him, some days more than most, how his presence there in the office would lift his father's spirits. That wasn't to say that his father had particularly needed his spirits lifted beforehand, when he'd worked alone. But now that he wasn't alone, now that he had his son working by his side… Maybe a part of him had felt some of that loneliness, whether or not he'd ever admit it; he didn't feel any of it now. It wouldn't matter that he'd only ever found himself working here, alongside his father, because of how his circumstances in life had changed. They got to work together, father and son, and that mattered a great deal to him.

"I ran into Juliet yesterday," Thomas told Lucas as they headed out of the office for lunch. "She told me that she's got some new riding students for you?"

"Ah, well, nothing sure yet," Lucas smiled anyhow. He'd had the two so far, and because schedules had permitted it – infinitely helped by how one of them was his own daughter – he'd been able to hold Ava and Kelsey's sessions one after the other, which made things all the easier.

But now Juliet had come to him with a proposition which had turned into another. She'd given him some space to heal after his fall through the fence, and then with everything that had been going on with Ava, and with the babies coming, she hadn't gone out of her way to match him to any new students coming by the ranch. But time had passed enough now, and so when she'd signed up a new young rider, she'd immediately thought of him. The boy was nine years old, and Juliet had claimed that he reminded her a lot of him, of Lucas. He wasn't sure in what way yet, but he had thoughts. For now, there was a meeting scheduled in the coming week for him to meet him and his family, to discuss a schedule and other plans, especially so far as horses. Juliet had suggested they match him to Jewel.

The very next day after this proposition had been put to him, the news had somehow made its way to his in-laws' house and to one of his young sisters in law. When Nellie heard that he had a prospective new student lined up, the very first thing she'd taken away from that information was that he was taking students again, someone her age, too! Oh, if he was going to take on someone, couldn't it be her instead? He hadn't even known that she'd been that serious about taking lessons until then, but one look at Katy and Shawn and clearly she had been. So, he'd talked it over with them, and he'd talked to Juliet. He felt confident that he could have four students, especially when he had two of them at the same time, and as he was related to two of them in some way…

Juliet had jumped on board after a very brief bit of consideration. She'd seen his work with both Ava and Kelsey and, factoring each girl's story and how he'd come to fit in it, she had expressed deeper belief than ever that he was an excellent instructor and the kind of asset she would want to hold on to, whether or not he was the grandson of the ranch's founders, the grandson of one of her dearest friends and mentors. If he said he could take on these two new students, then that was all she needed to know. They hadn't told Nellie yet, though he could imagine how thrilled she'd be. As to his other new student, he couldn't wait to meet him. Juliet had called it 'fated,' now that he had Simon and Jackson, because this young rider, like them, like Nellie, come to think of it, had an identical twin brother.

At the end of the day, Lucas went and picked up the kids from school and, as promised, he took the three of them to the park before heading home. It was while they were there that Lucas presented Ava with the bag from the art store. He'd stuck his first purchase in there as well and so she discovered them both together. Her eyes landed on the journal first, as she'd easily recognize it, and the reaction was just as he'd imagined it would be. If that wasn't enough, then there was the pen set. She'd long wanted to practice calligraphy, and if she was going to do so, then she'd need the appropriate equipment, wouldn't she? It would be about setting her and her brothers on the path to plan their mother's birthday, sure, but once that was done, there'd be plenty more pages, plenty more ink, and he had a good feeling that she'd know just what to do with them. The plaque he stared at every day told him as much.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners