A/N: [July 9th 2024]

September 23rd 2023

Chapter 228
Set Out the Candles

She had been seeing him watch her all evening like he was waiting for something. When they'd picked him up from preschool, when they'd stopped at the grocery store, then at home while his brothers and sister were playing he'd been there to peek into the kitchen every once in a while… This went on through dinner and into bath time, before finally Maya saw to it that it was just him and her left. She helped him get all toweled up, combed his hair while he kept staring at her, three and a half years old, with a piercing in his blue eyes that reminded her of his father in a way that made her think he would have been exactly like this at their boy's age.

"There you are, Tadpole, all set for PJs now, and then bed soon… unless there's something you wanted to share?" Maya innocently asked as she stood crouched before him, holding him all snuggled up as he was. Jamie looked around, in a very plain bid to ensure no one could hear him but her, before leaning nearer, until his little nose prodded against hers and his eyes crossed a little for being so near.

"I want to make cakes, Mommy. I did pictures today," he whispered.

"You did?" she whispered back, a smile tugging at her mouth.

"Yeah," he nodded without pulling away. "One for Noah, and one for Daddy, and-and one for Elliott," he counted off. "For the birthdays."

"Oh, that's so cool!" she whispered in genuine excitement, and the boy vibrated with new excitement. "Can I see them?"

He was off like an arrow at this, enough that it was a wonder he didn't lose the towel wrapped around him as he went. He partially forgot its purpose as he found his things next to his bed, but it stayed and covered him… mostly. Maya came and grabbed the clothes to help him get dressed even as he showed her the three drawings that he'd done. He described them all as he went, the papers having to be put down and picked up again, swapped from one hand to the other at times, but he got his point across, and Maya couldn't get enough of it. As young as he still was, there was no forgetting how devoted he had been over the span of his short life to his favorite channel on the television, and how he had been existing in the kitchen of the Friar & Olsen bakery for just as long. He had picked up a lot of knowledge, and his instincts were becoming enough so that what he presented was still childish to some degree but, on the whole, made enough sense that Maya was overwhelmingly impressed.

"So we're going to have to get started on this one pretty soon, huh? You and me together?" she asked, indicating the drawing for Noah's cake as she held out her other hand in a motion universally recognizable as 'let's shake on it.' Jamie grabbed on to it with both of his hands with merry excitement, and the plan was set. They would find the time to go and work on this cake without any of their May boys knowing a thing. It would be great.

It didn't take long that they crossed that first big day, as on the fourth day of the month Noah Patrick Friar woke up freshly elevated to the age of six. His parents had not forgotten the tumble he'd taken on the morning of his third birthday, and none of the three years since had convinced him that their second born son had grown out of those impulses. If anything, he was more prone to them now than he had ever been to let his mind lead him into any other trips to the hospital, and as much as they'd try to counsel him away from those possibilities, there would only be so much that they could do.

Noah didn't end up in the hospital that morning, or the rest of that day, so they'd have to take that as an encouraging promise for the start of his seventh year among them. Instead, he started that day coming up to his parents' room, begging them to let him finally play with the video game that his grandparents had bought him for his birthday. They hadn't actually given it to him yet, and he wasn't even supposed to know that they had it, ready to give it to him, something that Maya and Lucas both pointed out. Noah could see how he'd just busted himself, exposing the fact that he'd gone snooping for presents, and his only rebuttal there was that he hadn't actually gone and started to play with the game right when he'd found it, that he'd instead left it where he'd found it. He had a point, and they would give him the game, though it came with the understanding that there would be repercussions later.

Later on that day, as it was Saturday and no one had school or work, they would be having Noah's party, with family, and friends, and schoolmates, but for the time being they had the six Friar children down in the living room, in their PJs, working together to discover this new game together. Ava, Elliott, Noah, and Jamie were all squeezed together, looking at the screen and talking over one another as they played. The twins at one time or another would run around or stop to look at the screen with curiosity. Whenever they would stop in front of the screen, blocking the view, Ava would gently encourage them to come to her, and they would.

The boys were all great with Simon and Jack, but Ava was easily the best. Maya and Lucas would leave her to babysit her brothers whenever the occasion demanded it, and she would always jump at the chance. A few days after Noah's birthday, she got to look after her two youngest brothers for an entire afternoon, and she did so with Kelsey for company. She didn't exactly chase her parents and brothers out the door, but they were made well aware of the fact that they had places to be, and they had put her in charge of the twins, so they should get on their way so that she could do her job. They got the message, and off they went.

When they returned, the house was just as they had left it, if not neater than when they had departed, and the twins were soon to wake up from their nap. Maya went up to check on them, soon joined by Lucas once he'd gifted their valiant babysitters with the treats they'd brought back for them. He quietly walked in even as the boys first started to stir from their sleep. They weren't so little anymore, and by now would often be settled in their parents' bed for their naps, the better to be close to one another, which was how they preferred to be. If they woke up and the other was not by their side as they became aware of their surroundings, they would pitch an almighty fit. Luckily, their family knew better than to let that happen unless they had no choice.

"You would have been big brothers by now…" Maya was telling the boys as they stared back at her, blinking back sleep, and it made Lucas' heart feel suddenly heavy. He'd forgotten… how could he have forgotten… The baby had been due in May, due to join him and their eldest boys, until… Maya's voice wasn't exactly broken as she said the words, but he could sense the emotions brewing in her. She looked at him, maybe sensed that he'd come at last and now had heard her. She followed his approach as he came to join her, gave her shoulders a squeeze… "It hit me today, out of nowhere," she admitted. She hadn't told him what she and Jamie had been up to while he'd taken Elliott and Noah to the ranch, but he could guess it had something to do with his own birthday cake.

"Yeah…" he slowly nodded. How different it would all have been if they hadn't lost their little chick…

"I've been preparing myself, the closer we've been getting to my due date, I knew it would be like this, but now that we're here… I couldn't have known… not really."

They stayed in this moment, this bit of quiet even as the boys came forward to be held and found two pairs of arms as willing as they could ever get. It was important to them both that, once they left this room and rejoined the other children, they would be able to smile with them without feeling in any way as though they were being disingenuous. They went, and they soon had dinner, with everyone sharing stories of what they had done that afternoon. Jamie was very invested in his plate, suggesting that he did not trust himself not to say the things he was not supposed to say, while his older brothers didn't miss a beat, talking about how they had found a 'treasure' and spent the better part of their time at the ranch looking for more. To hear it out of them, they might have been pirates.

Ava wasn't exactly quiet through dinner, and she did talk about how she and Kelsey had played with the twins while watching them, but to her parents it also felt like half of her mind was focused on something else. Her parents were left with the distinct impression that there was a smile just bubbling underneath the surface and she was attempting to keep it under wraps. It was too close to the surface though, and if she had her brothers fooled, her parents were another story.

Maya went and saw her down in her room that evening, after the boys had been put to bed, and there she found her off in her own head, looking at the growing spread of pictures stuck to her wall, above her bed, pictures of her and Kelsey that went back to about as long as the two of them had known one another. The more recent ones had the girls very often sat shoulder to shoulder, or with one of them with her arm around the other's shoulders, or hugging from behind so that their heads would be stuck together… Some of them featured silly faces, but all the other ones were smiles, bright, bright smiles that showed just how happy they were to be in one another's lives. It all reminded Maya of her old bedroom walls, covered in her drawings. They made her feel safe, happy, loved… they reminded her that the past was behind her and everything was so different now, so much better. All around Ava's room here, whether they were pictures or objects, there were countless reminders of her new family, her parents, her brothers, but this wall right here was all for Kelsey Farrell.

"You girls had a good time today, huh?" Maya quietly asked, so not to startle her daughter. Ava turned her head to look at her and smiled as she nodded.

"After the boys went down for their nap, it was just the two of us. We watched a movie…" She'd said as much at dinner, but here she allowed herself the space of a breath, and a renewed smile… It was a clear view into her heart, one to suggest what it had felt like to her, and to Kelsey as well. Maya and Lucas both might have called it a lowercase d date. "She held my hand," she confessed, and the tinge of pink blooming on her face made her mother smile along with her. Maya had a feeling that, even now, Ava could recall exactly what it had felt like for Kelsey to hold her hand and to hold hers in return.

The month of May kept on moving onward, as it would. Ava and Kelsey were afforded a few more opportunities to hone their babysitting skills together. And finally, one morning, the Friars reached their next big day for the month, as Lucas awoke on his twenty-ninth birthday. Of all the ways this day and this thirtieth year of his life could have started, his baby boys' squeals and cries summoning him and his wife from bed felt just fine by him. He scooped up Jack, as Maya got Simon, and they brought the pair back to the bed to sit with them. They had already calmed down the moment they'd been picked up, could have been set down, but he didn't wish to, and neither did Maya, so here they were, watching their boys acclimate to this new morning without even knowing exactly what made it special.

"I think he still misses the beard," Maya whispered, holding Simon in her lap as she watched Jack standing on the mattress and messing with his father's face with curious hands. Lucas didn't stop him, though he definitely did his best not to get poked in the eye.

"You know, I'm sure he'll get over it," he chuckled. "But nice try."

"Had to," Maya hummed before bowing to pepper their son's face with kisses. Simon squealed and giggled at the onslaught. Looking at them, Lucas let out a breath, felt his heart light. There would always be this memory of what could have been, existing in this month for them, but at the same time… At the same time, there would also be all of this, and every time they would remember the maybe, they would also remember their reality, and all that it gave them every day.

On this one day, even as he was being celebrated by his loved ones, his wife and children, his parents and grandparents, his friends and colleagues, Lucas would be given one gift he could not have predicted. He received a phone call, and on this call he was given an offer. His series with Ava, what had started out as segments on the news and evolved to this Austin-based program, was being eyed to expand, to go statewide, perhaps even further, depending on how this next step went. A meeting was set, to take place in early June, and in the meantime all Lucas had to do was consider the offer and pull together ideas he might present at this meeting, ways to evolve the series if it took this next step. It was so beyond what he might have imagined, and he was glad to have time to consider, if only because there was something else for him to give his undivided attention to in days to come.

Every year felt as though it went by a little faster than the one before. One moment, they were a couple of kids themselves, being handed a baby boy, their first, and being expected to look after him as his parents, and the next… that boy was seven years old, getting taller by the day and being such a bright spot in all their lives that they wondered how they ever saw anything before he came along.

"Dad… Dad, come here," Elliott's whispered voice caught his ear, and Lucas turned to look at him instead of turning into the bathroom as he'd been about to do, in the quiet before everyone woke up. His son, his firstborn, stood in the doorway to his room, the one he shared with two of his brothers. As far as Lucas could see, Noah and Jamie were still fast asleep, which was the least they could say about their big brother.

"How long have you been awake?" Lucas asked, moving to observe his son. "You feeling alright?" He looked… worried? A little? A lot?

"I… I tried to fix it, but I can't. Do you know how?" Elliott continued to whisper as he went and pulled something from under his bed. Lucas recognized it before he saw it all; he knew that knitted blanket, the green colors chosen for their sprout of a baby boy. The thing had followed him well over the years, ever since Maya had made it for him, or it had… Now, a side of it looked seriously unraveled, almost broken beyond repair. He could see what looked like efforts to remedy the situation, but they had clearly not gone well.

"What happened to it?" Lucas asked, not reproachfully, just wondering. Elliott looked down. Even in the way he held the thing, he was clearly distressed. He loved his blanket, they could see it in how he used it, even if he didn't say it in words.

"I took it to school with me, my teacher said we had to bring something and… One of the older kids, he took it from me. He said I was a baby, a baby with a blanky."

"And he did that?" Lucas asked. Elliott's face shrank. "You did that?"

"I didn't mean to. It got caught. I wanted to hide it and it got caught. Can you fix it, Dad?" He didn't want his mother to see. He knew enough to think that, of the two of them, it would hurt her the most to see the blanket this way, or else he would have gone right to her, knowing she'd be the one to know what to do. And he really wished he could just say that he would do it, that it would all be as good as new, without anyone knowing, but even if he managed to make the blanket whole again, there'd be no hiding the repair. Maya would know either way, so he had best go and tell her what had happened.

Lucas told Elliott as much and, though he tried not to at first, he finally carried the bundle back to his parents' room, where he went and showed it to his mother. Maya took the story in, took in the state of the blanket and, most importantly, the look on her son's face, and she set to work at once, piecing back the broken thing that had warmed her sprout for all these years. Even by her hand, the fix was not invisible, but she hid it in new branches, and it might have become better than it had previously been. Elliott received his green blanket again, and his smile was all the thanks that Maya could have asked for, even before the massive hug that she was given.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners