A/N: [December 23rd 2024]

December 23rd 2023

Chapter 357
We Travel As We Are

Dear Maya,

I've been sitting here for a while now, helping Stevie after morning sickness really came and knocked her down today. She ended up falling asleep against me, and I don't want to move and wake her up. I wasn't sure what to do, sitting here, and I just sort of started thinking about you and how you told me about how some of your old students had written to you while staying up with their babies. I'm not there yet, I know. Our baby is not due for months, but I'm thinking about them all the time, wondering and wondering. I want to remember this part, you know?

I feel like I can't stand still. I want to do everything, build a crib, paint walls, make everything ready, read all the books, take all the classes. I want to be ready. Stevie just smiles at me and points out that if I do everything that fast, I'll be ready but I'll still have to wait a long time, so I should pace myself. She jokes that she wants to make me a baby schedule, and I will only get to do something once a week. It might be a good idea. What do you think?

She finally told the show about the pregnancy. They haven't told her anything yet about if they'll write it in or hide it or anything like that. She's not really showing yet, but when her shirt comes up, you can definitely see something starting. You should have seen us when we first noticed. She said when her mom was pregnant, both times, she got bigger faster than they expected, so maybe she'll be the same. If that's the case, then the show is really going to have to think of something fast. We talked about it, and we both kind of want them to include it. We just had this thought that we could have all those episodes to look back on, to remember the way it was while we were expecting this baby. If you ask me, Stevie's been campaigning for it lately, trying to make them see how it would be a really great idea for her to be pregnant on the show. I think she's almost got them convinced by now.

Whatever they decide, I'll probably have enough pictures and videos for us to be able to look back on this just fine. It's all just so much more than either one of us could have anticipated, and we're barely starting. Me, I've started getting this idea of painting. Is that weird? I haven't done it since I was in your class, but then I had this image in my head of a portrait, of Stevie in a few months… She's going to be such a good mom, I can already tell. Maybe I can capture that, for the future.

Hope this finds you well,

Henry Hillard

.

Dear Henry,

Reading your letters has taken me back to those early days when Lucas and I were expecting Marianne, when we were about to become parents for the first time. I would call it family resemblance between you and your cousin, but then that's really just most new fathers, isn't it? I bet Lucas could tell you so many stories about his experience of that time. There isn't a set right way to do this, but for what I've seen and heard of you and Stevie up to now, I think you're on the right track. I'd also say you have nothing to worry about, but you're both about to be parents for the first time; the worry comes included in the package.

I do like your plan of spreading out the learning and the preparing throughout the pregnancy. I like it so much it makes me think of it all like a storybook. I would be happy to draw some images for you, something else to look back on, and to share with your child… I'm putting it out there for you and Stevie, so whatever you decide, I'm there if you need me. If you've got questions you'd want answered instead of drawings, I can provide those, too.

I can't speak for what the production will do, although for all I know they'll have made up their minds and shared their decision before you get this letter back, but I've seen my mother since Stevie told everyone about the pregnancy, and they're definitely on the fence about which way to go. They can see value in choosing one side or the other, and without having heard their reasoning either way, I can probably guess what they're all thinking in favor of or in opposition to writing in the pregnancy. Am I slightly biased? Maybe. Am I speaking as a fan, too, who would have something to say on the matter? Completely. It's their decision to make. But if Stevie has a good argument, I'm very much on her side… so there.

And you, with your portrait ideas, well, I really think you should go through it. I remember you being a lot better at it than you thought you were, and it's been a while since you picked up a brush, yes, but I can see it coming back to you. Whatever you create, it'll be a reflection of who you are now, not who you were as a high school student, and I for one can't wait to see what this version of you will be like as an artist. If you want any pointers, a refresher, you can just drop on by, no letter needed, no call, no text. Well, maybe a call or text, yes… With everything at school the way it's going nowadays, I'm having to head out there out of the blue a lot of the time. But if you do reach out, I'll make sure and get back to you as soon as possible.

Eager to hear from you,

Maya

X

With everything that had shaped the start of summer for all of them, there had not yet been an opportunity for the turtle friends to get together for a group dinner as they had been holding them before. It wasn't uncommon, no, but it was nonetheless important for them that they should rectify this as soon as possible. Now, at long last, that chance had come, and they were on.

The benefit here, both in having as many children as they did, and in those children being big fans of these dinners, was that they had many willing hands at the ready to assist them in all the preparations, and were there ever so many preparations needed when hosting their many friends and their even more numerous children… They had the whole process down by now at least. They would do all the cooking and baking and whatever else was required in two parts, one on the eve and one on the day of the gathering. If they had to pick a favorite, and they could, they'd go for day one. It was more intimate, a family moment.

On day two, everyone would be thinking of everyone arriving, so they'd be distracted. They'd be doing whatever they were all working on, but all the while they'd have their ears trained, waiting for any telltale sound that would alert them to the arrival of their guests. If they couldn't pick up on those sounds, they weren't completely out of luck, no, not when they had the dogs, playing a much more direct game of watch. Sooner or later, they had to spot someone coming and, when they did, they'd start barking.

That was what they did, and the moment they did, the girls sprang from where they stood or sat and hurried toward the door. Their baby brother, not one to be left behind, let out a squeal and chased after them, the better to be treated, like the others, to the arrivals in quick succession of the Orlando family, the Babineaux family, and the combined Zvolensky-Mantovani and Garcia-Choi families. It was as noisy a scene as they'd ever expect it to be, with everyone as happy to see one another as they were, eager to share stories of whatever they had not gotten to tell the rest of them since the last time they'd seen one another.

It was just as noisy as they were then joined by Rosa and Jenna, and then by Morgan and Paul. The two couples may neither of them have had children of their own or the desire to change that, but as aunts and an uncle, oh, were they ever beloved. They would be crowded around by all those junior turtles, and they would welcome this approach with the most glowing smiles, eagerly attentive and ready. The best part, to the parents of those children, was to see how much they all have special relationships with each of them in their own rights. They knew each boy and girl, remembered moments they'd shared with them over the years in ways one might not have expected, and no one would be more surprised than the kids themselves, happily so. They had yet to stump any of them, and it was getting to be clear how some of them genuinely tried to do so, to no avail. Maya and Lucas and the others would joke that they all had a stash of secret notes hidden away somewhere at the ready.

This time around was the first of their dinners where the Minkus family arrived in two different cars. Isadora arrived first, with the kids, having a much shorter commute now that she'd gone and gotten a house in Austin. It hadn't been the plan originally for her to move here, or even for her to do it when she did, but then opportunities had a way of presenting themselves, and one had done so with her, so she'd taken it. The family, split as it now was, still needed time to adjust, especially as far as Ada and Bertie splitting their time between their mother and father, but that was exactly why the move had happened in the summer, the better to give them time to figure things out before school started and they had to decide what to do. The easy option may have been for the kids to stay in Dallas, where they had been for years now, where they had already been in school, where they had friends, but that wasn't the only criteria, and they had not been able to reach a decision yet even as time was running out and they'd soon have to make a choice. None of them seemed able to make it.

If it was decided that the Minkus children would attend school in Austin, then there would be a sketchbook with Ada Marie's name on the spine in no time, which was as mind boggling as it was so, so exciting. They weren't there yet though and, frankly, Maya still wasn't completely sure of what she might be able to tell her friends with regards to the school that they might send her daughter to. There were changes being planned, big changes that she could not share with them, not yet, though she so wished that she could. One thing was for sure, the school as they'd left it on the last day of the previous year would not be the same one they returned to on the start of the next, but at least Maya could go forward with the confidence that those changes would be good ones, with great potential for the way they would impact the students who attended it. When she'd started to hear what Lita had in mind, and when her own suggestions had been welcomed and eagerly merged into the whole of it… They could make this work, she knew, and she hadn't felt this happy for her work in too long.

To hear them tell it, the other kids would have loved nothing more than to go to the school where Maya, Dylan, and Morgan taught, not just later, when they'd be freshman aged but right now, no matter what age they were at the moment. To them, it was just this magical thought, the idea that they could be their teachers. The feeling was very strong among the Friar and Orlando children, for obvious reasons, but this did not exclude the others by far. There was nothing to be done so far as reality, so they would all have to wait however many years they had to wait, but that didn't stop their would-be teachers from playing around with them, making as though they were students of theirs. It was like their favorite game at the moment, especially over the summer as they were not currently in school, and their parents would tease them about this need to be in school so much. Then there would be Zay putting in his word, depending on whether the kids had made it up to his class yet or not.

"You know, whether or not she ends up going to our school or staying over in Dallas, I do think Ada would appreciate getting a diary of her own," Maya reflected, that evening, as they prepared to settle in. Ezra was taking longer to settle down than usual, stubbornly clinging to wakefulness, but he only had so much power, and in the presence of his mother's arms he would find it increasingly difficult to hold those little eyes of his open. He was already blinking heavily as he clung to her and she leaned to kiss the top of his head.

"I think so, too," Lucas smiled as he finished putting his clothes away after changing and turned to spy this scene between his wife and their son. Maya looked up at him and smiled back.

"I think I would get him one, too," she declared, turning her eyes on Ezra, getting closer and closer to sleep. She didn't have to say it aloud and he would recall the same thing she was, thinking of when their baby girl had been little like him and following along while Maya would look through one sketchbook diary and another.

"You know I'd love to see that," Lucas brushed at Ezra's hair, further feeding their boy's slumber.

"Yeah, I do," Maya hummed. Silence seconds wore heavy as they waited, and waited, allowing Ezra to truly and properly fall asleep and stay that way.

"Want me to take him back there?" Lucas asked with a nod to the crib.

"No, no, let him stay here with us," Maya insisted, and Lucas saw no problem to this, only a great idea. So, they eventually settled into bed, the two of them facing one another, with the sleeping Ezra between them, promising dreams as sweet as his own.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners