A/N: [November 22nd 2024]

November 22nd 2023

Chapter 326
We Live So Fast

She would probably be mercilessly teased for it, but when it became clear that morning that they'd have no one to look after Ezra out of their usual sitters that morning, she chose to just take him along when she went to school. Could they have reached out to anyone else who could have looked after him? Sure. But then she got that idea in her head, and there'd be no getting it out again. She had brought all the girls to her classroom as babies and toddlers, and she might have done the same with her son already by now, but she'd… She'd resisted, hadn't she? She'd always had his birth parents in mind, before and after she'd identified one of them, and maybe deep down she'd felt it would have been too much to bring him, that it would have been cornering them with the presence of the boy they had surrendered… But she had to bring him now, and it had less to do with them and more with Ezra himself. He was her son, as much one of her children as any one of her daughters were, and she wanted to share this tradition with him, too.

"Look at you, Mr. Friar," Maya beamed as she finished dressing him. He had worn some of his sisters' hand-me-downs when he'd been a baby, especially in the very beginning. But he was growing now, more and more by the day. Shopping for him had been a new experience. They would not forget the first time they had gone into the boys' section for him, where they'd only ever shopped for nephews, for junior turtles… They had maybe gone just a bit overboard, but they'd come away with enough to see to it that their boy looked as he should, sweet little guy that he was. "Perfect for your first day of school."

The ride to the high school had music sounding through the car, and Maya never lost the chance to listen and to look when she could as Ezra enjoyed the journey. He might not have been able to sing along the way his sisters did, but he had been out here with them enough times by now to piece together that this was something they did here. When they'd all be there with him, he would move along to the music, make noises like he was singing along with them. But today it was just him and her, and she wasn't singing. Ezra simply sat there in his seat, moving his feet along to the music, twisting his hands together, looking out the window… He was at peace, and he might have gone to sleep before long if they'd been on the road any longer. But then they pulled up to the faculty lot, and she went into her assigned space before stopping and turning off the music.

"Mama?" he squeaked.

"We're here, bud. Look," she pointed out the window when she spotted her friend's smiling face approaching the car. Ezra turned his head and now squealed at recognizing his uncle.

"EZ! Hey, little man!" Dylan beamed after opening the door and leaning in to help the boy out of his seat. He brought him down, even as Maya got out from the driver's seat and came around to join them. "What are you doing here?" Dylan asked Ezra, turning a look toward Maya at the same time.

"We were short a sitter. Figured it was time," she explained.

"Yeah, it was!" Dylan held up his hands. "High five? Yeah?" he asked, and Ezra reached up and did as asked, giddier than ever. "Yeah, you got it! You're strong!"

"New student?" Morgan asked as she came to join them.

"For today," Maya smiled.

"You just get him in my class, we can make some music together, huh? You want to make music, EZ?" Morgan asked him, and he dashed over to her now to be scooped into her arms. "What do you think, are you more of a Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star kid, or a Row, Row, Row Your Boat kid?"

The discussion of what each of them might teach Ezra carried on into the building before they split off to head to where they all needed to be. When Maya was left alone with her son, seeing him discover his surroundings as curiously as his sisters had done before him, she started to feel… nervous, maybe a little uneasy, too. She didn't want to make things more difficult for Agnes, who would almost certainly be in that room. She tried to tell herself that this could be a kindness, that by giving Ezra to her and Lucas, she had guaranteed that he would remain in her periphery, that she would get to know he was alright, but then she'd heard plenty about him, had seen him a few times already. Maybe this would be different, too close, to see him in school, with her classmates all around… Well, there was no turning back now. As they approached the classroom, she could hear the quiz teams in there already, and when Ezra let out a little squeak, there was no doubt that they all heard him, too. Their voices quieted down, like they wondered what it was they'd heard.

"I knew it!" Haley beamed when she came to stand in the door and saw her nephew. He saw her, too, and he bolted into waiting arms to be swept up the moment he'd been put back on his feet. "Hey, kid!" He smashed a kiss against her cheek, and she hugged him, carried him into the room. "Look who's here!"

Several of the others got up and approached to say hello. Maya tried not to stare over to where Agnes stood, but she couldn't help it. Anyway, the girl was already distracted as it was, doing her best to balance her feelings and the semblance of having no connection to this boy, so she wouldn't have noticed a thing. Everything in her mind was telling her to go up there, to cajole him with the rest of them, but she couldn't make herself go closer than she already was.

"Is he going to be here all day? In our class?" Max asked, brushing at Ezra's hair. "We could take pictures of you, huh? For our projects. Would you like that, EZ?"

"He'll be here," Maya confirmed, making a mental note that it could be a perfect day for taking class outside. "So, you all go on and get back to what you were doing, my assistant and I will get class ready for first period, yeah? Come on, Pan, we got this."

This was no different to his tagging along behind her or Lucas back home, though this was a brand new terrain for him, which made it easy to get distracted. There were also potentially dangerous objects for a small boy like him, but she'd had him on her trail long enough that she knew how to turn his attention away as needed, the better for her to get the 'danger' dealt with without him knowing it.

Agnes had let her eyes travel over to wherever Maya and Ezra would go, as Maya had noticed several times while she got everything out for first period with the seniors. When the others left for their first classes of the day, it was just the three of them, Ezra and both of his mothers, but Agnes was keeping away, pretending not to but definitely keeping away.

"You know, when he was a baby, I would spend so much of my time looking at everyone in this school, all the students, anyone who would have known me enough, trusted me enough, to leave their child with me. I was sure that, sooner or later, I'd spot it, that there'd be a telltale resemblance between him and… either one of his birth parents would jump out at me. I couldn't be sure though, I mean what if I got it wrong? What if I just saw what I wanted to see?"

Ezra was sitting on the edge of one of the stations now, little legs dangling along while Maya held him secured. He was looking at her, captivated by the ongoing sound of her voice and smiling. Agnes was looking at them, too, and she was captivated, too, though not in the same way. She was lost in her thoughts, in the possibility of what her teacher's words were starting to suggest.

"That wasn't what gave it away though," Maya went on, looking at Agnes. She was doing everything in her power to keep a straight face. "I can't tell what it must have been like, that night at the wedding. Last time you saw him would have been not long after he was born, when you sent him to us."

She hadn't meant to leave Agnes with these words, this revelation, so close to the start of class, but then she'd barely said the last of it that the first of the other seniors started to arrive, signalling that there would be more of them in no time, and then the bell, so when the first of them came, Maya and Agnes both seemed to snap out of the moment. Agnes went to her station and took her seat, pulled what supplies she'd need before herself, to be ready when class would begin, while Maya lifted Ezra in her arms and moved to greet her students. They were all happy to see the small boy, most of them meeting him for the first time.

"Hey! Good morning!" Noor smiled, took his small hand in hers. "I had no idea he'd gotten so big already," she looked to her art teacher.

"Yeah, you're telling me…" Maya hummed, kissed the top of her son's head.

They all took their places and class soon began. Ezra stayed in her arms for a while but was allowed to wander in time, and whenever he'd approach any of them, the students would look around and say hello, lifting him up to see what they were all doing when given permission. When he found his way to Agnes' station, raised up to sit in Noor's lap when he came near her, the girl looked caught up in confusion about whether or not to look at him. She knew that her teacher knew the truth now, she could look at him, couldn't she? But she was here, everyone around her, Freddie there by her side… Maya went and took Ezra to continue his rounds as soon as she could, leaving Agnes be for the rest of class.

For so long after Ezra had come to them, like she'd told Agnes, she'd been on the lookout for anyone looking like the boy who might have been his mother and father, and she still did it sometimes, especially when her son would be most present in her mind. She'd known a while now who his mother was, but she still had no clue with regards to his father, and she knew that he could be right here in her classroom that day, that he could be just a few months away from graduating, at which point the odds of figuring out who he was would diminish further than they had ever been, unless of course… now that Agnes knew that she knew, maybe that would tip the scales back.

The bell rang again, dismissing the seniors, and they went on their way, all of them waving at Ezra and telling him goodbye as he stood there, waving at them. A few of them came up and shook his hand, or offered a high five… Agnes waved at him, fixed to the spot for a beat before hurrying off after Freddie. Maya came and picked up her son, gave him a little wave of her own.

"You did so good there, Pan. Now what are we going to do until the next group gets here?"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners