February 14th 2024

Chapter 45
The Trouble With Time

The next few days were all about helping Mackenzie rest, but also adjust to this thing that would be part of her for weeks. She was out of school for the moment, and with how close they were to the break, she would only return to school in the new year, in January. That was not news happily taken, and they'd had to deal with grumpy Mack for a day, but she had her father on her side, there to cheer her up with Ezra by his side. Lucas took time off from the ranch to be with her, and when he did have to go, he would leave her up the road, at Sanderson farm. He would get back and she would look like she'd almost rather stay where she was than go home. But if it was to be with him and her brother, with the dogs, and her dear Micro… When her mother would come home, they would do some school work, to make up for what she was missing, and that was one of her favorite things while she was stuck in this strange little time of healing.

They could tell she was getting to feel a bit better than she'd had in the first day or two when, by day four, she was trying to get around by herself, that big focus in her little face… They wanted her to feel that independence, sure, if it would help her feel better, but they also had to make sure that she wouldn't go and hurt herself all over again either. They had ways to keep watch of her and make it look and feel like a game, so if she ever looked ready to do something that would end badly, they could casually redirect her, none the wiser.

They had all hoped to sail on toward Christmas with this thing with Mack being the only thing they'd have to deal with. Already it felt like a lot, as temporary as the whole thing would be in the end. But then not a week had gone by and they got a call from Lucas' father. They'd all only just made it home, from work, from school, and they were preparing to have dinner. Instead, Lucas was informed that Patty had passed away. She had gone to lay down for a nap in mid-afternoon, and she had not woken again. Thomas had been tending to everything, calling her son to let him know, seeing to the people who'd had to come to the house for her… Most of all, he'd been looking after his father, who had now lost a wife for the second time in his life, a second chance at love that had seemed as impossible as anything until that woman had come along and reminded him that his heart continued to beat, that it could love again. And he had loved her… He had loved her so much.

She may have only been his grandmother by marriage and only since college days, but that was already many years ago, and like it or not, in actual years spent together, she had been the grandmother he'd had in his life for the longest time. Finding out that she was gone… He felt as small for a moment as the boy he'd been when he'd lost his Nana Susannah or Marianne the first. Sure, he'd known that it would happen sooner or later and, seeing as she'd been in her eighties, the sooner felt like it was written a bit larger, darker. He tried to ignore it, as he did any of those reminders when his older family members were concerned. She hadn't been failing, had she? She'd always looked as awake, as spry… as ever. In his mind, she could have gone on another twenty years if not longer. Instead, she was just gone.

If this all wasn't bad enough, one of the first thoughts he had was just about how he had not gotten to say goodbye to her, to tell her how much she'd meant to him. And in that moment, it made him think about his mother, about the day he'd found out she had died, the day he'd gone and found his father in the hospital. He still remembered exactly what it had been like to see her lying there… Ever since that day, he had made a point of always showing how much he cared for his people as best he could. When they would see each other, or talk to one another, and they would leave, her hang up, he would tell them he loved them, so that if somehow they never saw each other again… Hearing about Patty's passing now, it grieved him to realize even that wasn't enough. It definitely did not make him feel like had been any better prepared.

Maya went and sat down when she heard what her father-in-law was calling about. Patty Robinson had become part of the family over the years, but only after she'd been her professor in college. It all felt like another lifetime by now, with how she'd married Lucas' grandfather. But she'd never forgotten the years they'd spent together at the university. She remembered that first year being in her class, finding out very early on that this was a woman she could listen to for hours. She was so fascinating, and Maya had loved learning from her. It was so easy to do. Anyone would only ever have to sit near her and give her a subject, and she would have so much to say, in a way where you couldn't help but listen, take it all in…

And then she'd worked with her, as her teaching assistant, and her research assistant for her book… All the time she'd spent with her, if she hadn't already wanted to be a teacher, it would have done it. As it was, it made her more certain than ever that this was the career she was made for. It had shaped her into the teacher she was now, no doubt about it. The connections she built up with her students, plenty of it was her own, she knew, but some of it was thanks to her, too, it was thanks to Patty Robinson. To this day, they would sit together sometimes and it would be like back in the day. Patty would lecture, and Maya would listen, and learn. She was sad to know they would never have that again, but she tried to tell herself that Patty wouldn't want her to sit in those emotions. She'd want her to keep going.

They would have to tell the girls, have to comfort them and see them through this grief, but it couldn't be now. It would be hard, and there'd be no leaving them, and first of all, they needed to go and check on Pappy Joe.

Lucas didn't remember his grandfather right after his Nana Susannah had died. The first he could remember was the funeral, and this only in bits and pieces. He didn't remember those so well as when he saw him today, after Patty. It had been over thirty years since then, and he'd aged significantly, but the look was there, in his eyes. He couldn't understand it so well as a child, but now as a man who had come so close to losing his own wife five and a half years ago… What he found in his grandfather's eyes was something that defied words. The closest it came to was just… disbelief, as though the very idea of having to carry on like the world had not come to a grinding halt for him the moment she'd left was laughable. Nothing made sense anymore, so how was it supposed to ever make sense again? He'd found that once before. He'd found it in his son and his daughter-in-law, he'd found it in his grandson, and then his wife, and their children… He'd found it in his Patty, maybe most of all. And she was gone.

The next few days had lost any hope of color and brightness. When they'd gone home, Maya and Lucas had done what they could, sitting the girls down and telling them about Patty. It had gone about as well as they could imagine, and they had been picking up the pieces ever since. Mackenzie felt stuck all over again, like she just knew that things were not alright and there was nothing she could do. But then she was the one to think of the one thing they had to do, the sad but obvious thing. And on the morning when they all got dressed to go to her funeral, the Friar kids had one more picture to greet as they made their way down the stairs. Mackenzie would still be carried up and down the stairs, and she would be given all the time she needed to say good morning to Melinda, and Tanner, and Patty.

It wasn't so long ago that they'd last seen one of these services, and though Ezra was still too young to grasp what was happening around him, all the girls remembered the last time, and they looked around with an unease that was familiar now. This place made them feel bad, and they just wanted to leave it. But they had to stay. This was for Patty, to say goodbye to her, but right now it was even more so for those she'd left behind, and they were part of that. Her family was here, the Friar side of course, but the Robinsons, too, and then the Hunters, and the Hart-Lanes… She would be grandmother to any who should want her to be.

But she'd been a professor to so many more, and Maya had not been the only one to appreciate her in the way that she did. Plenty of her former students could not make the trip, but they sent flowers, it felt, by the gardenful. There were just as many who did make it, some of them having been in Maya's classes, or in those where she'd been a TA, and it made for a bittersweet reunion.

They went back to the elder Friars' house after the funeral. It would be just the two of them now, Thomas and Pappy Joe, the son and the father, both of them widowers, and they could see already how much Thomas had taken on the task of looking after his father over the last few days. He'd done his best to bounce back after Melinda had passed, and it depended on the day whether they could say that he was succeeding. Now, as hard as it was to see it that way, Patty's loss and his father's finding himself alone again had presented him with something to focus on. His father needed him, and he would be there.

He wouldn't be alone, not all the time. His great grandchildren loved him so dearly, and though they weren't sure what to tell him to make him feel better, they could tell that he was glad to have them nearby, so they sat with him in the living room, all of them in their proper clothes, watching whatever the kids wanted to watch on the television. The Christmas decorations - left here as well by the fairies - felt inevitably strange and out of place in the heavy mood, and they might stop and wonder soon just what kind of holidays they would be having this year now that this had happened, but it would be a conversation for another day. It didn't enter their mind now, not for a second.

The ride home had most of the girls already asleep in their seats, only Marianne and Lucy still awake, the former quietly doing her best to see the latter close her eyes. Putting each of his sleeping children to bed that night, Lucas leaned to each one's ear and let his words of love find them in their dreams.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners