January 14th 2025

Chapter 230
Our Summer in the Sun

There was still this guard in them, a remnant of how their lives together as a family had begun, that made the idea of a vacation like this feel… not impossible, or even unwise, but still… As soon as they'd started to make plans, thinking of where they were going, how many of them there would be, and for how long… It felt like so much, even if they had more of a budget to work with now than they'd done as first-time parents, and even if Clara Kinney's people had seen to some of their accommodations. It was the two of them and all six of their children flying off to California, for the next few weeks… It wasn't a regular vacation, more like a brief relocation. When they'd realized that their pets would not be coming along with them and they would be separated for that long, all the kids had hit several levels of distress and protest, which continued to be brought up now and again, with no change in either the response or the resolve. Maya and Lucas admired the dedication, and they wished they could give their sons and daughter a different answer, but they had none to give.

"Can I have the list?" Ava reached out her hand toward him as they were making their way toward the mall doors. It was just Lucas and her and the three elder boys that morning, as Maya was home with the twins, doing what parts of the packing could be done while the rest of them went to pick up what they were missing ahead of their departure.

"You? With the list? Huh…" Lucas played as he passed her his phone. Her smile was priceless, and it made him laugh while she inspected the items as they went with so much focus.

"Couldn't we get some of this when we're over there? We wouldn't have to put it in our bags when we leave," she pointed out once she'd looked through everything.

"You know, your mom and I said the same thing, but we thought about you and your brothers, and the things you all might want on the flight or as soon as we land, and we go to the hotel…"

"Oh…" Ava considered this, looked at the list again. "Yeah, you're right," she agreed, which made him chuckle.

"Guys, hey, stay together, right where I can see you, yeah? No running off," he called after the boys as they started into the mall and Elliott, Noah, and Jamie gave off big scatter energy. The pack of blond boys stopped and turned to look at him, then each other, before converging. Elliott and Noah went to stand on either side of their little brother and each took one of his hands, which was fine by Jamie, if only because it was the two of them.

They had all grown again, of course, since last summer, which meant new swimming gear for all of them. It was easy to put the twins in their big brothers' old things, they wouldn't bat an eye, but the other three were another story, and it wouldn't be enough for Noah or Jamie to just get Elliott and/or Noah's hand-me-downs. Once upon a time, same as with the vacation, they might have pushed on to convince their sons to take what they had already, but they could afford to let them pick what they all wanted now, so why wouldn't they?

"This is going to take a while, isn't it?" Ava asked her father as the two of them stood watching the three brothers dig through the racks and the stacks of options before them. Lucas tried not to laugh at her exasperated look, like she was their mother and not their big sister.

"Do you want to go and see if you can collect a few of these?" he asked, pointing to the list. She brightened so fast, and she was gone in a flash.

Even as he worked to get the boys to focus and select their choices, he could see her zooming along with her basket, new items visible from one passage to the next, and he would have snapped a picture if she didn't have his phone on her.

When Elliott, Noah, and Jamie had all gotten what they needed, Lucas led them around to find their sister and finally rejoined with her, standing in front of a display with various summer nail polish colors. Those weren't exactly on the list, but if she wanted them…

"How's the shopping going?" he asked her, and she looked back at him.

"I'm done," she pointed to the basket before handing him his phone. The boys went and plopped their swimming things in the basket, the better to also see what was inside. "Got everything."

"Figured you would," he nodded, and she smiled, though he couldn't help but note a slight distraction. "What's up?" he asked her. She looked at him again, clutching a bottle of pale blue polish.

"I think… I saw someone before, a man, and he… He looked like my… Bill," she blinked. Lucas blinked back, surprised. He scanned their surroundings. "He's not here anymore, I think," Ava went on. "I tried to see him better, to be sure, but I lost track of him."

"Are you okay?" Lucas asked, instantly focusing back on her, on making sure that she was not so shaken up at the prospect. He knew how much it had always affected her, as it should.

"Yeah… Sort of…" Ava replied with a small shrug, and Lucas pulled her in for a lightly reassuring hug. Seeing this, the boys stopped their inspections of the basket, looking back to their father and their sister.

"What's wrong?" Elliott asked.

"Nothing," Lucas assured him, looking down to Ava. It was her call whether or not they'd say more.

"I thought I saw my other dad," she simply told them, and now they were looking around, too. "He's not there. It's okay," she insisted, and they left it at that, though Lucas had trouble believing that this was truly all there was to it, that she could have seen her birth father again after so long and have so little of a reaction.

The matter remained as it was over the next couple of days as they prepared to leave. Lucas told Maya about what had happened, naturally, but she saw it all as he'd done, which meant they would take their lead from Ava in how to handle things going forward. She didn't look to either of them as though she either wanted to talk about it or needed to talk about it with them, but they could tell that she'd been talking about it with Kelsey, and if that helped, then that was all they needed to know. When she wanted to talk to them about it, if she needed to, then they would be right there and ready.

Finally, it was time to go, and as much as the preparations themselves had gone a long way in keeping Maya focused and not stressing over one of the big parts of their trip, diving back into the music world that had been welcoming her in the past month and some, the actual flight added to this as well. That was no surprise, was it? Looking after six children on a plane would pull all the focus that she had to give. It helped in this at least that she had her big girl, all of weeks away from entering her teenage years, and that her boys weren't automatically set to chaos. Big thanks there went to Grandpa Shawn, as he had set his three elder grandsons with a game, a challenge, that was to take place over the flight. It made them all super excited to get on the plane, but then once they got there, they were concentrated on their Grandpa Games, and they were no bother for the entirety of the time they spent on the plane.

As for the twins, it was a trickier matter, but with the rest of the kids settled in and calm, their parents quickly came upon a tactic. It might have been about giving one twin each to their mother or father, but with these two, with Simon and Jackson still preferring to be as near to one another as they could at all times, the better option instead became to have them both on one parent's lap at once, alternating when either one of them needed a break. Whoever didn't have the boys on them would soon go and try to entertain the twins in what way they saw fit, and that tended to work. They had a few instances where no amount of work could keep the twenty-month-old boys from getting restless and distressed, but they made it through the flight in one piece, so all was well.

Ava spent the majority of the flight with her nose in a book, the pages turning steadily enough to suggest she would get to the end of it by the time they landed. When they were getting close to landing and she had finished the book, she sat quietly with the book still in her arms and her gaze and her thoughts both faraway. She might have been contemplating what she'd just finished reading, but it felt to her parents much more like her thoughts were no longer focused on the story and, for that, were now given freedom to run back where they'd been prone to go, back to the possibility that she could have seen her birth father again for the first time in almost two years. They weren't going to get into it with her now, on the plane, but they would have to see if she was ready to talk about it soon.

They arrived, too early as far as the boys were concerned, because they hadn't done all the things on their challenge, but Maya promised them that they would be able to finish it all when they eventually returned home… and that there might be some surprise bonus challenges once they got there. With that, they were able to leave the plane, get their things, and make for the hotel.

No matter how they had spent their time in flight, once they reached the hotel, everyone was of a single mind as to what would come next. They were all tired – whether they knew to admit it or not – and they were getting hungry again. So, they headed up to their room, which they all got to discover and explore before starting to unpack while they waited for the meal they ordered up. While they saw to the unpacking, keeping an eye on the twins, finally down for their nap, Maya and Lucas quietly debated their next move regarding Ava and the Bill situation.

"I'm going to be gone most of tomorrow," Maya pointed out with a sigh. Her nerves were resurfacing now that they had made it out here, and it didn't help that she was worrying over their Sweetpea.

"I know," Lucas sighed. Neither of them wanted to corner Ava into this conversation, and there was this thought that they should let her be for the rest of this day, but then… "I can find a moment with her, see where her head is at. Trust me."

"I do," she confirmed, and he was glad to see that the notion was enough to calm her mind. They all had plenty to think about in the weeks to come, but always their kids would take priority. All Lucas wanted now was to make sure and keep the balance steady as much as it could be done, and Maya would be able to get on with her plans knowing that much.

The twins spent their first night in the hotel in the large bed, nestled between their parents. Being the first night they'd spend away from home like this, Maya and Lucas both figured they would be better off this way. Whether or not this was the case, the small blondes had a very good rest, waking up bright and early to poke and prod at their parents' faces. Their mother was the first to wake, so they crowded in around her, both welcomed with a sleepy smile.

"Morning, fellas," she whispered before kissing both their beloved little faces. She had half a mind to bring them along with her that day. She didn't like being away from any of her children for too long, of course, but there was always something about her youngest, wasn't there? Today, it wouldn't be so much about being apart as their being able to make her smile, to make her feel like she had things under control. She still had trouble believing everything that was happening to her that summer was even real, but here they all were, weren't they? If she had them with her, would it help her remember what was on the line, who she was doing it all for besides herself? Maybe all she needed was to take this moment with her, this memory, and all would be well.

She would have many more small memories like this by the time she went, memories of all her sons and her daughter, of her husband, all of them wishing her well, showing how much they believed in her… For them she could do this, would do this.

Once she was gone and it was down to Lucas and the kids, the big question was what they would do first, where they would go, and it took next to no time for them all to decide that the first place they wanted to go was the pool. The boys especially wanted to try out their new things, so that was what they did.

It was not the easiest thing to do to manage all of them out there, but Lucas was confident that they would do alright. It was probably even easier once they linked up with another family out there, two parents with three daughters in their late teens who were more than happy to play around with the trio of brothers. Lucas would take turns, Ava as well, taking the twins into the water as well and, when they wanted to go in and swim for themselves, the girls' parents stepped in to watch Simon and Jack. It was on one such solo dip in the water, where Lucas allowed his daughter to trail along with her arms around his neck, that the subject of her Bill sighting finally came up.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Sweetpea?" She was silent for a few seconds, the sounds of the boys playing nearby and the water around them as he continued to swim filling their ears.

"You'd tell me if he called, or wrote, or… if he came by… wouldn't you?" Ava finally asked.

"You mean your father?" he asked, and even without seeing her face, just feeling the way she held her arms around his neck, the way her head was stuck to the back of his, he could imagine her and the thought that might have been running through her mind. "You know you can talk to us about him, yeah? You know we won't take it the wrong way."

"I know," she replied, her voice small. "I just… I don't know… I think… I hadn't felt like that in… in a long time, and then…"

"And then you saw someone who looked like him," he quietly filled in when she couldn't.

"No… No, it was him," Ava finally confessed, her voice nearly lost in the echo of the pool. "I saw him, and he saw me, too. We just stood there, looking at each other for a few seconds. He had tears in his eyes. I guess I grew up a lot since he went away. Then I… I don't know… I got scared, I think. I walked away, and he didn't come after me. I don't know if I wanted him to or not and I've been stuck thinking about it ever since."

After a few beats of silence, Lucas moved so she might let go, allowing him to turn around and face her, so he might see her, and she might see him.

"Thank you for telling me," he told her, and she nodded, hugged him.

She wanted him to pass the tale on to Maya, so when she came back that evening, he went ahead and did as requested. After hearing it all, Maya went and found their daughter, taking her aside so they might sit and talk a while. They stayed that way even as they rejoined the boys, those of them who were still awake even as those who had fallen asleep woke up again, like they could sense that Mama was back. By the time the kids went and dozed off again, they did so having spent a stretch of evening piled up on the couch together, and to see them all like that, it was easy to see how happy it made all of them, Ava maybe most of all.

"I might be here a while…" Maya was finally able to share, once it was just her and Lucas, getting ready to turn in, too. He looked at her, and it was clear enough what she meant. She could be here, likely would be here, until after the start of the school year, which was much longer than what they'd had in mind, and would force them to reconsider their plans, especially when it came to the kids.

"We'll figure it out," Lucas promised, as steadfast in his support as always, which comforted her. The idea of doing this without them there did not appeal to her in the slightest, but what other choice did they have? "So, how was it today?" he smiled, and she smiled back. They got into bed, and she shared the story of her day, after which he told her about his day with the kids. They went to sleep that night hopeful for the future, as they would be, him and her together.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you next week! - mooners