January 29th 2024

Chapter 29
The Needs of Hearts

For the second morning in a row, Maya and Lucas woke up with their firstborn asleep between them. This time at least she had been there the whole time. She'd been invited to do so and had accepted without a moment's consideration. After telling her parents about Haru and Japan, she'd had no heart in her for staying outside with the others to play. Maya had taken her inside, helping her out of her costume and into her PJs and they'd sat on the couch with a movie that neither of them really paid attention to, Marianne rested against her mother's side and absently traced at the lines on her dress until she fell asleep. Lucas had seen to carrying her up the stairs, resting her at the heart of the bed where she'd been born exactly twelve years prior.

There was nothing that could be done for what had happened that night. Haru and his family were moving very far away, far enough that the opportunity to visit one another would become incredibly small. For all the playful jokes they had tossed around, they knew that there had been these feelings, expanding and developing in the two of them, for the first time in their young lives. They would hope as much as they could that this would not be the end for them, only a hurdle, but they could not promise anything to her, to either one of them. That was the part that hurt the most for Maya and Lucas, that and seeing how much it tore her up inside.

Lucas saw it in her as he took off with the kids for school drop-off. The others were all still so excited from the night before, Halloween, but then there was their big sister, and she was just so silent, so still… It wasn't like her, and they had no idea what to do with themselves when they looked at her. They had this energy in them, ready to talk and sing and laugh all the way to school, but it felt wrong when Marianne just sat there, looking out the window, into nothing. She looked like she was about to cry, all the time, but they didn't know what to say to her, didn't know if talking would be okay, so they mostly sat there, sometimes whispering to one another. Lucas knew how they felt. He looked at his pumpkin and he was helpless to help her.

He saw to all the others before her. Whenever any of the other girls went off where they needed to go, they went up to Marianne, and she quietly hugged them, one by one, showing she wasn't so far away that she would ignore them. They would squeeze tightly, like they wanted to make sure she got as much of their love as they could give her. In the end, it was just her and Ezra, and she picked him up into her arms, where he held fast like a good little bear.

"Annie, I can go with you?" he asked as they walked on with their father. Marianne had his little cheek pressed to hers, looking like she would have loved nothing more, but she also knew it wasn't likely to work out, even now, just one month shy of his second birthday. "School, Annie?" Ezra asked, and she looked one shaky breath away from crying.

"Not yet, bud," Lucas tapped his shoulder, and Ezra looked at him, shook his head as though to confirm his father had said no, before letting his brows settle into upset. His bottom lip trembled. "Besides, there's so much going on at the ranch today. I couldn't get through all of it without you to help me." He still hesitated, looking from his father to his sister and back.

"It's okay, EZ. You go with him," Marianne finally spoke up. If she said it was okay, then there was little else to say.

Before they could go their separate ways, her father and brother leaving her to her class day, Marianne looked to her father, her own eyes full of sadness and dread. Lucas pulled her into his arms and she hugged him back. He kissed the top of her head, whispered words for her alone. Only when she was ready and she chose to let go did he stand back. Her friends would be there with her soon. He had to remember that. She would be okay with them. She had to be.

Maya had a very good relationship with the janitorial staff by now, enough that she could count on them to take down her Halloween decor and set things back as they had been by the morning of November 1st. She didn't need them to do it, but they all but insisted on it. They were careful, and everything salvageable was put neatly where she could go and sort everything later, something she appreciated greatly.

She might have appreciated having this time to clean up her class that morning, to let her mind set on this task, to not have to get lost in thoughts of how broken up her baby girl had been last night, and this morning… She was so tall these days, she was, but then last night on the couch, and this morning in bed… she'd still felt small to her, fragile… This thing with Haru, it couldn't have been prevented, but now it had happened, and all they could think was… What now? All morning, the thought stayed with her, that and the memory of her daughter's face, drenched with sadness.

She wanted to tell herself that things would get better in time, and they would… wouldn't they? That was all good and fine, but they were not there yet, not anywhere near there yet, and in the meantime, she had a heartbroken twelve-year-old to deal with. She could just about picture her, sitting in class, at her desk, on her own and needing nothing so much as the feel of loved ones near her, holding her.

Lucas may not have specifically told the truth when he'd told Ezra that they had a lot to do out at the ranch, but then the benefit of having a twenty-three-month-old, as clever as he was showing himself to be, was that tasks were relatively easy to come up with and be perfect for them to perform in the best way that a father and son duo could. Before long, Ezra was all set to focus on the day ahead of him, and that was great for him. Now his father only wished that he could do the same. There had been no choice but to leave Marianne to her school day, he knew that, and still a part of him wanted to not only encourage his son's wish to stay with his big sister at school but include himself in this plan.

He could have helped make her day better, couldn't he? He couldn't erase the dark clouds overhead just like that, but he could be there, couldn't he? He could… try and lift her spirits. He'd done it so many times over the last twelve years, hadn't he? Except this was different. Whatever way they put it, this connection between Marianne and her 'Wolfy' friend was something more than anything else she had experienced up to this point in her young life. She had not lived enough to be able to comprehend everything she was feeling or to deal with it by way of any coping mechanism she would have developed. She was stuck, and he couldn't… unstick her just like that, just because he was her father and she and her mother, sisters, and brother, meant more to him than everything else in the world. It was one of those moments where he felt powerless in ways he could not have foreseen.

When his phone rang, just as he was about to take Ezra to have lunch, his expectations were one of two things. It would either be Maya or it would be Marianne's school.

"Pumpkin on the mind?" he asked, answering the call after leaving Ezra in Sylvie's care. His handle on sign language was in line with his handle on the English language, and he always loved visiting with his father's clinic assistant.

"All over it," Maya sighed. Split as they were in reality, right then they could have been sitting side by side, united as they were in thoughts of their daughter. "I want to do something."

"If you've got ideas, I'm all ears," Lucas promised.

"Well, I know that we haven't really talked about it this morning or last night, but…" she started, and he nodded. It was November 1st, the anniversary of their becoming a couple. They still celebrated it, along with their wedding anniversary, and that would include the coming evening. It was supposed to at least. With the Marianne thing, maybe… "How would you feel about bringing her with us?"

Picking up the girls that afternoon, Lucas was treated to the familiar cacophony of happy voices full of stories. The one missing voice in that harmony was the one who so often led them. Marianne didn't look much more awake than she'd done when he'd last seen her. She was still so quiet, and he wasn't sure if the plan would work. Maybe she wouldn't want to do it. If she didn't, Lucas and Maya had already decided that they would stay home, that they could celebrate just fine with a lowercase d date.

"Hey," he looped his arm around Marianne's shoulder and she looked up, leaning to him. "Got a question for you." She was listening. He looked ahead, making sure that the others were busy talking to one another before looking down to Marianne again. "You know what today is, yeah?" She did. "You know your mom and I are going out, getting dressed up… semi-casual… to go to dinner and all that?" She did. He smiled again, bowing to speak quietly by her ear. "You want to come with us?"

She was surprised at first, but then the offer had been made, and she looked like she'd felt a jolt, a good one. No doubt in his mind, he knew that one of the things she would have been thinking about most of all would have been that she wanted to be back with her family, her parents especially, and now she would get to do that, just the three of them, going out…

"But… your date…" she asked.

"It is our date," he agreed. "But that just means we get to do what we want with it. And we want to have you there with us. If you want it."

It was the first smile he'd seen out of her since she'd left to go trick or treating. It was faint, but it was genuine, and it made his heart happier than he'd anticipated. Now, they were set. They just had to get ready.

Convincing the other girls of the reason why they couldn't also go took some smooth work out of Maya as they arrived home. Marianne had asked MJ to help her get ready, and they'd gone away to do so. Maya and Lucas went upstairs next, imagining the moment between uncle and niece would be one that would help the latter's heart to go on lifting. When Maya's younger brother finally came bounding down the stairs, he was grinning, gliding along like the most accomplished of stylists. He stepped in by his sister's side, looping his arm with hers as she looked at him, needing to know. How is she? MJ gave a confident but honest tip of the head.

He may not have completely swept away Marianne's sadness, but the girl who came to join her parents looked optimistic for the evening to come. Seeing her approach, Maya and Lucas couldn't say what was most striking, from how much she seemed to look forward to the outing to just the way she looked. MJ had done well, following her lead to make her ready to accompany her parents. She was twelve and she looked it, but also she was twelve, and she had never looked so grown up to them. When she slipped into their waiting arms, they hugged her close and tried to keep it together. It was difficult, but maybe it was supposed to be. In the end, it really felt like her being part of this night was the way it was supposed to be. The last day of October and the first of November had been inseparable to them for many years, and she was a part of that. Twelve years ago that night, she'd been part of their anniversary date, too…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners