January 30th 2024

Chapter 30
The Needs of Family

Marianne was doing better. A lot of the time these days, she would appear to most as though she was perfectly fine, not a worry in the world. Only there were worries, and if people stopped to really look, they might see it in her. They would see especially whenever her mind had space to wander, in silence… Her teacher had noticed it enough to ask about it, and Marianne had been honest. She was sad, very sad, because her friend had gone away. Already now, Haru and his family were off in Japan, settling into their new life.

They saw it most at home, when she was with those people who knew her the most, loved her dearly and knew what she was going through. If she was hit with a wave of feelings that felt particularly overwhelming, they would know, and they would look out for her.

But she was getting better, and they were just relieved to see it. They would see and hear her smile, and laugh, and they would know it to be genuine, not forced just to make them feel better. When it couldn't be genuine, when she wasn't feeling it, they'd know, and they would be there, for whatever she needed.

That day, she was somewhere in the middle, not crushed down to silence but not bouncing with energy either. They would get on to it by just how much she stuck to Maya or Lucas or both of them at once. There was usually something to help her find that middle ground, something to make her hit both extremes at once. They were having a Hart-Lane dinner that day, with Abigail, James, Maisie, and all the other branches grown from Sam, Cara, Teddy, Eliza, Emma, and then Wyatt with Finn already part of them…

They would start arriving, later that afternoon, and it would fill the house with life so much that it would spill right out. All the young cousins loved being together, but especially when it was all of them at once. They had their favorite activities, their games… Maybe it was something that went hand in hand with being the eldest sibling in the family, but she still had moments of pure disbelief as she thought about her Hart-Lane siblings, how they were most of them fully grown adults, so many of them married, with children… children plural…

Sam, her Sammy boy, was in his thirties as of last year, and he had three children, the eldest of them already ten. Then Cara had three kids, too, and two years less than him. Teddy was there between the two of them, and though only one of his two children was biologically his, he would see anyone making distinction between them as being unworthy of his time and attention. Eliza and Emma were both just over the halfway mark of their twenties, one married, the other engaged, one with a little daughter, the other with wedding plans on the brain. And then Wyatt, well… Her twenty-two-year-old little brother may have been out here raising his Finneas on his own, but he was so very mature, and he was such a wonderful parent. Then all that remained was the youngest Hart-Lane, and Maya's youngest sibling of all. Even saying this, she would have to remember that Maisie was only a year older than Marianne, just about, but also… How was she already a teenager? Maybe it was because the first of her Hunter siblings had gone and started… procreating… and also because she herself was expecting, but it all felt like so much.

"Got any favorites?" Maya asked, her voice soft on the stillness of the room, with Marianne burrowed at her side. The most noise they'd been hearing over the last hour or so since they'd sat there to go through a box of diaries went somewhere along the lines of 'book pulled out of' and 'book slipped back into' the box, the turning of pages, the scratch of a pencil… And they were both fully awake, peaceful together.

"In this box?" Marianne asked. It was an afternoon week, with the freshmen, juniors and AP juniors, and AP seniors, and they were going through the freshman box.

"I was going to say any of them, but sure," Maya smiled. Marianne considered the question, eyes going to the row of spines and the names written on each one.

"I think… Isla," she finally pronounced herself, and Maya chuckled. "You knew that already," Marianne guessed.

"Little bit," Maya admitted. "You have your tells," she added in a whisper, and Marianne smiled.

"I don't know what it is, just that when she draws, it feels… bright? And full of wonder…" she explained.

"It really does," Maya hummed. That was really the best way to describe her, wasn't it?

"I think…" Marianne sat up now, in deep concentration, before counting off on her fingers. "Isla, and Peggy… Cait and Clare… Jonah, and… Quinn," she admitted, her tone low like she felt bad for not picking her aunt as her favorite diary out of the AP juniors. Maya smiled and reassured her to go on with a nod. "Seniors… Robyn… and girl Max. I like when she draws the twins," she added.

"Yeah, I do, too," Maya laughed. It wasn't even about being lifelike, though there was definitely resemblance to the genuine pair. It was really more about feeling Max and her… momness.

"Hello?" a voice rang out from downstairs, and the way Marianne's whole face smiled… Maya smiled back, nodding for her to go on ahead, and her girl was off, springing off the bed, out the room, up the hall, down the stairs and into her uncle Sam's arms.

They'd had a whole minute by the time Maya was able to get up and join them, but Sam still had her locked in his arms while Marianne stared up at him, the two of them chatting away as she came down the stairs. She could just as easily have not been there and nothing would have changed, and that was alright. How could it not be? Those two had nurtured this exact bond between the two of them from the day Marianne was born, if not even before. They used to tease him about this when Marianne was little, how he'd gone and walked in, stealing their baby girl from them, and he would tease right back. Jokes or not though, the two of them really had had this enduring, loving bond for all twelve years of her life, and he had been right there to support her ever since the news had come of Haru's move to Japan.

There had been plenty of opportunities for him to be there thanks to the start of the year-long projects, and the two groups that had chosen comic-related content, enabling him to step in as a guest once again. It was fortunate that those two groups were the two halves of the sophomore year, their periods being one after the other, on the latter half of morning classes. Sam would get to come along, spend that time with his sister and her students, and all of them would be talking comic books, one of his favorite subjects.

Maya would probably have let him talk nonsense the whole time, just to get this time with her brother in class, but Sam was the opposite of nonsense when he was in class, and she loved that about him. Part of her had this crazy scheme of getting him to be her substitute when she would go on maternity leave. Sure, he wasn't a teacher, but he could teach the kids so much if given the opportunity, so why not, right? It was just a dream, but it was a nice one to have.

Sam had arrived first on purpose, the better to allow Marianne a moment just the two of them, but soon there was also Dora, and the kids. At ten, Francesca would be called Chessy by her family and friends, and by everyone who didn't insist on calling her Francesca. Brother Tim and sister Dottie, at six and one respectively, could for sure be counted on to call her as she liked, and the youngest Calahart especially might not have known who this Francesca was, rather than her big sister Chessy.

Once they had arrived, it wasn't long that the others started to arrive, too, and then it was a whole mess of greetings, and excited children running around as they were joined by their cousins. As sweet and funny as it was to see how they all were so excited to be with one another, Maya's favorite part could only be the way they all would crowd around her, one by one and in little clusters, all of them wanting to feel at her belly. It was only natural for them to be curious about the baby, but then that wasn't even the whole of it with them, was it?

No, they wanted to get close, to feel for the baby, yes, because that was so intriguing, but also… That was their cousin in there… and in just a few months, that cousin would be out in the world, and eventually they would all be running around and playing with that cousin as they were now playing with one another. When they came to feel at her belly then, it felt as though they were checking in, acknowledging their future cousin as though to say 'we can't play yet, but we can't wait to start!'

"Hey, guess what," Cara appeared at her big sister's side with a big grin and her two-year-old daughter clinging to her leg. Little Sara Arroyo had those big, curious eyes on her, always, and even as her mother and aunt spoke, she reached over and placed her little hands up on her aunt's belly. Maya didn't miss a beat, submitting herself to this inspection without hesitation and brushing at the little one's dark hair as she looked to Cara.

"You guys aren't having another baby again, are you?" Maya had to ask, if only to make her sister laugh. She and Mateo were more than happy with Felix, Manny, and Sara.

"No, but I did get a new job…" she revealed, and going off of her excitement, Maya could guess it was a big deal, for her sister and maybe for her, too?

"Did you? Where?" Maya asked, guessing that was the point.

"At the Silvan," Cara grinned, and Maya matched her expression. The Silvan Hughes Theater was and would always be so important to her. It was where Katy and Maya's journey from New York to Texas had started, and then where Maya had created Stage Ready, when she'd gotten her degree but no teaching job yet… Her mother had performed there, her daughter had performed there… and now her little sister would work there. "I'm going to be part of the production team, for their musicals!" Cara explained before going into the whole tale of how she'd found herself in the position to get the job at all. "I'm starting next week."

She hadn't told any of the others yet. She'd wanted to tell Maya first, and the gesture was greatly appreciated. But now that she'd told her, it was very important that they share this news with her siblings, her in-laws, her nieces and nephews… They were all as happy and excited for her as the next, and it deservedly became the focus of the evening. One of Maya's greatest memories of that evening would be when they'd all ended up sitting on and around the front porch, all the Hart-Lane kids together. It happened by chance that it was only the eight of them, and it made her happy in ways only those who knew the circumstances of how their family had come to be would really understand. Their baby sister was sitting right there at the heart of them, and they could not have better illustrated how much she meant to all of them, how they all existed as a unit. They hadn't all grown up together, for so many reasons, and they had been split here and there geographically, but when it came down to it, they were just this, brothers and sisters in a cluster, unbreakable. So much had needed to happen for all of them to happen to each other like this, and in times like these, they couldn't help but stop and take notice.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners