March 1st 2024

Chapter 61
The Magic of an Eve

Waking up on Christmas Eve morning had been its own special thing for as long as they could remember, back when they'd been living their separate lives… When they had made it to college, where they'd started living together, and they'd had their very first of these mornings waking up side by side… There really was no other way for them to ever experience the eve, and the day… until they'd had Marianne, and then the triplets, and Mack, and Aubrey, and now… Now here was their little guy, their baby boy… Ezra had fallen asleep right there between them the night before, after his bedtime story, and he'd looked so sweet in his Christmas PJs that they hadn't had the heart to move him. So here he was now, curled up against his mother, breathing evenly…

"Look at you and those lashes you're growing into…" Maya whispered as she looked upon their son, and Lucas barely kept himself from laughing as he watched them both. "Makes him look all dramatic," she looked up at him before turning back to the sleeping Ezra. "But we all know you're just a little goof," she told him, keeping quiet, so as not to wake him. "At least when you're awake. You take your time with that, okay?"

He would eventually wake up, of course, and as he'd start to move around and fuss against the waking, Lucas sank lower into the bed, so to be at eye level with him. When he'd let go of Maya and flop on to his back, he'd blink those 'dramatic' lashes and spot his father, and he'd move at once to hold on to him, so Lucas would close his arms around him.

"Morning," he told him. "Good dreams?"

"Uh huh," Ezra nodded sleepily.

"It's about to get better."

It would be a busy day for all of them, and they had made it busier the day before when they'd taken in Deanne and Angie Anna for a merrily impromptu sleepover. They really didn't mind this. If they could give the girls a good holiday memory for them to hold on to, then that was all they needed. When they got out of bed, Maya's first order of business was to climb up to the second floor and check in on their guests. She could hear them even as she was midway along, speaking quietly. They were sitting on the floor, looking out the windows down to the lane as it stretched before them. Deanne was the first to spot her coming up, and she paused as though she might have been doing something she wasn't supposed to. Maya quickly reassured her with a smile and a nod.

"Did you two sleep alright?" she asked the girls, and they let her know that they had. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to today, yeah? We're going to be in the kitchen a lot, getting ready for this afternoon…"

"I can help," Deanne insisted. "I want to."

"Me, too," Angie Anna smiled. Maya smiled back.

"Good, alright then… Calendars first though, and then breakfast… as soon as everyone is up and…" A rush of footsteps was heard below, and it made the girls laugh. "And we're off…"

There may only have been two boxes left in each calendar that were as yet unturned, but then the girls had already agreed together that because they were 'the eve and the day,' these would be very important boxes. And they couldn't wait to see what it would mean. Lucas had been very strategic in how he'd placed each number, to keep them curious to the very end, and the turn of the number 24 boxes was everything they could have wanted it to be. And now all that remained was a sprinkling of boxes across the entire row, painted gold and glittering… They had noticed that one from the very beginning. It was the one their curious little fingers would gravitate to the most, sometimes without even realizing it, and now that they were so, so close to it, the temptation would be at its peak. The best they'd be able to do would be to keep them focused elsewhere.

Breakfast was good for that on any day, but this one was right up there with the best. And they had people at their table who'd never been there before, which made it even more exciting. They were soon talking about getting a game going, the way they'd done all through the month, and the girls were happy to jump in on the brainstorm with them. Maya and Lucas were both so happy to see Deanne get invested in all of it with them, enough that they didn't realize how close they were getting to a trouble zone until the inevitable happened. In all their haste to be with their guests, and open the calendar boxes, they had forgotten their greetings to the pictures on the way down the stairs. It hardly ever happened, but it did, sometimes, and when it did, they would immediately scramble to go and rectify their mistake.

"What's going on?" Angie Anna asked her teacher as Marianne was helping Mackenzie on to her back and bringing her over to the stairs. Maya slowly explained about Melinda, and Tanner, and now Patty… Seeing how Deanne's face started to fall, weighed by memories of her mother. This would be her first Christmas without her, even as she would see the first anniversary of her death go by in all of five days' time. There was only so much they could do to soften that blow, but that was only further reason for them to do it. The girls had not known about this part, and she didn't want them to know about it, so they wouldn't say a word. Still, while they were gone, Maya offered herself for a hug, and she felt a mighty tug at her heart at the speed with which Deanne accepted it. She held her close, for as long as she needed her to and, when she started to release a little, Maya leaned back to see her face.

"Ready to cook with us?" she asked, and Deanne sniffled, but she had a small smile as she nodded.

They could almost see it in her as she was given vegetables to peel, and cut… She fell in a familiar rhythm, like energy that had been reawakened in her, and it was maybe the best thing she could have asked for in the moment. She had done a lot of this with her mother. They didn't need to get confirmation about it, and they never asked her to give it. This wasn't going to heal the fact that she was having to live through this milestone in her young life without her father by her side, and for all they'd hoped that Mr. Wallis would pull an eleventh hour change of mind, he just wasn't going to be there, and whether he realized or not that he was setting a precedent with his daughter, it was going to happen. They may not have been able to do a thing about it, but they weren't going to worry about that now. Instead, they would carry on as they'd started here, with Deanne working alongside them, sometimes showing the girls a better technique to do something… They could see just the slightest flicker in her face as she'd do this, like she'd been about to say 'my mother showed me how.' She didn't say it, but also she didn't lose her smile. After all this time, the memories of her mother were getting to feel less like immovable sorrow and a lot more like a reserve of sunshine in her heart when she needed it.

She was less skilled as a baker, though she got by well enough. Angie Anna was in the lead there, and it was funniest to see the way the two looked at one another, smiling, like they were wondering why neither of them had brought this up before. Now that they had, they were definitely going to be doing a lot more of it together in the months they had left together, and they were looking forward to it.

"It's what we would do, whenever I was having a 'sorta' day," Angie Anna revealed, explaining that this was what they would call it when she wasn't at her worst, health wise, but she definitely wasn't well either. "We'd make cookies, or a cake, and it would make me feel… just happy, I guess. And I'd have what we made for a dessert, or a snack, for a while. My mom will freeze some of it sometimes, so on the worse days, depending on where my appetite is…"

She'd been having a good few weeks, though if they were to ask her, it'd be unclear whether or not she'd call it that. Good weeks tended to leave her skeptical, like the moment she let her guard down and felt happy, everything would crumble down around her. Maya understood that feeling all too well, even though hers hadn't come from a place of physical illness, and she had seen it in the girl's diary pages from the start, but what could she really tell her? Nothing she could do would change whether or not she ended up getting sick again. But right now she was good, and they were baking, which she loved, so they would focus on that.

When everything was either cooking, baking, cooling down or staying warm, the next step was to get everyone ready before their guests started to arrive. This would include Angie Anna's family, who would be joining them through dinner and the evening, as had been decided when the girls had been invited for their sleepover. They had stopped by earlier in order to drop off everything they'd need to get dressed up for dinner, and now Angie Anna and Deanne were up in the guest room, doing just that, while Maya, Gracie, and MJ saw to the Friar kids' semi-formal transformations, complete with 'special occasion' items.

The girls were all very excited that Ezra had now gotten his own special thing like they all did. He wasn't given a locket, no, but he had a small bracelet where his initial had been engraved, same as the girls had on the golden hearts hanging around their necks. He had been told all about this special gift, and it was maybe one of the funniest parts of the evening about to begin, just seeing him stare at his bracelet, or poke it, or turn it around his small wrist… He also showed it to every person that arrived to join them for dinner. Along with the Bowles, this would include Thomas and Pappy Joe, the Hunters, the Hart-Lanes and all associated branches, Ella and Taylor and their girls, and then Freddie Jacek and Agnes Killian, who would be unable to attend the next day, as they would be with the Killians for the day.

"Look at my special!" Ezra held out his arm and pointed at the bracelet with his other hand. Freddie lifted him up into his arms, the better for him and Agnes to see what they were being shown, and they gave all proper 'oohs' and 'aahs' for the small boy to be pleased.

"It's got an E right there," Agnes noted with a smile, and he nodded heartily, pressing his little index against the letter.

"Ezra… Ezra!" he proclaimed as he did so, and Freddie and Agnes laughed, encouraging him in his chant before Freddie finally set him down. When he ran off to go see Pappy Joe, even as watched him go over to his great grandfather, Maya and Lucas spared a moment for their boy's birth parents. A lot of them had been forced to learn that Christmas could be as bittersweet as it could be sweet, and for having to experience those feelings as much as they did that year, they sympathized with the young couple as they were left to balance the feelings that came with having done what was best for their son and having to live with that choice.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners