February 17th 2024

Chapter 48
The Trouble With Distance

They had enough open space across the land included in Sullivan Stables that they could have added many more structures. That wasn't their intention though. They wanted to preserve its openness as much as possible and, though the last few years had seen a few additions and transformations, they had always been done with great consideration. Now, as they were approaching the end of one year and the start of another, there was one very important project they were looking to get off the ground, and they had finally come to a decision about where they would build it.

Lucas stood a short way back of the spot now, and he tried to conjure up an image of a house, tall, welcoming… That was what they needed. This would be where the future summer camper house would stand. Once it was there, they would no longer have to take over so much of the bed and breakfast every summer, and they could also bring in even more campers than they usually did. And when they were not receiving campers, the house could be a sort of annex to the bed and breakfast, allowing them to receive even bigger parties, say for weddings…

As much as they were trying to make a push toward breaking ground early in the new year, just now he could not forget that he had four exchange campers at the ranch, and that it was December. Not all of their XCs had celebrated Christmas, but the vast majority of them had had some important holiday in the month and, if they didn't, they'd have the coming turn of the year to put them in a similar mood to the others. They had been in Austin for a few months now, not quite halfway through their stay here… and the separation from their families was really starting to wear in.

Lucas always did their best to help them through this part. If their families were able to travel out to join them, then they would have rooms waiting for them at the bed and breakfast. If they couldn't come, then presents would be shipped out, recipes were exchanged between the camper families and the host families to try and bring that touch of home… All this and more would be done to try and do… what little they could, so they might be able to see them through this time.

Calvin Larose was very quiet again, which was as much of a signal of his mental state as they needed. The sixth-grader had been described as shy, quiet, reclusive, when Lucas had first spoken to his family, and that was exactly how he'd been over the last week or two. Even the thing that would make him come alive with words by the hundreds, the horses, couldn't get it out of him now. And he had been getting so much better at opening up since he'd arrived and been placed with Mosi Okafor and his family. But he missed his home now, missed his family, and it was making it harder and harder for him to get excited.

It was to the point that, concerned for his well being above all else, Mosi's parents had asked Lucas if it might be time to consider sending Calvin home early. They didn't say this near Mosi, knowing how the two boys had become such good friends, but they had to trust that he would understand this, too. Maybe Calvin could simply go back home for a few weeks and then return to them when the kids went back to school in January… Lucas promised them it wouldn't be necessary, or at least he was very confident that it wouldn't be. They hadn't told Calvin yet, but his family would be coming over to spend the holidays with him. They would arrive in a matter of days. The Okafors were so relieved to hear this. They had come to love their young guest very much, too, and they would have been almost as upset as their son to watch him leave so early. Now it was only a matter of keeping Calvin motivated for the next few days.

When it came to their other American XC, Deanne Wallis, the effect of the separation from her father over these past several months had been one of unlocked longing. Time had not made her stop missing her late mother; nothing could do that. It had softened the grief that she'd been carrying, slowly and without her conscious knowledge, enough that she was getting closer and closer on the cusp of what might have felt like a normal life again, something she might not have believed when she'd first arrived.

What it had also done was make her miss her father. It made her miss him like she had been asleep since the day her mother had closed her eyes for the last time, her own eyes closed, too, until time had willed them open again and reminded her that her father was alive. He was alive, and she loved him the same as she'd loved her mother, and she would be as upset to lose him as she'd been to lose her. And she missed him. Oh, she missed him so much that she could barely stand it. But also she was afraid. Her open eyes reminded her of how things had been, after her mother's death and before she'd left for Texas, and in the months she'd been away, too. What if her father hadn't opened his eyes yet?

To their knowledge, there was no plan for Mr. Wallis to come to Austin. From the contact he'd had with him, Lucas was afraid that he might not be where his daughter was yet on her road to healing through their loss. He wished he could help him achieve that much, for Deanne's sake, but also knew, for having seen his father go through it all, that no one could do that for him. He had to get there on his own.

The last time he'd seen Deanne, he'd sensed that she hoped he'd say that her father was coming, and he couldn't do that, couldn't even tell her the truth so far as he knew it. So, instead, he'd gone and changed the subject by showing her and the other XCs the plans they had just received for the camper house. He had described in detail, so Himari might create a picture in her head, and it had made him happy to see that the others were doing it, too. Those pictures probably looked different in all their heads, and he knew Maya would be thinking the same, possibly hoping to see them draw it up on paper to compare. And she would make him draw one, too, of course, because she'd be most curious about that version. She'd tease him about it, but she'd know exactly how he saw it, because they'd been involved in the design of these plans. It was very important to both of them that the house would reflect them and what the camp meant to them both, as it had done in the years since its creation.

Sophia had easily been the most fascinated about the plans. Though she had a complicated relationship to her memories of him, since he'd walked out on her and her brother and their mother when she'd been little, the thing she remembered the most about her father was that he worked on making buildings. That was what she called it, and Lucas wasn't too sure if she meant that he was an architect, a construction worker, or something else, but it didn't matter. It was something that she'd held onto, and he wasn't about to take it from her.

Of the four exchange campers, she was maybe the one who handled the separation from her family the best. This wasn't to say that she didn't miss them, far from that. She did talk to them a lot, just about every day, and though they weren't in the same country, this was good. There was also 'the other thing,' this idea that she and Kennedy had a scheme going to match their parents. That was for sure what they were doing, especially for what they had been hearing from Sophia's mother, and Kennedy's father, and her older sibling, Ash Bell, when they went to the Hex for practice or recording. Ultimately, the two parents were adults, with their own minds and their own hearts, and the will to decide for themselves whether or not this other person was someone they could fall in love with and connect with enough that one of them would be willing to move their family to join them and theirs. So if the two middle schoolers were having fun making their plans, then maybe they could just let them be. And if it turned out in the end that they'd been on to something, then it would make a great story to share.

Himari was handling the separation pretty well, too, all things considered. With her, the thought was that she had traveled enough in her life that she had become used to being away from home, away from one family member or another for an extended period of time. It had never been this long, no, and she had never been separated from everyone she knew all at once, but her experiences still amounted to something where she could be alright. Her family was flying over, they had made these plans even as Himari had been brought out from Japan to Texas. Maybe that had helped, too. She'd always been able to think of the holidays and know that she would be reunited with her family for a little while.

Of this year's set of exchange campers, Lucas felt that she was easily the one who would be saddest to leave the ranch. All of them would be sad to be parted from their host families, he could tell, but where the ranch itself, in all its components, would be concerned, Himari would be the one to miss it the most. She had come here with a purpose, she wanted to learn so much, wanted to take in all this knowledge, as much as she could, the better to someday study and become a veterinarian, just like she'd always wanted. Much as it helped that she was the eldest of the four, she had visited the ranch many more times than any of the other three, most of that time spent at the clinic, or at the stables… He saw her when she got to try something new, learn something new… He thought about the camper house as it might have looked in her head, and he was most curious to find out how it might look for her.

After they'd seen the plans, he'd brought them to look at the empty lot, too. They'd stood there, in silence, just a bit awkward, which made a couple of them laugh after a while. It released the moment, but it also made them realize that they would maybe never see what it would look like in the end, that they would never get to walk through the house when it was all done, and furnished… and he was amazed to realize this could be something they wanted. So, he made them a deal. He would have to check with their parents, of course, but if they were on board, he would see to it that the four of them got to come back and see the camper house when it was ready. Maybe they could travel out for the 'grand opening' - Marianne had insisted that they needed one of those - seeing as it would be summer and they wouldn't have school to worry about. They could even stay for the summer if they wanted it. He would be happy to have them all back and know what became of them after they went home.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners