February 7th 2024

Chapter 38
The Facts in a Final Year

Meeting the senior parents at Parent Night often meant getting ready to say goodbye to them as well as their senior children by the end of the year unless they had younger siblings still making their way up the grades, still not even in high school even. Then there were those who would just continue being part of her life because they just were in it. When Cristina sat across from her to talk about how Rafa was doing, Maya was sitting with a friend, so talking was easy. She knew already how emotional she was at the thought of her baby boy heading off to college, and she felt for her, much more than she could say. She reminded her of where her own mother would have been when she'd been a senior. Cristina, like Katy, had long been a single parent, doing her best to make ends meet, and though she had found someone solid to stand by her side in recent years, with Bishop, neither she nor Rafa had forgotten the distance they had traveled together.

At least, here, she was able to speak on and on about how great a kid it was that she'd raised, and it wasn't exaggerating at all. The qualities she had passed on to him had made him someone so important to this school. He had been one of those most instrumental in the long fight to get Sandra Davenport out of the principal's chair, and Maya wouldn't soon forget it.

When Sydney Carter visited her classroom for the first of two stops that night, to talk about Jake, there was still some of that senior emotion, though it was softened by the fact that she'd been through this before. Her lone daughter had been the first to go by, and she'd have two more sons to see graduate after this one went. That didn't mean she didn't come in with a look in her eyes like she'd started having flashbacks of her eldest son in all the years of his life as she hit this point of the year, the first one that really made her think about how he was about to step out on his own for the first time.

Maya had known her for a long time, too, not just for having seen her at her daughter's Parent Nights but for her being part of Lucas' basketball team, part of that great, extended family. And then there was that Carter name again, which she hadn't even considered as potentially related to Madelyn, or Claudia, but in this case there really was no connection except a name. The name that did lead the talk they had in their brief encounter that night, once they'd run through what they had to discuss, was Bennett. It had been several years now since Sydney's husband had passed away, but their children had not forgotten him, especially the eldest two. For Jake, it had become more and more important to honor his Māori roots, enough that he had been considering studying abroad.

This bit of news stayed with Maya, especially when Gabe Dixon came to discuss his daughter Amy. There was no way that she didn't know about her boyfriend's plans, and if she did, then what were the odds that she wouldn't consider going with him even a little bit? Then again, what if he hadn't told her yet? She couldn't bring it up now, with her father, who was also her neighbor. He led most of the conversation as it was that night, mentioning how much Amy always said she loved her class, and how happy she was to have Himari with them for the year…

Gabe had always been very involved in Amy's life, and in younger sister Julie's, like he was in his oldest two, from his first marriage. And now that he was a grandfather, to Cole and Missy's son… He already struggled with how his eldest daughter, Cindy, had never come back to Texas and how much he missed being able to see her, so how was he going to cope with seeing his next daughter maybe going even further? Oh, he'd encourage her. He would not keep her from it, but Maya had a feeling that this encouragement wouldn't come without a dose of trying to talk her into staying first. When Parent Night dates had first been announced, Amy had told Maya how, since the start of the school year, her father had been getting more and more nostalgic, and she could definitely see it here.

It was very rare for her to meet parents for the first time when their kids were seniors, or juniors, but that was the case for a few of her appointments that night. She met Robyn Blakely's mother Nina for what would be one of only two encounters, as she had no younger children following after her. Of course, the longer she looked at her face, the more she was sure she had seen her in the stands at one of Rockin' Robyn's basketball games, and in bringing this up she learned that the uncapped senior had mentioned her art teacher to her mother before, more than once. She had come to know that she'd been on the team back in her days, that she'd been captain, and that had taken her down the rabbit hole of looking up her games where she could find any part of them.

It made Maya laugh, humbly so. In return, she had so much to say about how much Robyn had been a revelation, that her diary showed so much of her skill and her love for what she did. It might not have been something that would be part of her endeavors beyond high school, but Maya hoped that it would at least be something she could take with her and do whenever she wanted to. She had the itch for it, right down to her fingertips, and Maya saw it every day.

There was very little distinction between her meetings with the AP level parents and those of the regular level. The material changed, but that was about it. Of course, here again she ended up coming across parents she hadn't met on these nights before. The uncapped, the transfers… She met her second Carter that evening in the form of Claudia's mother, Rina Carter. The way the woman swept into the room, it was clear to Maya that she was very aware of the rumors running the halls with regards to her daughter, and she stood at the ready to deny each and every one, if not to threaten litigation if she felt particularly insulted.

The impression she left with Maya was that it would have much more to do with wanting to protect her name, her husband's name, and his business, and much less if anything at all with looking after her daughter. She listened to what Maya had to say, but at the same time only seemed to be partially listening, and as soon as Maya had finished to say what she had to say, Rina Carter was out the door, in the same gust of wind that had carried her in. She'd been left with the impression that Claudia couldn't wait to finish high school, and now she saw it much clearer, saw it as her simply being unable to wait until the day where she could slip out from under her mother's thumb.

At her very next meeting, with Lindsay Dare's father, Mike, she found herself telling the man about Claudia's mother's visit, and he received this with a nod weighed down by years of having to deal with her. Lindsay and Claudia had been friends for so long, and they were inseparable for it, but to hear Mike Dare talk about it, Rina Carter had absolutely tried to challenge that countless times. She didn't see the Dares as being anywhere near their 'level,' and she wanted her daughter to associate with a better kind. When the rumors had started about Claudia, the woman had the nerve to suggest this was all Lindsay's fault, and it had taken him all the strength and the reasoning in the world not to rise up to that accusation. It would not have helped anyone, least of all the girls.

All that aside, he knew exactly the kind of person his daughter was, and he had every reason to be proud of her and to look forward to finding out what she would do in the world when she got to step beyond the high school doors. If she managed to take Claudia along with her, he would happily encourage it. Where Rina Carter waved potential lawsuits all around when people tried to dirty 'her name,' he only ever made sure that Claudia was safe, and he trusted that she had that same strong head on her shoulders as his Lindsay had, and they would both be fine. They wouldn't give attention where it was undeserved.

She was always so happy to see Haruna Farrell or her husband on these nights, whether it was back in Kelsey's years or now with Max, and it was hard to believe that they had now made it to this point, to his senior year. It wasn't as though she would never see them all again, not with Kelsey being part of the Hexes, but especially for how Haruna was Kimiko and Haru's aunt. When they had their meeting, she did her very best to only focus on Max, on how his year was shaping up so far, but she must have had her thoughts sitting so close to the surface that they could not be ignored. As soon as they'd gotten through the whole Max of things, Haruna had asked how Marianne was doing.

Maya had known the woman long enough to know that she could share the answer in full understanding. She could tell her how much her daughter had been struggling, especially in the beginning, how it still brought her a lot of grief whenever she remembered what had happened, what it would mean for the future. It wasn't like she and Haru had ever been in the same physical location that often, if at all, but this was so far from that, and it made her feel so very helpless, a feeling that both Maya and Lucas felt, too, for her. To hear it from Haruna, her nephew was in much the same place, over in Japan.

She fought distractions again when Natalie McAllister came to discuss eldest daughter Max, at first because she knew she'd be wanting to mention Ingrid, and how thankful she was for the attention that she gave Kacey, and the idea about chess, which was slowly becoming everything Kacey wanted to know about these days. But then when the woman had come along accompanied by her little grandchildren… She might not have gotten to see them as much as she used to, with how she no longer had Max in last period, but thanks to Dylan now having that honor in gym, the good times had carried on. They were practically buzzing at the sight of the art teacher, and Maya didn't have time to crouch before there were four little arms wrapped around her legs.

Those sweet little faces were such an echo of their mother's, and it was a wonder that Maya and Natalie got around to discussing Max at all while they were there, but they were given crayons, and a sheet of paper so large that they could sit on it, and they were golden. Watching them, the big question was not far away. What would the future have in store for them and their mother once she got her diploma? It had never been so important to Max that she finish high school with not just a diploma but the grades to get her as high in the world as she needed to go as the day when that pregnancy test had sent those two lines staring back at her, and part of this had been possible because of her mothers, because of her younger siblings, and because of her best friend and his family. She wasn't going to forget it.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners