A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!

March 18th 2021

Chapter 77
Our Wait For Them

It would be a couple of hours more before Maya got to hold the new baby boy. When she came along to visit her oldest friend again, she did so with her daughter perched in her arms. Riley looked up and saw them coming, and oh the way she smiled…

"Is it weird that I really couldn't stop thinking about introducing them to each other?" Maya asked.

"Are you kidding? Get her over here," Riley begged with a laugh.

"You know, she doesn't even feel that big to me most times, but then next to a newborn, she is a giant," Maya reflected, turning to brush at Marianne's hair. She'd only just woken up from a lengthy nap in Dora's arms not too long ago, and if she'd followed this up anywhere other than her mother or father's arms, she would have been entirely crankier, no doubt about it. "Right, this is going to be tricky," Maya paused to figure out the handoff.

"Put her here," Riley offered, holding her free arm at her side. Maya saw this was really the way to go, so she passed her girl over, enabling her to carefully scoop up the boy, who'd been snoozing in Riley's hold. She didn't look so far off from dozing off herself, but now the arrival of Marianne was as good as a pick me up. "Hello… Hello, Marianne," Riley smiled at her.

Maya was in another world for a moment or two, as she held and looked upon Nicky Orlando. She knew his features would refine themselves in time, but to her he already looked like his parents so much. Here he was, doing little more than sleep all bundled up, but there was something to him, an air that radiated out and called up impressions of Riley and Dylan.

"Calling it right now, this is my favorite thing that you've ever done," Maya informed Riley without breaking eye contact with the baby.

"What a coincidence," Riley replied, and Maya knew this was her reciprocating the compliment toward her and Marianne. She came to sit with her friend now, that they might get to look upon their daughter and son together. It was as Maya had said, how big Marianne appeared all of a sudden, when held next to Nicky. In a year or two, it would hardly matter that one of them was half a year older. "Are we going to be weird about insisting that they become friends?"

"Their fathers are great friends together, Turtle friends," Maya pointed out.

"Turtles," Riley chuckled.

"And their mothers, oh… the stuff of legends…"

"I like that…"

"So, you see, it's in their blood," Maya concluded. Almost to prove her point, Marianne turned her head at this moment, and she spotted Nicky. She reached out her hand like she was aiming to touch his face, though she was too far away. "That means she likes him," Maya confidently stated, and it was good enough for Riley.

When Maya left the room with Marianne, the waiting room had evolved again, now to hold many eager visitors, from near and far. Here was the group out of Houston, with Sophie and Chiara and Asher and Ray, with little Giulia, and Bishop and Leona, and Willow and Lion – minus the kids, who'd been left with their aunt. Here was Thomas Friar, who had joined his wife and son, all the better to wish him happy birthday in person. He and Melinda would accompany them back to the house when they left, the better to salvage what remained of the day.

"How's he doing back there?" Maya asked Shawn when he came up to greet her and steal away his granddaughter. He turned to look at Cory and then back to her.

"How he hasn't passed out is a miracle," Shawn appraised.

"Dylan passed out. Did he tell you?" Maya tried not to sound so amused, but then looking back on it even Dylan himself would laugh about it.

"He did, yeah. His mom and dad were all over him about it when I got here. Heard about the chair though, nice save."

"I had a job to do, you know how it is," Maya humbly shrugged.

"I do, yes. They're a lot of work," Shawn nodded.

"Aren't they though?"

"Hi, auntie!" Ada Marie Minkus looked way more alert than a four-year-old had any right to be after the mad, rushed day she would have had, but then Maya didn't care so long as she got to scoop her up and hug her good, which was what she did.

"Hello, Ada my dear, how are you?" she intoned.

"Hungry," Ada informed her.

"That makes two of us. What do you have out here?" The search for snacks was hardly difficult, with the build up of supplies they'd gained in the long waiting day.

They wouldn't all stay that much longer out here. Those who'd come from Houston would wait their turns to go and see Riley and the baby before heading home again. Those who'd flown in would either see them tonight or wait and return in the morning, after spending the night at a hotel or in someone else's guest room. In Maya and Lucas' case, them and everyone who would return to the house on the lane with them – as residents or late visitors – all they waited on was for Lucas to have a moment with his friends and the baby, as Dylan insisted it needed to happen, what with their sharing a birthday. This had to happen while the day was still here.

"Riley's sleeping," Dylan whispered as he brought his old friend into the room. He took the baby from the bassinet near the bed, looked at him all along as he brought him to meet his birthday buddy. For all the pictures he'd already seen, Lucas had to say, the real deal made so much more of an impact.

"Look at this little man," he smiled, looking at him as he slept, like his mother. If possible, it really brought out the inklings of resemblance between them. "Calling it right here. Me, him… ice cream… every year. Sound good?" he asked Dylan more than Nicky at this point, but it didn't make his claim any less true.

"Sounds great," Dylan promised, his chest practically bursting with pride.

It was a short visit on the whole, but Dylan insisted that he should get to head home now, do his own thing while he could. Anyway, he and Maya would definitely be back the next day as soon as they could, and they all knew it. So, Lucas hugged his friend good night once the baby had been returned to rest near his mother. He returned to the waiting room, collecting the rest of his group, wishing the others good night as well. They had to split off in three vehicles, with Lucas and Maya and Marianne in the minivan, Cara and Elizabeth in Lucas' car, and Thomas and Melinda in theirs, all of them bound for the house.

It took a lot of work to convince Melinda Friar not to do what she had in mind once she'd started to plan toward it. Tonight, she'd had hours to decide on the best course of action for this minimal celebration of her son's twenty-ninth birthday. Luckily for Lucas, if it could be seen that way, he had a couple of ways to get her to stall. If his 'birthday boy' card didn't carry the whole load, their pointed look from earlier could grab on to the rest very well.

"What's going on with you two?" Thomas asked his wife and son, after Cara had gone up to do some unfortunately very needed studying, and Elizabeth had stepped up to take Marianne to her crib. All that were left were the elder and younger Friar couples in the kitchen. Maya looked just as curious as her father-in-law, while her mother-in-law looked doubtful.

"Mom, I'm going to tell her later anyway," Lucas shook his head.

"Tell me what?" Maya asked. Melinda sighed.

"A-alright. Alright," she held up her hands in light surrender before taking a seat at the kitchen table. By the look she stole toward her husband, Lucas now realized he didn't know any of this at all. They all four of them sat around the table now, making the whole thing feel way too tense for how happy everything had been earlier on.

"Mel?" Thomas addressed his wife, understandably concerned.

"It's about Jocelyn, Tom," she told him, and he blinked.

"Jocelyn Orlando?" he asked.

"Lucas…" Maya turned to him now, like she thought he might have told his mother.

"She knows already," he shook his head at her, and now Maya turned to Melinda. "Not sure which parts though."

"What is going on? What's this about Jocelyn, did you see her? Is she back? Of all the times…" Thomas frowned.

"She's not back. She never left. Austin, that is," Melinda stated, and by the way he reacted, Thomas had honestly had no idea up to now.

"She remarried, to a man called Peter Munroe," Lucas told his father, even as he wondered how that would have been able to happen without her getting a divorce from Mr. Orlando. Wouldn't he have had to know? He wasn't about to figure any of that out tonight, and anyway, there was the look of recognition and shock on his father's face to deal with. Apparently, he'd once known the man, too.

"They have a daughter and a son. The daughter is one of my students, and I met her mother at parent night last year. Saw a picture of their son, and he looked so much like Dylan, that's how I knew," Maya provided. This caught Melinda off guard. She'd had no idea exactly how Lucas knew, or what exactly he'd known, so this was just a complete surprise. "She was pregnant with the daughter when she left Dylan and Kyle and their dad," Maya went on, keeping her mother-in-law's eye as she said it, hating to bait her but… yes, there was a flicker. "You knew, about the baby."

"Not for a while, not until very near the day she left, I… She hid it, in the beginning, but then one day I noticed," Melinda admitted, the whole thing sounding like the shame of long years, holding her tongue. The more she talked, the more it felt to Lucas as though her protectiveness over Dylan, for all these years, had been rooted in this sentiment like she'd failed to keep his mother from going away.

She wouldn't go and start gossiping, that just was not her style. So, whatever was going on between Dylan's parents before and during the affair, she wouldn't go into much or any detail about it. Even so, the picture she painted around it had a way of revealing the shape of the part she kept obscured. It told the story of a couple who may have been in love once but, over the years, had slowly but surely fallen out of it, until they might as well have been roommates more than husband and wife. And then there was Peter Munroe, who'd been part of their acquaintances for a long time and might have remained only that to Jocelyn, if not for the way her marriage had been going.

The plan had never been for her to leave. It hadn't been, because there hadn't been a plan, there'd just been home, a family barely keeping up the appearance of being whole and free of cracks, when in fact they had just been pieces finely held together by sheer stubbornness and force of habit. And then Jocelyn Orlando had found herself pregnant, and her hold on the pieces had slipped. They'd started to drift, would not go back. Suddenly, she was on a clock. Some decision would have to be made. She hadn't set out to be unfaithful, she'd told Melinda Friar as much, the day her secret was uncovered, in a great release like she'd been holding her breath all along. That night, in her son's kitchen, Melinda only shared it because she saw no point anymore in holding it back.

"I never wanted to risk Dylan ever hearing any of it…" she shook her head though, lifting her eyes to her husband, an apology for this secret she'd kept even from him. He didn't look mad, not in the slightest. He knew his wife, trusted her judgment and her integrity.

"I can get her going to live with Mr. Munroe after all that, I do," Maya slowly spoke now. "But Dylan… and Kyle… She just…" As a friend, she felt heartbroken for those two. As a mother… It made no sense to her, and it never would.

"I…" Melinda started, but had to pause. The way she shook her head to herself, it was clear she did not agree with how it had all panned out, but it was harder for her to just wipe the whole thing away without a deeper look, because she'd known Jocelyn, had been her friend. "In the beginning, I don't think it was what she'd set out to do. She got it in her head that it would be such a scandal, and it would affect the boys, and… The only thing to do was to go away. Not forever, but…" She'd tried to talk Jocelyn out of it, they could see it in her eyes. "I don't know what happened after that. I didn't see her again except one time… must have been about ten, eleven years ago. I was so surprised, she was gone before I could react or go after her, I… I never found her again, but it was clear she wasn't just visiting. I could have looked more, but… I didn't want to. I couldn't become involved any more after that," she shook her head, looking almost angry, which was not a common look on her. A moment later, her face shifted almost too rapidly into concern. "Dylan, does he know?" Now Maya and Lucas were looking to one another. "Oh, he does, doesn't he?" she asked, with rising sympathy.

"We had to tell him," Lucas quietly explained.

"What about the girl? Peter's, and the boy?" Thomas spoke now, still caught in the aftershock.

"They don't know either," Maya told him. "Dylan asked us not to tell her. For now, I can't help but agree, much as it pains me. It's… a lot to take in, to know how she came to be."

"What would be the alternative?" Thomas asked her. "If she finds out sooner or later?" He was right, wasn't he? It would never be okay, and they knew that. All they had to lean onto was this illusion of preservation. So long as they didn't say anything, she couldn't be hurt, could she? It'll hurt even more if she knows that we knew and we didn't tell her… It's too late now, isn't it?

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners