March 19th 2021

Chapter 78
Our Farewell to Innocence

For a couple of weeks, they let it all sink back out of their minds, they had to. The more they'd give into the subject, really delve deep, they would end up at a point of no return and they'd have to just… address it, with Dylan, maybe… maybe Phoebe… The very idea of that had their stomachs in knots. For that dozen or so days though, it made sense not to get into it. Dylan, him and Riley, they would be adjusting to life with their baby boy, and it just was so not the time to confront him with this new bit of information. They kept telling themselves that there was never going to be a right time, but in this case, it would have absolutely been a wrong time.

So, they held on to it, privately. And in the meantime, there was Nicky.

Those of them who'd flown out from New York and Philadelphia had naturally stayed for a few days. Those in Houston had made full use of what times they were able to drive up to Austin for any longer stretches of time. They had anything from jobs to the fact that Chiara herself was only a handful and some weeks away from her own delivery to factor in, too. Lucas, Zay, Nadine, they would spend most of their free time out at the Orlando house, it seemed. And Maya, not unlike those days between Riley's due date and Nicky's actual birth, spent the vast majority of her time with her best friend and their children.

She would do her best not to jump in too much and have Riley either feel like she couldn't look after her son or like Maya didn't believe that she could do it. And Riley handled it all very well on the whole. Oh, she was nervous and uncertain at times, but then Maya had been that way, too, when Marianne was first born, so it all shaped up as 'par for the course.' Maya's actual biggest contribution to the effort – other than holding the baby, which was more of a perk than anything else – was to take on the role of nap police. She was used to doing this with an infant, so a grown woman was different, but the principles remained the same: you have to sleep, go to sleep. Riley had much more in the way of rebuttal, but then Maya had been rebutting the rebuttals long enough. Her friend would thank her later.

The whole thing had a way of making the days feel very interconnected, so much so that it felt surprising to realize two weeks had gone by. They actually stopped to consider it as they looked to the kids one day. Nicky was still his tiny little self, though he'd undoubtedly grown just enough to notice. But Marianne, coming up on seven months already, would be set down next to him most every day now, and it got to the point where she would start to cry if either Maya or Riley pulled her away from Nicky. Sometimes they'd set her back down again right away, and she'd calm down.

"You're happy to see your buddy, huh?" Maya smiled, looking to her daughter as she observed the small boy, awake and calm next to her. Marianne looked up at the sound of her mother's voice, then turned her head back to look at Nicky.

"You know, when you go back to work, I'll still be on leave, so… I can go out to see her, bring him so they can play," Riley suggested, and Maya really liked the sound of that.

Time was moving forward. They could all be aware of it, but it was another matter to actually acknowledge it, and the moment they did, it suddenly became so much harder to sidestep whatever it was you'd possibly been working to ignore.

"Riley…" she slowly started, considering her words. "How's Dylan been doing, this last year, with the whole Munroe situation?" Going by the look on her friend's face when the question was put to her, Maya had a feeling that the subject had never entirely left her mind, that it continued to spin quietly, like ambient noise. This already suggested how Dylan hadn't stopped thinking about it either.

"He's okay," she declared, though her nod felt uneasy. "Some days are just… You know, years back, before you and your dad got close again, there would be those days when it kind of… came out of you, all those feelings…" Riley delicately stated.

"I remember, yes," Maya breathed out. How could she not? On that frame of reference alone she understood very well what Dylan was going through, even if their circumstances were different. It certainly made her extra sympathetic to him, had always done. Their shared experiences as kids left behind by a parent had been something between them since almost day one of their friendship, since he'd figured it out and told her about his mother. How little we all knew back then…

"Then when we got pregnant, I think it changed for him. It didn't feel the same way anymore. Not better, not… not worse exactly, but more… intense, I guess," Riley added.

"Yeah…" Maya looked back down to the babies. Marianne had taken to putting her hand at Nicky's shoulder, which was almost too sweet to her mother and his both.

"Why do you ask?" Riley asked, and Maya could hear apprehension in her friend's voice. Why would she ask? Why would she bring this up now? Maya considered it all again.

"Do you think… If he found out more, about all of that, would he… Would it be too much or…"

"What do you know?" Whatever happened, Riley would always be there to look out for Dylan. She'd know what to do.

"At the hospital, the day Nicky was born, it was hard, I guess… not to think about everything, with your mother," Lucas would tell Dylan that night, after the both of them came to join their wives and the kids at the Orlando house.

Dylan had been walking with that low apprehension under his brow from the moment they'd told him what they needed to talk about. He had Nicky in his arms, sleeping against his chest, and maybe it was easier that way, with this tether to the world and the things that were real, and present. Right now, when Lucas mentioned how he'd been thinking about the former Mrs. Orlando that day, Dylan's face had enough in it to confirm he had been thinking about her, too, whether he wanted to or not.

"That's how I realized that my mother knew about it, too," Lucas went on. Dylan looked… surprised, but also not, like a part of him had suspected as much for a long time.

They wouldn't say that he looked ready to hear about it all, but he did look like he was going to take it anyway. So, Lucas told him what his mother had said, with Maya's help along the way. He told him about how his mother had known about the baby who'd come into the world as Phoebe Munroe, how she'd found out about the pregnancy, and the affair, that she'd tried to keep Jocelyn from walking away, and failed, and felt in some way responsible.

"It's not her fault," Dylan spoke here, like he hadn't been silent all this time. The determination in his tone said plenty, of his own character and his regard toward Melinda Friar. He would never ever blame her, not after all she'd done for him since his mother had gone away.

To hear about the things she'd known though, and their implications most of all, Dylan looked conflicted to the point of being unreadable. All they could rely on at this point was inference, right? She didn't want a scandal, she wanted to protect her sons, and she chose to do it by disappearing from their lives? Not just that, she'd gone away but stayed right here in Austin all this time. What had she been doing about this? Did she think about them, did she… look on from afar? Did she know she had grandchildren now, that both her sons were fathers?

"I used to scan the stands when we'd have games, in middle school, in high school…" Dylan admitted, his eyes lowered on to his baby boy. "Like, somehow, I still thought she might show up, be out there. One time, I could swear I saw her, almost got knocked in the head by someone's arm because of it…" Lucas, Maya, and Riley all had a flash of memory of that exact instant which, at the time, had been almost comical in its execution. "But then I looked again, and she wasn't there, so… I figured I was imagining things. Now I think about all that again and I have to wonder if she really was there. I think about it all the time, it won't go away." His hand as it supported the baby was steady. The other, the one laid at Nicky's back, was trembling. His face was battling against the urge to break apart and cry. "Over, and over again, it won't stop, and I just… If she was really there, then it's not fair. It's selfish. If I can't see her, then why does she get to see me?" he shook his head. Riley set her hand at his back; he breathed in, let it out.

"Dylan…" Maya started, very slowly, so as not to leave any doubt of her intentions. She just had to ask, had to know, in light of everything, of the time since their conversation a year ago. "About Phoebe… and Taylor…" He looked up at her. His eyes looked bright with unshed tears.

"I-I don't know…" he shook his head.

Already, this was different from the categorical refusal from a year ago, but that had almost been easier to bear, hadn't it? He'd just shut the door before, didn't consider what actually keeping it open would mean. Maybe this was one more point of view forced into shifting, now that he had a new title attached to him. He was a father now, and a lot of that felt like protection, but at the same time… that protection could also mean acknowledging the swinging sword overhead, knowing it would fall sooner or later, and choosing to prepare for it rather than to assume they'd get away untouched.

"Whatever you decide, we'll back you up," Lucas promised.

Maya held her tongue, though she was also very aware of the fact that, come this fall, she'd be facing Phoebe Munroe every day at school again, her senior year. But on top of that, Taylor Munroe was about to start ninth grade and she'd likely have him as well, sitting in her class and looking so like his older half brother without knowing it. The longer she had to hold it, the heavier the lie felt, and maybe it had been easier this year, her being on leave, not having to see Phoebe day after day except through the pages of her diary and out at basketball games. But she was going back soon, and she couldn't stop thinking about it anymore. Her very own telltale heart was growing incessant.

"I don't know… I don't know…" Dylan shook his head. It was all he had to give them right now, and he wished he had more. He would think about it though… At this point, he couldn't let it go either.

"It's alright," Riley told him, her hand shifting from his back to his shoulder as she put the other around him and Nicky. Whatever happened, he'd have them on his side. His family, his friends… He wasn't going into this alone.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners