April 23rd 2021

Chapter 113
Our Spooks For October

"It's a, it's a, it's a little pumpkin girl, in a, in a, in a great big pumpkin patch!" Maya sang out as she swooped along with Marianne held to herself and facing out. Her own voice was matched to the great squealing laughter of her daughter as she was 'flown' around the land beyond their house.

"Is that your new hit? It's catchy," Lucas asked, arms and camera held up to capture the whole thing. "Going to need to make that trophy case bigger."

"Everyone's a critic," Maya squinted at him. Marianne dipped her head back and reached up to her mother. "Only one who needs to love it is this girl here, and she clearly does. Don't you, pumpkin?" Maya asked, setting a kiss to her forehead. "Thank you, thank you very much," she gave a slow curtsey before turning Marianne around to face her. "Wait until we get out there today. Pumpkins everywhere. And ghosts, and vampires, and werewolves…"

"Zombies, witches," Lucas added.

"Yeah, all of those spooky legends. Don't worry though, you are perfectly safe with your mom and dad," Maya vowed, giving an endearing witch's cackle. Marianne looked almost awed at the sound, which led Maya to do it again, and again, until it had the small girl howling with new laughter.

"Just when I thought October couldn't get any bigger in this house," Lucas was all smiles as he watched his wife and daughter, and finally he couldn't help reaching his hand into the shot to give Marianne a little belly tickle, which set her right off again with the giggles.

"Big, big, pumpkin month!" Maya whispered with a great big look of wonder aimed at their girl, who responded to this by reaching out and grabbing her mother's face and planting a sloppy kiss on it.

It couldn't be ignored just how loaded September had been, not so much in the house itself but in the lives of those who lived in it and of those whose lives interconnected with theirs. And then all of a sudden it was October, and it wasn't so much that things got normal and uneventful all of a sudden, but this turn of the calendar page got to feel like everyone had been allowed to take a breath, to stop and collect themselves just enough that they could look to the new month with optimism or something near enough to it. Still, for all that…

By now, they all just felt as though they were in a holding pattern. No one made a move, no one said anything, even though it was well established by this point that some things were known but kept unspoken. Maya knew who Jo Munroe and their new gym teacher were to one another, and she and her husband knew it. And Dylan knew who the Munroe children were to him, and their parents knew it. Kept in the dark as of now were Phoebe and Taylor themselves, but also Dylan's father, stepmother, and older brother. He wasn't trying to keep them in the dark, but it just felt safer to keep the circle as small as possible, to lower the risks of it getting out to his half-siblings.

There hadn't been any outright meetings between 'the two sides,' but then that could only last so long, especially when one side were teachers and the other were parents. It had approached, not unlike Family Day but with the added stakes that they were not going to be in a room full of students and family members. This time, they would be alone, one on one, and only the time constraint of the night's structure would stand and give them any kind of protection.

Peter Munroe had made the rounds for both of his children that night, his wife nowhere to be seen, which had been the norm on each previous parent-teacher night save for that one which changed everything. Knowing he would be coming, Maya had made herself stop and consider how she would handle it all, and by the time the man stepped into her classroom, she'd made up her mind. What she would do, all she felt she could do, would be to treat him like any other parent and focus on Phoebe and Taylor. She would tell him what she had to tell him, and that would be all. She would not make a single allusion to Jo Munroe or the Orlando family. She'd interacted with the man enough times since she'd started as Phoebe's teacher to have reasonable hope in his getting the message and acting in consequence.

He got the message about as soon as he walked in and they shook hands. They sat, and she did her thing, and he left. Maya let out a breath when he'd gone, and she wasn't sure what he felt when he went on his way, but she could tell he was still thinking about the situation even as he acted like he didn't. She'd sort of done the same, hadn't she?

As soon as she could, she went to find Dylan, to know how it had gone for him. Maybe it had been easier for Peter Munroe to keep that distance with her, but Dylan…

"I couldn't do it," he told her before she'd said a single word, like he knew she'd be showing up all along. "I told him what I could tell him about how Phoebe and Taylor were doing, and then I asked him to leave, I…" he shook his head. He was almost beside himself, and Maya hugged him, walked him toward the lot. Riley was there, waiting for him, with Nicky sleeping in the car.

After that, there'd been quiet all around. Everyone went back to their sides, and they carried on, all the while knowing it could only last so long. In a perfect world, they might hold on until Phoebe graduated at the end of this year, but they weren't going to make it until Taylor finished his four years, were they?

The arrival of October and the first signs of Halloween approaching was everything they needed to focus their minds somewhere else. For her own part, Maya had so many things to think about, things that had nothing to do with drama and everything to do with one sweet girl about to celebrate a whole year of being alive. And she would get to do it at the heart of that spooky season her parents so dearly loved even before she'd become the cherry on top.

"Right. Costumes. Decorations. Candy," Maya enumerated, one each to a finger she poked with the index from her other hand.

"Last part is easy by now, we know what we're about," Lucas nodded, happily thriving on her energy as he drove the three of them to the mall.

"And I'm not hugely pregnant this year, so I won't be sneaking as many pieces… allegedly," she made sure to specify.

"Naturally," Lucas humored her. "And then decorations, between what we already have, and what you can and will make yourself, do we need that much?"

"Well, if we could find anything that also doubles for a kid's birthday party," Maya suggested, and he agreed that she had a point. None of that would take all that long though, same as the candy, which would mean that those tasks would be a breeze. And after those were done, there would be nothing left but the costumes, and those were clearly her favorite part and his as well.

"What are you going to do about your class? You were going to bring back your previous costume, weren't you? Last year though…"

"Last year I was a very accurate Claire from Lost, right down to the baby in the belly, I know. I could go as 'Claire after the baby,' but that's not much of a costume, is it? I'll have to think of something else while we're out there." It mattered to her, yes, but not nearly as much as her other costume, for their party at the house. They'd debated what to do, now that they had Marianne, but in the end, they felt confident that they could swing having their same old party, with the games outside first, even as their daughter was with them, or upstairs sleeping… This was going to be her day, wasn't it?

"Which then leaves us…" Lucas nodded.

"Yeah, that," Maya echoed, her thoughts fleeing somewhere in her mind that looked a lot like a gallery, overflowing with ideas. That was sort of the problem. She'd had a whole year to think about this, and she had thought about it, enough that she probably had enough combinations to have the next several Halloweens handled. Somewhere, in all of that, she really had to pry out just one of those ideas so they could make it a reality.

The debate had been lively and prone to veer off topic, as far as what kind of look they wanted to go for. They wouldn't go into something overly scary or gross; they hadn't been the type even before they had a baby. The closest they'd come to that was their perennial 'ghost with his head cut off,' and they couldn't say for sure whether it would frighten Marianne. On the flipside, they weren't going to go for anything too 'cute' and baby-like. Their daughter was about to be a year old; she wouldn't even have any sort of understanding about the holiday or the party. All she'd care about would be the chance to see strange things all around her, the better to observe them.

"I'm pretty sure my mother bought her a pumpkin costume," Lucas informed Maya with a slow nod. "She hasn't said it, but she keeps getting this look on her face like she's about to grin, and…"

"Oh, she did, that was my idea… sort of," Maya admitted.

"It was?"

"Yes, well, a couple weeks ago when I dropped Marianne off at their house in the morning, we got to talking about Halloween, and her birthday, and then your mom was getting the misty eyes going about little pumpkin turning one, and oh, wouldn't she look so sweet dressed as a pumpkin?"

"She's not wrong," Lucas shook his head.

"Of course not, look at her," Maya gestured to the backseat with a smile. Lucas couldn't look, not while he was driving, but the point was nonetheless made. "Anyway, so I told her that she could get her one. We could put it on her in the morning, when it would just be her birthday, and until the Halloween part of the night would start, and then we'd change her into her group costume after. She looked so thrilled at the idea, guess it makes sense she'd want to surprise you. Only reason I told you now is because you figured it out on your own," she pointed at him. He got the message.

"I won't tell her a thing. I'll act very surprised."

"Good," Maya laughed.

"So… What's it going to be?" he asked, and she sighed. "Listen, you say the word and we'll switch costumes four or five times in the night, but somehow I don't think the birthday girl is going to be on board with that one."

She got a look on her face here, when he referred to Marianne as the birthday girl. They'd only just been talking about her birthday less than a minute ago, and somehow it was this iteration that set her off with ideas springing to mind, with memories and realizations of how their baby girl was growing right before their eyes. In no time, she would be a year old, when a moment ago it had been Halloween again, and she'd come into the world… They would have to make this year the best one yet.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners