October 15th 2022

Chapter 288
Our Peace in Friendship

She wasn't sure at first whether Mackenzie understood that her leave was drawing to an end. In just a few days, she would be returning to work and the little sisters would be placed in their family's care on weekdays. They'd been having a great time, just the three of them through the better part of the past few weeks, and part of Maya wished she could just keep staying with them this way, but it wasn't so simple, was it? She had a job that she loved alongside her life at home, a job she knew made a difference in young people's lives. They may not have been her children, but they were her kids.

"What do you have there, Macaw?" Maya asked as she spied the seventeen-month-old sitting on her knees and looking at something clasped in her hands. When she heard her mother's voice, she held up a small plastic pumpkin. "Where did you find that?" Maya smiled and Mackenzie pointed to under the couch. "Can I see it?" she asked. Mackenzie quickly held the little plastic thing to her chest, hiding it as best she could. "I'll give it back, I promise." She hesitated, but still wouldn't part with her discovery. "Fine, okay, can you just show it to me then?" she asked, coming to crouch and carefully sit on the ground with her. This was satisfactory, so Mackenzie held up the toy pinched between her fingers. Maya tipped her head to look at the underside and found a number 17 in black marker written there. "Come on, Huckleberry, it's still September…" she mumbled quietly to herself with a laugh.

To be fair, there were already decorations and big boxes and bags of candy out in stores, so it wasn't as though the house hadn't already been bitten with pre-Halloween fever, but they had agreed to wait until October for the decorations to go up. That was all good and fine. Halloween – or Hallowannie, as far as the Friars were concerned – was nothing short of sacred in this household, and the closer it came, the more they'd be thinking about it. This year, they had even allowed some very early discussion of costumes, with the reasoning that they might as well benefit from the fact that Maya was at home and not at work throughout September and so would be able to get things done not without having to cut out time in the middle of everything else. She'd gotten all the girls taken care of already and was now down to herself and Lucas' costumes, which she could get done at her own pace throughout October.

Now, this little plastic pumpkin here had come from a set of twelve and would very much fall under the heading of 'girl dad impulse buys.' He'd picked up five of those sets, giving them a grand total of sixty pumpkins, each of the dozens with a different comical expression 'carved' in its face. As soon as he'd seen them, he'd gotten it in his head to do just as they did at the ranch every year, hiding small figurines around the property for people to find. Their lot wasn't just pumpkins but also witches, and vampires, and ghosts, but they were also numbered – to help in keeping track of which ones they were still missing and where they might have been hidden, rather than end up like those which had taken years to recover. One little witch remained hidden, though there were some people in the Friar household who knew just where it was.

And now they had their own hunt, for little funny pumpkins, or at least they were supposed to have it… in October. Going by the fact that Mackenzie now brandished number seventeen, Maya could guess her husband had gotten ahead of himself. How long would it be before the other girls realized this and started tearing the house apart in search of more?

"Is this the first one you've found?" Maya asked Mackenzie, who just kept holding her pumpkin close. They'd just have to wait and see then, huh? "Can I talk you into putting it back for now?" Maya tried. Mackenzie kept looking at her, unmoved. "Yeah, didn't think so…" she breathed out. "Our secret then?" she tried, pressing a finger to her lips. Now Mackenzie smiled, did as she did. "Good Macaron," Maya bent to catch her in a hugging kiss, receiving a roll of giggles in return just as the doorbell rang. Now Maya looked down to Mackenzie with a slightly exaggerated expression. "You know who that is?"

Oh, did she ever. Mackenzie burrowed her way out of the hold and on to her feet before sprinting over to the door. Maya got back up as well and followed, moving in to help the vertically-challenged girl, and thus presenting her with her very beloved Auntie Riley.

"Hi!" Riley was all smiles when she saw her there, hopping around and holding her arms up to her. She bent forward and collected Mackenzie, giving her a good pivoting hug. "I'm so happy to see you, too!" she told her.

"What about me?" Maya held out her arms. "You know, this is what I get for making a whole array of smaller, cuter versions of myself. I've become invisible."

"No, never, you're still very cute," Riley beamed, taking her best friend into a one-armed hug.

"Good to hear…"

"And small," Riley added.

"Alright, that's enough," Maya tapped her back and pulled away, both of them laughing. She shut the door, and they went into the living room, where Aubrey was starting to fuss in her bassinet. Maya reached in, lightly grasped her tiny hand until she calmed down again. All clear, nothing to worry about.

Every once in a while, whenever her schedule with patients allowed it, Riley would visit her best and oldest friend, whether it was at school, between classes, or at home like today. Sometimes they would meet somewhere else, for lunch. It was still wild to think how lucky they had been, that the Matthews had gone and uprooted their family, bringing them to Austin, all on the power of two friendships, on Maya and Riley's, and on Shawn and Cory and Topanga's. They had spent only one single and lonely year apart, in the seventh grade, and it had been enough. For that, their friendship had been allowed to blossom further than ever imagined, for nearly three decades now. From children they had grown to adulthood, found careers that made them feel accomplished, become wives, and mothers… And through all that, they'd had each other, still did. They'd had great, great highs, and low… oh, the lows… Riley was yet one more, alongside Lucas, and her parents, her in-laws, who still couldn't stare at her without occasionally getting this look like they remembered her lying in that bed, unconscious and potentially dying. That wasn't where they were though, not today.

"What do you have there?" Riley asked Mackenzie, finally noticing the object lodged in the girl's hands.

"My my!" Mackenzie curled around the thing before squirming her way off her aunt's lap and around the couch.

"Where are you going?" Riley laughed, while Maya sat back to peer over the top of the couch. There crouched her funny girl, apparently deciding her prize was better off hidden not too far off from where she'd first found it.

"Here, you want to trade?" she picked up the baby and offered her out, and Riley's smirk read like 'don't mind if I do' as she received her and held her in the crook of her arm. As she cooed to her, Maya got up and went to get hold of Mackenzie, who was no longer perturbed over the safety of pumpkin number seventeen. Her mother had her, and she couldn't have asked for any better. "Hey, so, you were kind of vague when you called to ask if you could come earlier," Maya told her friend as she came back to sit with her. Mackenzie immediately climbed down on to the couch between them, the better to peer at her baby sister and touch her hand. "Not that I'm not happy either way, I just got this feeling like maybe there was more to it than free time?" Maya casually/not casually asked.

"You figured it out, didn't you?" Riley's smile quirked.

"Maybe…" Maya opened, even as she felt a little thrill, sensing the confirmation halfway made. "You tell me…"

Her guesses had not been difficult to make. She had been able to read her best friend's face for more years than she had been unable, and she swore she had a tell, a very definitive look to her face whenever she was newly and covertly expecting… and so she was. She and Dylan were going to have another child, a fourth. It was difficult to reach around and hug one another with the two small girls between them, but they managed it. Mackenzie looked like she was confused as to why they were doing this and decided to respond by turning around and bending to hug her mother, landing closer to her legs, like she'd gone to rest her head in her lap. Maya laughed and brushed at her hair. Maybe she'd doze off.

As Riley went on to explain, this one was not unlike the last time, with Megan, in that they had generally left things up to chance but, at the same time, they might have subconsciously worked to put every chance they could have on their side in order to successfully conceive. And now they'd done it. She'd gone so far as to get it confirmed by her doctor before ever thinking of telling Dylan.

"Hold on, he doesn't know yet?" Maya blinked.

"No, well…" Riley started, sighed. "Okay, so last year, we had a moment where I thought I was pregnant, and I told him, and he got all excited, but then it turned out I wasn't… So, this time, I figured…"

"Yeah, alright, that makes sense," Maya nodded. "So, then I'm the first one you've told, or…"

"Of course! Well, except for the doctor, and…"

"Yeah, yeah…" Maya shrugged with her. Her smile formed again. "And…" she gestured at her, and Riley understood.

"April… early," she amended, looking to late-April baby Mackenzie lying across her mother's legs and blinking heavily, close to sleep. Maya's calming hand was mighty and honed to perfection. "Anyway, I'm still trying to decide how to tell Dylan… and the kids… Definitely Dylan first."

"Oh, can I tell him? I want to tell him," Maya volunteered, nearly waking Mackenzie in her haste.

"Okay!" Riley just laughed.

"I know what to do," Maya went on, still as determined. She laid out her plan, and Riley accepted it at once on the promise that Maya would capture the moment. "Of course, who do you think you're talking to?" she smirked before peering to her daughters, one in her friend's arms and the other across her lap. "Good thing these two are sleeping right now. It will make our little road trip a lot easier."

Not too long after Riley had to leave and head back to work, Maya got Mackenzie and Aubrey into their car seats and took off on her way to the high school. If her timing was right – and it was impeccable, always – then she would be right there as Dylan stepped out of the building. Today was a green group day for him, so he'd be doing exactly what Lucas would soon be doing, collecting his children to bring them to the ranch. When he spotted his friend and colleague waiting for him, leaning against the side of the minivan, he paused, intrigued.

"Hey… What are you doing here?" he asked as he walked over.

"I was given a task," Maya informed him, her chin proudly raised.

"Yeah?" Dylan laughed.

"A very, very important task, from my best friend and your wife," she pressed a hand to her heart and tipped her head. He was just curious enough that he couldn't even see her phone, which she'd slipped into her front pocket, the top sticking out as she'd set her camera to record.

"Riley…" he spoke her name and, even as he did, there was a spark in his eye, like he'd had a thought and… He looked back at Maya. Was it? She couldn't help herself, she grinned, and his smile just… exploded all over the place. "She…"

"Congrats, Pops," she clapped him on both shoulders, and he hugged her right off her feet, making her the recipient of a boatload of giddiness before he could set her down again.

"I… Oh, okay, I need to go get the kids, I…"

"I already called Lucas, asked him to get them for you. Didn't tell him why, so that'll be up to you. Come on, I'll drive you to the ranch… unless you want to go to Riley's office first?" It wasn't even up for debate. He had to go and see her.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners