March 5th 2022
Chapter 64
Our Memories of Love
Early mornings were hardly a breeze in their house, between looking after one small child and three babies and having to get to work, and yet there was still some extra element of stress in waking up and getting ready for a special day. Today was absolutely one of those. Today, August Matthews and Milena Janacek would be married, and naturally the Friars would be in attendance.
Lucas and Maya were both awake before their alarm had time to ring. She took her turn in the shower and he started on breakfast so that, by the time she was done, they could go upstairs and see how the girls were doing. The answer, as they found, was that everyone was awake, and Marianne was in the nursery with her little sisters. Presently, as they came on the scene, she was standing in front of Remy's crib, where the nearly eight-month-old girl was resting on her stomach, head raised and staring at her big sister. Marianne's hand was through the bars, holding a small toy that rattled as she waved it around.
"You want this one? Come on, you can do it," Marianne encouraged, as she'd heard her parents and grandparents do. Remy was definitely looking at the toy like she wanted it. She was moving like she was hoping to get a hold of it but not quite engaging herself to actually move forward, not yet. Oh, but she was close. Eventually, Marianne relented and stretched forward to pass the toy within her reach. "Here you go, Remy," she nodded before moving to grab another one, which she brought to Kacey's crib, there to start the exercise again.
As glad as they would have been to let this whole thing go on, they did have to get ready for the day, so they made themselves known and went about collecting and directing their daughters to head down to eat. Eliza and Emma weren't coming, and they were working later on, so they were left to sleep in upstairs. Breakfast was luckily on the not so messy side this morning, so they could soon move on to the dressing portion of the day. Marianne was mostly able to dress herself by now, so she went to do this while her parents turned to do the same for the triplets.
"Mommy, I can't do this," Marianne arrived as Maya was finishing with Lucy and returning her to Remy's crib with its regular occupant. Lucas was just finishing with Kacey.
"Oh, the buttons, yeah, come here," Maya crouched while Marianne turned her back to her. "I need help with those, too, let's just get your hair out of the way," she swept it over her shoulder. "Getting pretty long, huh. Do you like it like that, or would you want it shorter?" she asked, closing the three buttons one by one. Marianne made a noise like she was considering the question.
"I don't know," she finally declared.
"Well, we can look into that later. For today, what are we doing?" Maya asked. "Up? Down? Bit of both? Surprise?"
"I want 'surprise,'" Marianne turned back around with a big, toothy smile.
"Alright, let's roll," Maya directed her toward the bathroom.
While Lucas went downstairs to shower and shave, Maya fixed up both her own hair and Marianne's. The four-year-old sat there while her mother worked, all the while inspecting her fingernails. Maya had painted her own the previous afternoon, and when Marianne had asked if she could get hers made colorful, too, she'd happily done it for her as well, in a color that would match her chosen dress. As satisfied and enamored as she was with the results now, it would be hard to forget – and not want to chuckle – about how 'stressed' she'd been the day before when the polish had been drying. She spent so much time, much more than she needed, with her hands stretched out and fingers splayed out, for fear that any of her nails would be damaged, as she knew they could. The consensus was that, as much as she liked the end result, the entire process made it so that – at least for now – she was not enough of a fan of nail polish to make it a regular thing. She couldn't pet the dogs, or play with her sisters… It was not fun. But, for a special dress and a special day, she had wanted it, and so she got it.
"Might be jinxing us, but everyone's dressed, buckled into their seats, on time, no incidents…" Maya whispered as she and Lucas were settling into their seats in the minivan. He gave a look that was a slightly exaggerated 'I am proud of us' and they both laughed.
"We haven't made it yet," he pointed out.
"Go, go, go," she told him, and off they went.
It was one of those few times where they dressed the triplets in identical dresses, so they were really hoping for no 'incidents' today though they knew it was entirely likely, so they'd just have to cope with whatever came if it did come. So far, they'd left the house, and they were making their way out to the church. They had briefly considered finding a sitter for the babies, knowing the effect that one girl's crying could have on the other two, but they went on faith that all would be handled. Once they'd be in their seats, Maya, Lucas, and Ella would each be in charge of one of the babies and they would do their best to keep them all calm and happy.
"I should go find Riley," Maya told Lucas as they made their way out from the minivan. She had Kacey in one arm, held Marianne's hand with the other, while he had Remy and Lucy in either arm. "She's bound to be extra Riley this morning," she smirked. Lucas agreed with a chuckle.
"I'll go see if I can find Ella," he told her. "Marianne, you want to come and see if we can find your big sister?" She did, so she split off from her mother and joined him.
"There she is!" Marianne spotted her first, and when Lucas turned, he saw her, too, holding Tori's hands and swaying around with her like she was trying to show her how to dance.
Standing next to them, to his surprise, was Taylor Munroe. Lucas recalled Ella asking if she should bring someone with her or not, and both he and Maya had told her that she could do whatever she wanted. Now here was Dylan's half-brother, in a suit and looking as ever identical to his younger self. Most times, they didn't even think about it anymore, but then there'd be those days where it was just… wow…
"Hey, guys," Lucas greeted them, while Marianne already ran on to greet her sister, and her niece, and Taylor, too. Ella came up after this, smiling at her two baby sisters before relieving her father of Remy and leaving him to keep Lucy. The baby appeared more than satisfied by this as it landed her in a two-armed hold from her father.
"Hey, Mr. Friar," Taylor nodded and raised his hand in a wave.
"You know you can call me Lucas," he told the boy, all the while stealing a look to his eldest daughter. He didn't get some vibe as though this was a date, only two friends attending a wedding together, but at the same time… Whether they saw it as one thing or another, what it would become in the end remained to be seen. Just the fact that Taylor felt he needed to address his brother's friend in this way suggested that he looked to him not so much as Dylan's friend but as Ella's father, and that said even more.
"Where's Mom?" Ella asked, breaking the awkward beat.
"She went looking for Riley," Lucas told her, and both she and Taylor understood this as they should: Maya had gone to ensure that her best friend kept it together as she waited to see her little brother get married.
Maya didn't have to search long to find her. She passed Amy Matthews, presently holding her youngest great granddaughter, who might have been crying not too long ago, with how the woman was still half singing and half speaking in soft, comforting tones. Maya was directed further along, in such a way that suggested that she'd called it right. It was as much Riley contemplating her brother's imminent wedding as Topanga seeing her son enter marriage. They were both of them focusing that mad energy in their hearts toward the bride. The way they saw it, rightly so, she needed them today.
There was no need to wonder how she'd be feeling right now, the day of her wedding. She'd be thinking about her own mother and how she wished that she could be here, that she could help her get ready, that she'd be sitting there by her father and brother. There would be no way to completely remove that feeling in her, but there was something to help and fill in some of that emptiness. Already for some years now, since she'd begun to date August, Milena had been taken into the Matthews family with open arms. Today, it would be official, but even before that, Topanga Matthews had been more than honored to stand as a mother to her, and she did so again as she awaited her walk down the aisle. She had gained a mother, and a sister, and a little brother in Hunter Matthews, just days shy of ten years old.
It was a privilege of Maya's position, not only being a teacher but one with many connections in and out of the school, occasionally a mix of both, that she got to come along here today and see one of her first students stand in her wedding dress. Maya recalled the sixteen-year-old senior she'd met, her first day as a teacher as she looked to this twenty-three-year-old young woman, and… oh, of course, she would be crying today. She nearly started now.
Milena looked so glad to see her, both because she was there and because her future mother and sister-in-law were being just on this side of intense, and she clearly didn't want to upset either one of them when they were trying to be nice and helpful. So, Maya stepped in, diffusing the 'situation' so they could all eventually go and take their places. When she saw August up there, with Cory – himself falling in line with his wife and daughter's energy – Maya wasn't sure she could cast herself as the fixer anymore. She'd known him all his life. He'd been a baby in her small arms once, and now he was a grown man, about to be married… If Lucas hadn't come to her when he did, she might have made just a bit of a fool of herself.
"Taylor… hey…" she blinked in surprise when she was directed to their seats and found him there, sitting next to Ella with Tori in his lap. Ella gave her a look. "Good to see you," Maya quietly nodded and took a seat.
Milena would be walked down the aisle by both her father and her older brother. It had felt like the way to go for her, and both men had been very honored to grant her wish. Tony Janacek may have once lamented the fact that his little sister had skipped grades and landed herself in his classes back in high school, but there was no denying how much she meant to him, just as he meant so, so much to her. Both he and Mr. Janacek embraced her as they reached the point of separation, and Milena joined August, the bride and groom looking as though their happiness was bubbling right over and off of them. It floated on, touching every last one of the people who'd gathered today to see them united, on this sunny April morning.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
