April 30th 2022

Chapter 120
Our Development of Game

The Friars were always up in the stands on game days, barring conflicts of any kind, and it would be a great time for all of them, whether or not their teams ended up with the win. Oh, how they had loved when they had started bringing Marianne along to take part in the event with them, and now... Now, they got to share it with Lucy, and Remy, and Kacey...

Up until this fall, Ella had usually been there, too, and whether she could make it or not, her parents had often brought Tori with them either way. Now that the two of them were in Houston, they could only be there when their Austin weekends and game days aligned, though when that happened, they would never miss it for the world. Tori was here today, though not with her mother. Theo brought her to the gym and joined them in the stands. He and Ella had been working out their shared custody arrangement since the move, which currently translated as Tori spending weekends with her father. For that, the Petrelis siblings were becoming regular weekend diners at the Friars'.

Oh, they loved game days, yes, and none more than double game days, where both the boys' team and the girls' would play, in the morning and afternoon. It brought back so many memories of their time as players, spending one game on the court and the other in the stands, cheering their friends on... They would be the most thrilling days, and even now that they were both firmly on the supporting side, they were as involved and focused as ever... at least as much as they could be, with a trio of fourteen-month-old girls in their laps.

Lucas had the twins, while Maya saw to Lucy. She had a pair of small noise-cancelling headphones on her head and was firmly settled in her mother's arms like she was intrigued by all she saw, yes, but also the noise and the activity of all these people made her uneasy. She would lighten up once the players came along, especially when she'd see people she knew out there. Neither Kacey nor Remy struggled with the noise. No, they loved it, thrived on the energy, enough so that it was a good thing that Lucas was a pro at holding on to them, letting them ride their giddiness without ever slipping out of his supportive hold.

Between them, Marianne sat at the ready with her signs, back rod straight and feet dangling excitedly. Since the season had started, she had been challenging her parents' ability to keep a straight face, as she spent the minutes waiting for the start of the game by giving them... and pretty much anyone within earshot... a recap of the boys or girls' previous match, as far as she remembered them. She tended to remember them well, at least long enough to get to the next game.

She made this effort, as she told it, to help the triplets learn about the game. To look at them as she spoke, she definitely had their attention. In that spirit, Lucas had helped her put together a score board, one of their occasional craft collaborations. They would enter the information for all the games as the season progressed, the scores, the opponents... These were mounted on the back of her closet door, and it was guaranteed that the first thing Marianne would want to do when they returned home would be to update her boards. Two updates in one day, that was even better!

"Look, here they come!" she cried out as the girls' teams came out on to the court. "Lucy, look, there's the aunties," she turned to her little sister and pointed. Lucy followed her finger and a moment later let out a squeal. Yes, there were Nellie and Gracie. The back of their jerseys marked them as P. Hunter and G. Hunter. Nellie had wanted it to say N on hers, but they'd used her full, on-record name, so she just had to run with it. The one thing that helped was the way the commentator - none other than Rolly McNeil - would call out Penelope when she scored. It was almost an extra incentive to gain points for her team.

They looked into the stands, quickly finding the usual spot where the Hunters and Friars would sit so that they could wave at their family. They may not have had the same name on their jerseys as their big sister had done when she'd played, but they absolutely saw themselves as carrying on her legacy. They certainly played like it. Between the two of them and Desi, they had made an impressive start to their freshman season, enough to make people look forward to seeing them go on across the next four years.

It was a similar case in the afternoon, with the boys. They also had an impressive freshman contingent, another pair of twins among them. Bobby and Ethan Davis were doing very well alongside teammate and fellow freshman Tre Whitley. All of them, on both teams, made the future look so bright, which by no means made their older teammates look any less impressive. The teams as they had them this year hearkened back to the height of Lucas and Maya's own teams, even when they weren't actually able to play after the teams had been disbanded.

It was not the first game day for the boys since Halloween, no, but just like the previous time when they'd sat here, Maya and Lucas found their thoughts pulled toward distraction when they saw Echo among her teammates, Cody Marshall just one of the boys...

Things had been better since that night, that was what they kept telling themselves, and yet what they couldn't keep from remembering along with that was what Echo had said... how she was in her Cody costume every day. They wished she could live as herself, but she wasn't ready, for so many reasons that were all her own, so that was all it could be. For now, the only option was to be thankful for the parts that were going better for her and allowing her to feel happier than she'd done previously.

She had returned to the knitting club, much to Michelle Day's gladness. She brought Carina along with her and spent those first few sessions teaching the very beginnings to her friend and guest, as she had never picked up a single knitting needle in her life. At one time, Echo had revealed to Maya how she'd initially joined the knitting club as a means to escape lunch in the cafeteria. Her former best friends had not followed over to this school after middle school - one having moved to South Dakota and the other ending up in private school - and she had really felt so uncomfortable with the other kids in her class, the boys who'd counted Cody as one of their own, good popular jock stock. When they'd blinked at the notion of her joining the knitting club, she'd taken particular pleasure at claiming that she was 'doing it for a girl.' They just didn't realize she was talking about herself.

One of the things that had always been part of Echo and in no way a part of the Cody costume was basketball. Though she hadn't said it outright, she had said enough to suggest that the sport had played a hand in her not being ready to shed the costume. She hadn't said it, no, but Maya understood, and so did Lucas. She was afraid that she would no longer be allowed to play for her school, that if the administration didn't prevent it, others would make certain she never got the chance. It was and had always been one of the things that had meant the most to her, enough to count on the side of keeping up the lie she'd held on to for most of her life. And if it wasn't, then... then it was as good of an excuse to present, rather than to confirm how afraid she was of what it would be like, to leave Cody behind for good.

"Can I go now?" Marianne asked after the second game had ended. They knew very well where she wanted to go.

"Sure, pumpkin," Lucas chuckled, holding steady to Remy as she stretched her way toward Grandpa Shawn at their side and he finally pulled her to stand, feet planted on his legs and beaming at him and at her Nana Katy next to him.

"I'll take her," Gracie offered, turning from where she sat, in the row beneath them. "Come on, Annie, hop on." Soon, the little blonde was stuck on good to her aunt's back as they made their way down. Eventually, Marianne was on her feet and hurrying toward her Uncle Dylan, while Gracie went to congratulate her boyfriend, Ethan, on his victory. The fact that he was still very sweaty from the game did not deter her from meeting him in a good hug and a loving kiss. There was already a similar display, not far ahead, where Nellie had gone to find Anton. The two couples were the picture of support today, with the guys having cheered their girlfriends on in the morning game.

Sitting with Lucy asleep in her arms, Maya saw nothing of her sisters' displays of affection. She was drawn to look upon the Marshalls, as the couple stood with and congratulated their child. They both looked so proud and loving toward Cody... She was getting to know them both more and more, but the one thing she couldn't stop wondering about now was how they would feel toward Echo. She could try and tell herself all she wanted that she knew them and there was no chance at all that they would ever turn their backs on her if they knew the truth, but... that wasn't a guarantee, was it?

She had seen for herself how parents could turn, revealing a side of them that landed like a barrier, a separation between them and their own child. Ray Choi hadn't seen or spoken to his parents in over a decade, had never gotten to present them with their grandchildren... Even if he never said it, they knew how much it still pained him, how they had turned their backs on him. If the Marshalls did the same to Echo... She won't be alone. We'll look after her if it comes to it.

"Good games, good games, good games!" Marianne chanted when they arrived back home, and she bolted upstairs to update her score boards. Lucas helped bring the triplets into the living room before moving to join her, knowing she'd call for him if he took too long. Sure, she could do it on her own, she knew how to write the numbers, but it was their thing.

"How about you three, huh?" Maya hummed as she looked to the girls, working to climb up and join her. She'd been eager to be back here, to sit on the couch... With so many small children, and so many dogs, their house may have felt chaotic to some, but to them, it was their chaos, and after the activity of double game day, it was good to be back here. One, two, then all three of her baby girls were now up on the couch, practically piling over her, and it made her laugh. "I can totally see it, all of you on that court one day. And I promise I won't shout 'go, little butts, go.' At least... not out loud," she whispered, and if for nothing else than the face she made at them, the girls giggled.

It was so far ahead, but oh, to imagine... Say they all played, Marianne and the triplets... then there just might be a year, more than a decade from now, with four girls out there with the name Friar on their backs. If game days were great now, what would those be like?

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners