A/N: The new chapter of "We Three Hearts" is now available!
September 23rd 2022
Chapter 266
Our Hope For Diplomas
They'd told the girls that they could help decide what Aubrey would wear that day, but that they had to be dressed first. It hadn't even been meant as an incentive or a challenge, but at once the five of them had zipped away back to their rooms. The triplets were at varying levels as far as being able to dress themselves, so they could foresee some heads stuck in sleeve holes, or dresses slipped on the wrong way around… Down the hall, they knew that while Marianne would be perfectly able to dress herself, faster than any of her sisters on hand, there would also be Mackenzie, and she would definitely not be able to go at it alone. Marianne wouldn't be about to abandon her in this, so she would also help get the one-year-old ready along with her. For that, and maybe because she had the further drive of this being her buddy, Lucy was the first to return to her parents, wearing the dress that had been set aside for her. There were some buttons to deal with, and Lucas lifted her to stand on the bed to tend to them, even as Maya showed her the options for Aubrey's outfit.
"That one," she pointed easily, stepping forward before being stalled by Lucas' hold on her buttons.
"Stand still, please, bun?" he instructed her, kissing the top of her head after she nodded.
There was some disappointment from the others that they had 'lost,' but they quickly got over it… mostly. Remy had wanted to make the choice, and she had that bummed out little face going even as her big sister came to help her with her dress, and her mother did her hair, and her father helped her into her car seat…
"Hey…" Lucas gave her cheek a light poke, giving her his best 'are you mad at me?' face, and oh, was there ever the tremor of a smile on her face. She might have been able to stay mad if she really was all that upset anymore, but she wasn't. When he poked a second time, she squirmed and squealed, and finally he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek and she put her arms around his neck. "Are you excited about graduation?" he asked her and the others. The answering mess of loud little voices made him really glad that Maya hadn't brought in the baby yet, or she would have cried her poor head off. They were definitely excited. Soon, they were on their way.
This was going to be a strange one. Not in a bad way, not really, but then they couldn't go about and pretend like there weren't a few things they already had on their minds, going in, could they? For one, they were sure to encounter a bit of a strained beat with the Zhu family, putting them in an awkward position. These were people they had known longer than the day's graduate had been alive. They'd had some ups and downs over the years, but it remained that this family was one they cared about… but that didn't mean they couldn't disagree with this stance they'd taken on Olivia's decision. They could understand some disappointment, naturally, but the way they had been going, the whole thing with the car… From Nadine, they knew that she and her other sisters had been doing their best, speaking on behalf of their little sister, but it had done nothing. As of the last two nights, Olivia had been staying at Nadine's. She'd finished moving out, and until she and her friends found an apartment, it was the only place she wanted to go.
"Hey…" Maya slowly greeted Nadine when she spotted her on her own with GiGi in one hand and her phone in the other, looking preoccupied. She stopped near her with the stroller that held Mackenzie and Aubrey.
"Hey," Nadine briefly replied, dialing at her phone again before sticking it to her ear. She didn't know whether someone had picked up or it had gone to voicemail, but when she spoke, it was in Mandarin. They had been friends for years, so it wasn't the first time she heard her go off, but while she might have picked up an odd word or phrase along the way, she had no idea what this was about. All she had to go on was the tone, and the way little GiGi looked up at her mother. She understood, and she had 'mommy said a bad word' face. So, Maya signalled that she could take her aside for a bit, and Nadine nodded without stopping. She was definitely talking to someone, and it wasn't cheerful.
"I love your dress," Maya awkwardly told GiGi, even as Lucas caught up with Marianne and the triplets. The little girls were all happy to compare dresses, and shoes… Lucas was seeing the same as Maya had, and he looked at her, wondering. She shrugged, had no clue more than he did. All she could guess, from words she'd caught, was that she was either talking to one of her parents or talking about them. She was more inclined toward the former, though maybe it was both, in a way. And it presented a scenario she hoped was wrong.
"Is everything…" Lucas slowly asked when Nadine finally joined them. She looked like she wanted to kick something.
"There was a whole argument last night, the end of which was that Olivia basically told them that they shouldn't come today if they were so ashamed of her. The thing is, I don't even think that it is shame, they just… they have trouble meeting halfway, you know? It's like they can't help themselves. Anyway, things were said, and now today… They're not here."
The shock of this seemed to morph almost immediately into concern, for Olivia. They tried to look around and find her, but wherever she was, it was further than they could see.
"It's just me, and Marley, and Michaela, plus the husbands, the kids, no one else. And what really just…" she had to stop and contain herself, minding the kids nearby, but it was difficult. "They're going to regret this later. I know they will. But they're being stubborn, and in the meantime, this is the memory that Olivia is going to have for the rest of her life. That they didn't come. I love them, I do, but oh, right now…" she shook her head.
"And they still won't…" Lucas indicated her phone.
"Still won't," Nadine shook her head. "And frankly, right now, I wouldn't want them to. It'd only make all this worse. Right now, I need to go and do some damage control over there. GiGi, you want to go see your dad and the others?" she held out her hand, and the three and a half-year-old sprinted over to take it.
Once she was gone, the Friars soon went ahead and advanced into the throng of graduates and families gathered in wait of the ceremony. There were students dashing this way and that, gowns flapping in the wind and more than one cap either carried to be chased in the wind or just barely rescued, and it was hard to keep track of everyone, but it wouldn't be that way for long, would it? Both Maya and Lucas had known, coming into this day, that they were bound to run into an abundance of parents who, knowing what had gone on at the end of May with the art teacher, would want to say hello, see how she was doing, her and the baby… It was in thinking about it all that they'd had to stop and realize how they were much closer to Aubrey being a whole month old than not, nearly a month since that terrible day… In so many ways, they had all moved on, they had, but it was hard not to feel a strange tug whenever the subject came up again. Maya would recall the disconnect upon waking, and Lucas would feel the urge to take her hand… As they met their first family and the question came, Maya could feel not his hand but a smaller one, and she looked down to find Marianne, right there, leaning to her side.
It had been difficult to figure out how to deal with the aftermath of what had happened and nearly happened with her. She'd been traumatized, no way around it. She was getting to be old enough now that things didn't slip by her without her understanding what was going on, not nearly as much as they might have done when she was, say, the triplets' age. Not that they had been completely out of the loop. They had been able to see that everyone around them was not acting normally… and they hardly saw either of their parents for a couple of days. Their father called, sure, but they couldn't go see him, and their mother? Nothing from her… By the end of it, they'd looked ready to form a rebellion if they didn't see their parents soon. The only one who'd really been clueless was Mackenzie, though she had cried whenever she'd asked for Mama or Dada and been denied at every turn.
For all that, it had become that much more important for Maya and Lucas to see them all get back into the rhythm of their life, including things like this, graduation, which they attended as a family every year. And with summer beginning, they were determined now more than ever to make it a really, really great one for all their girls.
"Make way!" a voice called, wrapped in laughter, and while Maya gripped Marianne's hand and the stroller, Lucas made sure he had all three of Kacey, Remy, and Lucy within his grasp. They looked over to find the source of the call.
Leaving their families to have to catch up with them from as far back as the parking lot, Kelsey came wheeling along at great enough speed that her cap would definitely have been in danger of flying off… if not for Ava, who was presently sat in her lap, holding on to both her own cap and her girlfriend's, looking at the same time exhilarated and certain that this would all end in tragedy. But Kelsey had a perfect handle on the situation, and so when they did come to a stop and one gown sliding over the other threatened to catapult Ava away, she was very quick to get hold of her and keep her right where she was. It made Ava laugh, a good, unbridled laughter, which compelled her to put her arm around her 'savior' and bend to catch her in a kiss.
While the reaction out of the students was a loud cheer and out of the families a bit of 'well this seems a bit reckless, don't you think,' where the Friars were concerned, they were wholly on the former side. When Kelsey spotted them, she turned herself and Ava to go cross paths.
"I told her I wanted to leave a mark today," she proudly shrugged, while Ava was momentarily so deep in the moment that she was still there, holding on to her for a beat before she realized it might have been best for her to get up again, brush at her gown, and check that their caps were on straight. But then she could see Kelsey's smile and it made her own impossible to hold down. "Have you seen Olivia yet? We tried to call her, but she hasn't picked up."
"You two haven't heard?" Maya asked, the words coming before she could realize how it might sound, especially with the looks of immediate distress on the pair's faces. So, she quickly explained the situation with her parents. Kelsey looked sad for her friend now, while Ava, not a stranger to parental woes, became serious. At once, the two of them excused themselves so that they might track down the third member of their trio.
By the time the Farrells caught up to the Friars, along with Owen Nash and his fiancée, they were less concerned with the girls' flight and more with what had sent them off again the second time. They were not unfamiliar to the situation with Olivia and her family, with their daughters and niece being so tightly bonded as they were. There was little for them to do now except to try and be there for Olivia, so she might know that they were here with her, even though others were not. Both Kelsey's parents and Ava's uncle knew very well how the Zhu girl had been there, when Haruna Farrell had been sick, when Bill Nash had gone away… They owed her no less than this.
"Hey…" Lucas tapped Maya's arm and she turned to see who else was coming their way now.
Barton and Michelle Day, Anton the graduate, flanked by older brothers Dakota and Roman, and also… Taylor Munroe, along with Ella. In that suit of his, he fit right in with the non-graduating Day boys and gave Maya and Lucas flashes of days when they'd seen three of them there for the first of them to graduate… Once again, Taylor had taken up the duty of standing for his late best friend, this time for his younger brother's graduation. They'd known that he was flying home for the summer soon, but they hadn't realized he'd arrived already. As it turned out, he'd flown in two days ago. He'd been staying in Houston, in Asher and Ray's guest room, putting him just across the street from his girlfriend. Later they would talk of how they'd had a silly bit of fun signalling each other from their windows in the middle of the night.
"You know, first time I saw you at one of these, you were a lot shorter," Maya commented with a smirk that grew even as she saw the awkward smile on Anton's face.
"Wouldn't mind him being that small again," Barton hummed.
"Dad…" Anton looked at him, and he held up his hands in mock apology, even as Michelle took up her youngest son's face in her hands, the better to kiss his cheek. "Mom, please…" Anton tried to protest, but they couldn't see so much in his eyes to suggest he wanted her to stop in earnest. He could only know what this day meant to her, to both his parents.
The Friars didn't get the chance to see or speak to Olivia before the time came for them to take their seats. So many families, so many parents concerned for Maya and happy to meet Aubrey… They could see her though, the very last one on the list to be called thanks to her surname. Even from the back, they could swear they could sense her emotions wafting off of her. That she had to wait, and wait, and wait, seeing her classmates go up there, hearing their families cheer for them. It only made things worse. It was a wonder she didn't end up bailing on the whole thing. It was a wonder that Maya resisted the urge to go to her.
They were a bit spread out, alphabet wise, but when Kelsey had her turn on stage, rather than head back to where she'd been among the seats, she headed to the very end, where Olivia sat. Ava did the same after she'd had her turn. As the gap between Nash and Zhu grew smaller and smaller, the girlfriends spoke quietly to their best friend. By the time her row had to get up, there was no telling what she'd been told or what was going through her mind. But Olivia made it on to the stage, her conviction inevitably shaky in places but overall managing to hold strong. And there were plenty among the gathered audience who cheered for her – her friends' families, her sisters and theirs, her basketball teammates, really all the seniors, like word had gone out among them – which it probably had. Along with the other families, the Friars took up the charge, too, enough so that by the end, it was nearly a standing ovation. Did they all know why they were cheering this last graduate on the way they did? Definitely not. But they were appreciated, more than they'd ever know.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
