May 18th 2020

Chapter 139
Their Invitation to Know

"Hey, so, I think she's just about ready to… What's up?" Shawn paused and asked, seeing the odd sort of look on Maya's face. She'd texted him a moment ago, asking that he meet her in the hall between their hotel rooms, and now that he'd shown up, he found his daughter with complication eyes.

"Uh… well…" she hesitated.

"Maya," Shawn incited quietly.

"I found out who sent the invitation. The problem now is that… her parents have no idea… that she was invited or might be here at all… Then again, with all the gossip going around, they might know now, which is going to make things so much more…" She stopped herself, waving off what she expected to be another call of her name meant to make her get back on topic. "Right," Maya turned to her door and pushed it open.

Shawn looked inside and was met with a startlingly confusing sight. A young woman sat on the small couch by the window, bearing a resemblance to his wife that was not identical exactly, and yet… Lucas was standing nearby, looking like he'd been pacing the floor, equally perplexed as his fiancée.

"Dad, this is Charlie… your sister-in-law," Maya nodded. Charlie smiled.

"Wow…" Shawn blinked.

"Yeah. You two chat, I'll just… yeah…" Maya tapped his shoulder before leaving the room, shutting one door before knocking at another. "Mom?"

"Come in," Katy's voice was heard. Maya walked into the room, shutting the door behind herself. In what felt like the strangest but very most appropriate mirror, her mother sat on the small couch by the window as well, two walls standing between the two women facing one another. "You guys went walking around?" Katy asked. Maya came to sit with her.

"Uh, yeah. We actually found a music store, not too far from here," she revealed, and her mother chuckled.

"There's a music store now?"

"Yeah, it was pretty great, actually," Maya grinned. "You know me, I couldn't just walk by…"

"Go figure," Katy shook her head. She looked as Shawn had said, she was just about ready to do this… which only made this next bit sort of awkward. Her mother had to have seen this on her face, much as Shawn had done. She had to be more delicate this time around.

"So, here's the thing," she sighed. There was no easy way to go about this, but she wasn't about to blindside her either. "You were invited by someone, but it wasn't your parents, they… they don't know." She paused here, allowing her mother to process this part.

"They never…" Katy slowly started, fell quiet just as soon, but the rest of that sentence was as clear as any. They didn't want me here.

"I don't know the whole story yet, I think she wants to be the one to explain it to you, and…"

"She… So it was Betsy," her mother cut in. Maya sighed, shaking her head.

"Not exactly, she… she gave the address, but she didn't send it, I… Okay… Two years after you left, your mother and father… had another kid," Maya revealed. "She's the one who invited you."

She really had no way to gauge how her mother would react at the revelation that she had a sister out in the world, a sister she'd never known existed, much less met. Maya could have joked, pointing out how Katy had now joined the club, along with her eldest daughter and her husband, in having a sibling come into her life years onward. She could practically have been their president. Charlie had been born when Katy was seventeen – the same age Maya had been when the twins were born, she'd done that math, too – but she hadn't known about her for another twenty-six years.

"You… you met… The music store," Katy slowly started to ask, only to answer her own question.

"She owns it, her and her husband," Maya nodded, then, "She's back in my room, I don't know if you…" Without a word, Katy stood and walked to open the door. "Mom…" Maya followed, out of one room, and into the other, where she came upon Shawn, Lucas, and…

"It's you…" Charlie breathed, moving to rise. Lucas offered a hand to help her and she took it, tipping a quick nod of thanks. "I'm so sorry, I should have put a note, something… I wasn't sure you'd come, and I didn't want to… to make you show up if you didn't want to, I…"

Katy had been approaching her, one slow step after another, taking in this stranger with a face like hers. Maya could only watch, Lucas could only watch, Shawn only had eyes for his wife… Katy came to a stop, standing before her little sister. Whatever was going through her mind, hearing these words from the young woman with the earnest eyes, the conclusion seemed to resolve itself in something like hope, as Katy wordlessly hugged the young pregnant woman. Charlie was surprised, but only for a moment and then she was hugging her back, tears in her eyes at the realization of what was clearly a lifelong wish.

"It's nice to meet you…" Katy declared, when the two of them pulled apart and looked to each other once again. She was crying, too. Her statement trailed in the recognizable invitation for a name.

"Charlie… Well, Charlene," she replied, wiping at her eyes. Katy looked down, like she had seen the belly before but only now was able to acknowledge it.

"How far along are you?"

"Thirty-two weeks," Charlie set a hand to her belly. "He's so much bigger than my daughter was," she stated with a reminiscing smile.

"You have a daughter," Katy stated, with a baffled little smile that echoed the thought she must have been having. She had a niece… and soon a nephew.

"Caitlin," Charlie nodded, reaching and pulling out her phone to show a picture, where the small girl sat on the counter in the music store, with her eternal toy guitar in her arms and a smile turned up to her father smiling back at her. "She's three now."

Finally, now, they had all taken a seat, so Charlie might give this explanation as to how they had come to find themselves in this town, in this hotel, all of them together. The first part was much as she'd told it to Maya and Lucas, back at the store. She'd gotten the address through Betsy after the cousin had seen Maya on stage and put it all together, and so presented with this chance, and some extra invitation cards at her disposal, she had put one together for Katy. She was the one in charge of sending them out anyway, as her parents were very much falling under the category of luddites.

"That hasn't changed much then, has it?" Katy asked, not reproachful, more expecting.

"I don't know about that," Charlie told her. "They're… Look, I can't speak for who they were before you went away, but… I think they're better now, or…" She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. Clearly, she had been preparing for this moment, aware of how crucial it would be that she get it right. "I was five years old when I really understood that I had a sister somewhere, that I wasn't an only child. I'd seen photos, I'd heard your name, but I didn't put it all together before that. I was too young, and they probably didn't know what to say. But sometimes I would look at them and… I could see something in their eyes, a lot of the times when they were looking at me, other times not, I would look at them and… there was something in them like sadness, and I couldn't know why. I thought I'd done something wrong.

"So, one day, I went to Mom and I asked her… What did I do, why are you upset? And she said 'It's your sister's birthday today, twenty-two years old.' That night, I heard her and Dad talking. He was upset that she'd told me, said that I was too young, that it would only confuse me. For a while after that, whenever I asked about you, they would find a way to change the subject. It took four years before I managed to get the whole story. I'd been hearing people around town, they would talk… They like to talk. There was one time, I'd gone with Dad to pick up some pieces for the sink when it broke down, and one of the guys said something… I never really heard exactly what he said, he was laughing, but then Dad… He got this look on his face, I'd never seen him like that. He clocked that guy, laid him right out in the store aisle, left the pieces, took my hand and walked out.

"When we got into his truck, he was still too worked up to drive, I guess, so we sat there for a while. I was kind of spooked about what had happened back in the store, I started to cry. 'Hey now, Charlene, I didn't mean to scare you like that,' he said. He's never been the best at showing emotions, but I think he got better at acknowledging them. Anyway, we stayed there in his truck for a while, and he told me how you ran away, a couple years before I was born, how he and Mom hadn't heard from you since then. I'll never forget what he said. 'We did our best with her, but it wasn't enough. That wasn't our fault, wasn't hers either. She needed what we couldn't give. I didn't figure that out until it was too late. I tried to make her like us, like it'd be enough to keep her, but I just gave her all the reasons to leave. Wherever she is now, she's better off. She's stronger than anyone I've ever known.'"

Maya looked to her mother as Charlie spoke, watched her take all this in, all the while doing her best to remain composed, to listen on. Shawn had reached over and taken his wife's hand, and by the way she'd grasped it back they could see how just barely she was holding it together. When Charlie had said her piece, the room had been left to hang in silence, waiting for Katy to be the one to speak next. She looked to her sister, to her daughter and her future son-in-law. She looked to her husband, and a wordless conversation passed between them. Shawn gave her a nod and then he got up, headed into the hall. A few seconds later, both Maya and Lucas clearly heard his voice. He was on the phone with Melinda Friar.

"People… know I'm here now," Katy stated, her voice halfway distracted. "They'll talk, they'll tell them before I get to…"

"I can take care of that," Charlie assured her. "Here," she reached into her bag and pulled out a business card for Olsen's, found a pen and scribbled a phone number and an address. "This is me, I'll keep you posted, alright?"

After she was gone, like a woman on a mission, Katy watched her go before turning to Maya and Lucas. She looked to the card in her hand, held it as something precious. This day had not turned out at all as she had expected. Maya moved to sit in the spot where her father had been, slipping her arm around her mother, who looked at her with so much love and appreciation.

"The kids will be here in the morning," Shawn told them when he returned. Katy nodded.

"Good… good…" Finally, the sobs came, the break. All these years, and for all she'd believed she would find upon returning to this place she'd been so eager to leave… Maya held her mother, felt the rush of emotions in her as though she wasn't holding Katy Hunter, wife and mother to five, successful theater worker and now actress. She was holding Katy Clutterbucket, fifteen and homesick.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners