December 27th 2022

Chapter 361
Our Trip Into Four & Six

They had asked the three of them what they wanted to do for their birthday, the day itself, from morning to night. It was their big day, wasn't it? And they were going to be four. They could have been happy with anything their parents came up with, but there was also merit in calling on their input, wasn't there? They'd given them plenty of time to think it over; they had not quite unlocked their power of… sensical spontaneity.

They'd been told to try and decide it together, to come up with some things that all three of them would want, but also to come up with some things that would be just their own, too. They never outright reminded them that they had to come up with some answers, but they had been counting down the days to their day, so that helped, and if that wasn't enough, they had their big sisters. Marianne could always be counted on to gently remind the triplets of this thing or that one, and this was no exception. But then these days they had Ella, too, and as her return to Houston was drawing nearer and nearer, the girls were often to be found wherever the twenty-two-year-old was.

They'd recently had their very first trip to meet Cheyenne, when she'd come down from Houston to her friend's shop, to fill in the third quarter of Ella and Taylor's compass tattoos. Lucy had been the first one to pipe up and say she wanted to go with them, and the twins had been quick to voice their approval of this request. It wasn't as though they could say they were not allowed, not when Marianne had gotten to go before… twice! Still, it had taken them by surprise, and in the delay for an answer, the trio had turned in to confer. For all they knew, they were about to be told no, so they had to come up with something, didn't they? People would joke that, as bright as each of them were getting to be on their own, when they'd put their heads together, even without a word spoken aloud, they could make wonders happen. Right there, when they'd wanted to go and be with their sister and her fiancé at their appointment, the answer had been clear.

"It's a together something, for our birthday," Kacey declared. Remy and Lucy nodded.

They'd meant for the actual day, and this was not it, not yet, but it was a solid enough argument that they couldn't really pass it up. Besides, Ella and Taylor were happy to bring them, and Maya happened to know that if Cheyenne was happy to see one little Friar girl, seeing those three at once was going to make her day. Lucas had whispered to them that, if they told her that this outing was done in the spirit of their (early) fourth birthday, they would likely come home with some very special temporary 'ink' of their own. And they had, although the way Maya and Lucas heard it, they'd come very close to getting none done at all.

"They do it with needles!" they spoke all over each other, until it came off like an echo, eyes wide as they recalled what they'd witnessed back at the parlor. They'd been sitting on this bit of information across the whole drive back home, and they'd been extremely eager to tell them both. And now… They'd just look at their mother and father's arms like all this time they'd admired the pretty things they had there, the birds, the portraits, the clocks, the flowers on their mother… and no one had bothered to tell them how they'd ended up on their skin, especially that it was done with needles, over and over again.

Anyone who'd ever had the… misfortune… of accompanying the three of them in for their shots, when they needed to have them, knew how Kacey, Remy, and Lucy all felt about needles. They practically had to take them into the office separately, only one of them in the building at a time, or else they would rally, all of them versus whatever doctor or nurse was trying to get it done.

"They do, yes, that's true," Maya told the girls as she crouched before them and got a look at their arms. "But not these ones," she smiled. They looked down at themselves, leaving the memory of those needles behind in favor of a happy bee here, a rabbit there, and then a shooting star…

As Ella and Taylor would tell it, the triplets had been very sure for a moment that when Marianne had gone last time and come back with a temporary tattoo of her own, because it had been at the shop, it must have been done with the… scary pointy things… like the ones on their parents and their sister and her fiancé. It had taken Cheyenne's explaining to them exactly what would happen, step by step… and putting one on volunteer Taylor (a colorful unicorn, thank you very much) before they would allow her to do it on any of them. Kacey had volunteered to go first, and the other two had stood right in front of the high seat where she'd sat, holding on to her all the while and watching Cheyenne work. There was no pain, and no… those things… After seeing that, they'd submitted merrily.

They'd all more or less faded or been scraped off by now, much as the girls had all tried not to let that happen. It hadn't mattered that they'd been warned that this would happen; they wanted to hold on to their little tattoos. Finally, on the night before their birthday, they'd made a clean break of it, washing off the remnants. Maya had promised them that they could do something about it on their day, or else they might have flat out refused.

As to the manner of their waking on that day, well, here was something else the trio had all agreed on. They didn't go the way of packing everyone into their parents' bed. They could probably have pulled it off, packed tight as they would be, especially if they tried to get even Ella in there, but they had another idea: they wanted to go camping. They didn't want to go anywhere else, just out behind their house, over near the campfire spot. They could put the tent, put out the sleeping bags, and they'd be good to go. So the birthday girls wished, so they received.

The tent was mounted, the biggest one they had, and all the accessories they'd need for that night were carried over into it. Dinner was had around the campfire, and they followed up with stories, and songs… They'd grabbed a couple of the guitars from the Hex, one for Maya and one for Lucas, but Marianne wanted to try and learn to play enough for a song, so Lucas surrendered his own instrument, declaring that, of the two of them, Maya would be the better instructor, no contest. Even then, as he was sitting on their firstborn's other side the entire time, he would repeatedly try and give her pointers. It was a wonder that Marianne had the patience to indulge him the entire time, but she got by well enough, getting to play the simple tune and sing along with it before they all went into the tent to sleep.

Well, now, they had gotten through the night, all of them packed in tight, and as they started to wake again, it was morning, with daylight shifting the colors of the tent into brighter hues. The eighteenth of August… Kacey Angela, Remy Susannah, and Lucy Elizabeth Friar were now four years old. Every year they saw go by, every time the calendar brought them right back here, it felt like further tearing down the old, already vanquished fears they had felt as they'd awaited the unknown and the inevitably frightening prospect of their birth, which would be so unlike what they had experienced before. They were setting aside what they had felt, too, in those long days while their daughters had remained in the hospital, even if, all in all, they hadn't been there too long. Today, what they felt was a lot more like what they'd felt the day they'd brought them home, but with about four years' worth of memories stacked on top, too. From such small babes as they had been, to now… Now, these little weirdos… Little butts…

The cub, the kit, the bun… By now, they had this whole explanation at the ready, like a default, short version of just who those girls were, so they had some idea of them. To be frank, they would say that the explanations barely scratched the surface, but what else were they supposed to do unless they expected to not spend ages describing their daughters in turn. The short of it went just fine.

For looks, it remained as it had been for nearly all their lives, Kacey and Remy, the twins, looked very much like their father, especially in the eyes. Their hair was not heavily curled, but there were definitely bits of it that would spring up, mostly at the hairline. It was also a touch lighter in color than their triplet. Lucy's hair seemed much closer to a curl pattern. And like she'd done since she was born, she had more of it than the twins did, volume wise. As to her face, oh, she was the spitting image of her mother. There was no question about it.

Now when it came to personalities, those had been expanding and evolving over time, yes, but at the heart of it, they hadn't changed either. Here, they could say that they had two extremes in Remy and Lucy, one loud and hectic, the other quiet and reserved, while Kacey fell somewhere in the middle, like the best of both worlds. Whether it had to do with her having been the first of them born, they wouldn't know, but she had been like something of a leader, a spokesperson for the trio, for about as long as they'd lived. Remy was the wanderer, the first of them to put her hands in something or to taste something that the other two weren't sure about. The results of those 'experiments' were not always what they would desire, but it didn't matter. Remy was fearless, for better or worse… unless it was needles. And then Lucy… Oh, Lucy was a dreamer. Lucy was the calm alongside the storm, and if ever Kacey tipped closer to her twin's tendencies and those two started storming together, it would be Lucy coming along that would settle them again. Sometimes it would make her feel bad that she was clearly so different from her triplets, but then other times… Other times she would be so confident in herself and her individuality that they couldn't help but think 'she's doing so well.'

"We're four!" a voice broke the silence of morning all at once, and it didn't matter whether you were already awake, coming around slowly, or if you were still asleep. The call of those words made everyone startle. Remy…

Maya and Lucas both lifted their heads almost at the exact same moment and looked over to the second born of their triplets. She was sitting up, perched on her part of the pillows, where she'd been resting between Kacey and Lucy. Those two were just sitting up now, and they looked very excited, too, though they were brought back to reality just a bit when the big cry, coming like a clap of thunder to rend through the quiet, went and got Aubrey crying, screeching with her distress and, as such, calling up her buddy, who went crawling over to find her, in their father's arms.

"It's okay, Aubrey," Lucy told her, trying to hold her. Lucas allowed his youngest to be passed over into her big sister's waiting arms, and it was just as they both needed. The buddy connection went both ways now, and Aubrey absolutely relied on her big bun-bun very much. It didn't matter that they didn't share a room.

"Why don't I get us started on breakfast?" Ella offered, moving to head out of the tent and stopping on the way to wish her little sisters a very happy birthday, complete with hugs and kisses. Taylor followed behind her and did the same.

"Come on, we can help," Tori turned to Marianne, who nodded and turned to Mackenzie.

"You want to help, Macaroni?"

"Yeah!" Mackenzie nodded at once, and she walked and crawled her way out, after the others. Now, it was just Maya, Lucas, the triplets, and Aubrey.

Though Lucy had her arms full for holding Aubrey, Kacey and Remy did not, and even as the others were exiting the tent, they were advancing on their parents. They were received by the one nearest to them so that Maya soon held on to Kacey, while Lucas had his arms wrapped about Remy, both of them wishing either girl a very happy fourth birthday. Lucy came scooting near enough until they could pass their wishes on to her as well. Aubrey had gone and fallen asleep again in her embrace.

Every year, the closer they'd get to this date, the joke that was not a joke would be that this was going to be the year where they told the triplets about their birth, what that had entailed and also what had come following it, the necessary recovery… The joke was that they would keep saying it, and yet the year had not yet come where they actually felt at ease to tell them. Alright, so they were just now four years old, so they were still very young, no matter how grown up they purported to be. There was plenty of time for Maya and Lucas to decide when it would be appropriate to go 'and then they cut Mommy open and pulled you out.'

Joke or not, it was a part of their history. It was the part that made this day as wonderful to them as it was, the scare before the burst of… so much goodness, so many memories. It was not unlike what they felt with regards to the other one of their daughters currently in the tent. For that, it did feel like they wouldn't be able to fully express all this to the triplets, not until they actually recalled that moment in their lives with them. They'd gone from looking at the three of them and fearing that they'd break them, if they moved wrong, to now looking upon the mighty power that was those three minds brought together, the energy that they brought into the world… Maya and Lucas hardly even thought about those early days anymore, not unless they were reminiscing, as they were today.

That wasn't what the triplets would have on their minds, that much was certain. Instead, they were looking forward to this day, to doing the things that they had wanted to do and told their parents they wanted to do after a lot of deep, deep nearly four-year-old thinking. The first item on that list, their together and their separately at the same time, was breakfast. Specifically, it was what each of them wanted for breakfast. Most days, while there could be variations on the theme, everyone had the same thing. Maybe it was eggs, maybe it was pancakes, or waffles… It didn't matter what they put into any of those, that was their choice, but it would be eggs… or pancakes… or waffles… Today, it was the last of those, because oh, those were their favorite.

If there was anyone in that house just as excited for today as the birthday girls were, it was Marianne, for the very simple reason – whether they'd realized it or not – that she'd gotten them presents on their trip, along with future brother Taylor, and ever since they had returned home, she'd had to hide them. Not only that, but her little sisters seemed to have just up and turned into super sleuths, or gift detectors. More than once, Marianne had needed to either misdirect the three of them or move the hidden things into a new hiding place.

Now at least they were wrapped – Taylor had helped – and after checking with her parents that it could be time for her to do so, she'd given them their vacation gifts. More than once, she'd been told not to drive herself crazy and that, whatever she gave to her sisters, they should be happy because it came from her. She knew that, and she understood that, but it didn't mean that she couldn't strive to aim high a little… The same had gone for those gifts she'd already handed out. The Hunter twins, the day they'd turned eighteen… They'd both looked so happy to see what their niece had for them… They were taller than her mother now, their big sister, and it wasn't lost on any of them. Maya would joke about it, but oh if Nellie or Gracie tried it with her… She'd have them tripping over themselves to apologize, right before she'd laugh and show them that everything was fine.

She'd given Megan Orlando hers when she'd turned four and she'd been very glad. She had an older brother and sister, and now as of late she also had a little sister, but then she was so very close to the Friar sisters, whether because their mothers and fathers were as close as they were or by general proximity, who was to say, but either way, they were almost like more sisters for her, more siblings, like the others of their junior turtles. It was kind of especially so for the triplets, as Megan had been born all of eight days before them. They had seen many pictures where their two mothers each had big bellies, and they'd know that they were the ones inside those bellies, and it would make them glad.

Marianne had given Giulia Choi her ninth birthday present from vacation, and maybe deciding that she could be a very practical closer-than-Indiana/in person opponent, she'd gotten her a travel chess set, just like her own. Giulia had actually never played, though it had soon been revealed that Ray used to play, that his family had been big about the game, and from there the rest just went without saying. He'd stopped after they'd kicked him out. But now here was this small set, gifted from a young friend, and maybe it wouldn't just benefit Giulia and Marianne together, but Giulia and her family, too.

Now, finally, she was able to give Kacey, Remy, and Lucy their presents, and the thing that her parents would gain from the expression on her face would be simply that they weren't the only ones amazed at how fast the trio was growing or recalling the morning of their birth. Marianne thought about it all, too, and what she got from it was… anticipation. It was one thing that they'd been babies, tiny and sweet, and then growing into toddlers, walking, running, talking… But they were four now, and it wasn't as though they'd flipped a switch, the changes had already been happening, but this day made it feel like the future was staring at them and telling her that things were going to be happening, that her little sisters had made it to this point where they'd only get better and better because they'd get to do so many more things together.

And three days later, three days or the blink of an eye, they'd have another birthday, the last of the August girls for this year, as Tori Friar turned six and Marianne could present her with the last of her vacation gifts.

"Nana?"

The whisper slipped in, just where the barely waking Maya could hear it and acknowledge it. She lifted and turned her head, spotting the head of black curls in the doorway. She extended her hand, signalling for Tori to come over, which she did, slippers scuffing along around the bed. Maya propped herself up and smiled when presented with her granddaughter's clear eyes. She reached over, brushing hair from her face.

"Happy birthday, Miss Victoria," she whispered. Tori grinned. She found it weird when people used her full name most of the time, not so when her grandmother did it though. "Sleep alright?" Maya asked, and Tori nodded. "Good. So, what brings you here now?" The little face shifted into uncertainty, and, for that, Maya sat up, patted the mattress so Tori would come up and sit with her. She still remembered meeting her for the first time, just weeks old… nearly six years ago now…

"Taylor's going back to Indiana tomorrow," she stated.

"He is," Maya slowly nodded.

"And Mommy's going to Houston soon, with Lea."

"They are," Maya nodded again.

"And Aunt Nika's gone away to her school."

Each statement felt like one piece plucked away, which suggested more than anything that there was Tori at the heart of it, surrounded at first but then slowly but surely becoming more and more exposed… and alone. Oh, she wouldn't be, she'd have her father back at the apartment, and there would be the rest of the family in Austin, and her friends, but it wouldn't change the fact that all these important people who'd been with her right here until not too long ago would be going away or had already gone. And it was making her feel anxious.

"Yes, she has," Maya put her arms around the sad birthday girl. "You understand why they have to go, right?" she asked her. Tori nodded, but at the same time she hesitated. She understood… mostly… and Maya could guess where the hang up was. Much as they had explained to her why she had been living in Austin again for nearly a year now, there was still a part of her that didn't feel right being away from her mother like this. That was the part she couldn't reconcile so easily, and now… Well, now, she had this thing on her mind, and she didn't know how to express it and… and she didn't want to make her mother feel bad. "It's okay if you miss people, yeah?" Maya reminded her, hugged her close. Tori hugged her back, and it was inexplicable, the way one hug could be so different from another, when it came from her daughters versus when it came from her granddaughter. "It's going to be okay," she went on and kissed the top of her head.

It's just one more year. It'll be over before you know it, and then you'll have your mother back here… and your future stepfather.

"Hey, I'm not telling you anything, but I will say that everyone is very excited that it's your birthday. They can't wait to celebrate it with you," Maya lightly prodded at the girl's cheek, making her squirm and giggle. "Are they awake up there?"

"Not when I came down," Tori reported.

"I'd be willing to bet they are now. Why don't you go see if they are?" Off the girl sprinted, and in no time, they could hear her hurrying back up the stairs and down the hall to the guest room door. "Hey…" Maya sank back into bed, facing toward her husband, who had naturally awakened and pretended not to while she spoke with Tori.

"Hey," he replied, and for a few moments they just looked at each other, faced with the thought that their sneaky little granddaughter was going to be in the first grade soon enough. How… How…

"Was Tori here?" Marianne appeared in their door now, holding a wrapped present with both hands. Her mother and father pointed upstairs. "Thanks!" she took off toward the stairs, one final gift to deliver.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners