Tidal Wave 29 Do You Remember

The moment she heard the pitter patter of bare feet walking towards the kitchen she knew the Todds had wakened up from their lite sleep.

"Denise, if I weren't married and gay I would be all over you just for the coffee." Michael's voice carried his joke through the kitchen making Denise roll her eyes and pull down a few coffee mugs from the top cabinet. "Not even if you were straight, dear." She pinched his jaw between her fingers and gave his head a little shake. "You wound me, but please get out of the way so I can grab a mug of the amazing coffee you make." She let his jaw go and moved out of the way. She always thought that they stayed friends because of the special blend of coffee she's been making since college. It got her through the sleepless nights when Darya was a baby and the midterms she had to go through in school.

"Would you look at our children. They've been sleeping this way on the same couch since they were six years old. Now they barely fit and they're still doing this." Ramon stood behind the couch and waited for the other two to join him with their steaming hot mugs of coffee.

They looked down at the small couch that held the two long eighteen-year-olds that were way too big for the couch.

"Do you remember the first night they stayed at my house?" Denise asked the two men she was standing in the middle of. "Of course, it was storming really hard, harder than the night Dane came back to you. They were scared out of their minds and since we couldn't leave in the storm it became a huge sleepover. We even made roasted marshmallows over the gas stove you used to have." Ramon reminded them of the night that really bonded both families.

"Now they'll be going to college starting tomorrow and leave us forever," Michael spoke in a low whisper as to not wake the teens sleeping on the couch. "It won't be for forever, just the school year and they'll be home for holidays." Denise reminded them. The air around them seemed thinner with the thoughts buzzing around in their heads.

"Can't they take a year off like they told us they wanted to do when they were thirteen?" Denise broke the silence and realized how much she was going to miss her daughter. "I wish they would too, but the program they want only has the few opens at the start of the semester and won't have anything for nearly two years. They have to start right away." Michael confirmed what Denise was thinking she just didn't know what she would do with all her free time.

"I'm going to be burying myself in my work from now on. Not having her at home and watching movies with her. Picking up her inhaler when she runs out or helping her clean the boats or the tanks before they went out for a swim. Ugh, c.r.a.p...I'm crying again." Denise complained and turned from the couch to sit at the kitchen table instead. It was getting weird staring at their kids on the couch sleeping.

The two men with the coffee fixation followed after her. There was an old photo book laying in the middle of the table. Denise dragged over the brown and green book and cracked it open to the first page.

"Their first real swim in the ocean together." She pushed her fingers over the matte finished photo of Marty and Darya holding snorkelers and a sand bucket.

"Got, that was the day Marty ate too many hot dogs and barfed after they came out of the water. There was so much sand in his hair that it was washing out a week later." Michael laughed as he turned the page of the book and landed on a photo of Ramon and the kids building a sand castle.

The next page was a photo of Marty holding up bunny ears behind Darya's head while they both laughed at the camera.

"I think it will be little moments like this that I will miss the most." Denise kept flipping through the book with the guys until movement from the living room made them look up.

"Moments like what Mom?" Darya said as she rolled off the couch and rubbed her eyes of the sleep that crusted in the corners of them. Marty took a little more time to roll off the couch and balance himself on his feet.

"Moments like the first day of third grade, your first lost tooth, Marty's first broken leg. Things like that." She shrugged and kept flipping through the pages of the photos while the kids got up and headed to the bathroom to shower and change for the day. Darya pushed Marty towards the bathroom so he could shower first while she pulled on her mother's shoulder so she could sit on her lap and look at the photos.

She leaned her head on her mother's shoulder as her eyes scanned the photos with the three of them.

"What are you three going to do now that we're going to college?" She asked while taking a long drink of her mother's coffee. Denise was so used to it that she didn't even care if her mug would be empty in a few drinks from Darya.

"Well, I have plenty of patients to keep seeing. My new practice opens at the end of summer and there are a lot of people on the waiting list already. I hate that it's for cancer but it means that I can help more people without the hospital always getting in the way." Darya listened to Ramon while taking another drink of the still warm coffee.

"That's good, I know it's been difficult seeing all the people that need your help while working at the hospital. What about you, Michael? What's city hall have in store for you?" She gave him some side eye before drinking that last gulp of coffee out of her mom's mug. "I think I may take this summer to figure out a different path for myself." All eyes were on Michael with his confession. Marty's footsteps could be heard from the hall as he came from the bathroom wet from the shower.

"Dad, I thought you loved working with the mayor. What new path are you going to take?" He pulled up a chair in between his fathers and pulled a Darya move and took one of their mugs of coffee and began to drink from it as well. "I don't know kiddo, city hall and the mayor have just been weighing down on me more than usual. He's leaving after this summer and I just think it's time for a change. I'm still a licensed lawyer, maybe I'll go back into law practice." Michael shrugged and took his mug from the table before realizing it was empty.

"It's going to be completely new for all five of us after today. Mom with her new partner at the lab and the expedition she's being paid to go on and study some new fish they found. Ramon and the practice, and now Michael and possibly being a lawyer again. College seems so small compared to what you guys are doing." Darya spoke over the rim of her mother's mug. She was scared of being away from home but the way they have it set up so that they live in a coed dorm so that Marty and she can be roommates with permission from their parents is the only thing saving her.

"You two will do great with the marine biology program and soon you'll graduate and have a house of your own, you'll probably be neighbors, and go into practice together or something. Just know that neither of you will be alone in anything you do." Denise held Darya's hand tight in hers while pulling her closer on her lap. Darya knew her mom was right, with Marty and all their parents in her life, she would never be alone again.