And now,
That is where we found the situation as Kyla could only look with a smile as she repeated her earlier phrase, “I thought I left this scene back when I left European soil,” she said with a smirk, “I mean, Mom” she said with a smile as she looked at both her mother, and Kyle, who she knew was now single. But this was not something she expected to witness when she was finally coming home after months away from home. “Should I give your two some more privacy?” she asked with a laugh. “Because I can go over to Lucy’s place, who I hear has now moved to town” she said with a look at the stunned looks at her mother and Kyle. “Kyle?”
“Mikyla,” Kyle thought. Someone who was gifted in many ways, that was just like her mother. But they did not look alike. Nothing a like in resemblance despite their height Kyle thought. Because Isabel had stuck to the blonde hair that everyone knew her to favor, except a brief time when he was a senior year when she wanted a change. She had graduated, and she wanted something that was different. It was just as she got involved with Jesse Kyle now thought. So, she took a turn as a brunette. There were a lot of attempted changes that year he thought. Maria changed her hair too, but that was later Kyle thought. As graduation approached.
And she was at a loss because New York had not worked out as she had hoped. But once they were on the road and fleeing for our lives or their lives because the government did not want me, he thought. I was along, for the ride.
As he remembered he was a non-entity to the goons back then. They did not think I could be like those they chased. Of course, they mistakenly believed Liz was one of them but then she was in some ways, but she was too human in many other ways.
And on the road, Isabel changed back to being a blonde so that the powers that were looking for them would have a harder time, because Isabel was a brunette on the tape. She let her hair grow, and she was a different person. Still very attractive Kyle remembered thinking, but Isabel was still hung up on Jesse, and wanting to find a way to go to Boston to be with him and when the calm settled down, she was the first one to go…
And there was no reason why I would stick around as the group started to fracture as Michael and Maria headed off and settled in Nashville. While he found himself wandering back to Roswell but stopping and finding Sue Ann in the process. We were engaged and married in no more than a split second, he thought. Dad did not even come to the wedding, he thought. As the cover of his new marriage had allowed him to finish the journey back to Roswell.
There were questions asked, but not enough to get him in trouble. But once home, he and Sue Ann, like Isabel and Jesse before them realized they did not know each other that well, and that meant their marriage was doomed, but before they could call it a day. Sue Ann became pregnant, and their son was born. And they both tried to make it work.
Because Kyle did not want to be a weekend father, and he knew what it meant to have a parent abandon you, it hurts he thought of the relationship he was never able to have with his mother because she left, and I stayed with Dad.
But eventually, it was a marriage that was not going to work. And they split and became much better co-parents than spouses. Next to Isabel. The ability to help Sue Ann with the parenting of our son has been the best relationship I have had he thought, even when she married Doug early on, he thought. He had not known how that would have worked out, but it had worked well.
Everyone knew their places.
And Kyle was adamant that he would be there for his son.
He just wished his chance at finding happiness had worked as well, but then he was never that happy as he was in his friendship with Isabel and once, she was single and out of her marriage with Jesse, and unsure if she ever wanted to put herself out there for a romance ever again, because she was seeing Max so dejected, and her own heart was bruised by her marriage to Jesse.
But she had wanted to be a mother and was determined to go through a sperm donor route so that the potential father did not know the quirks of her history. Kyle hated that idea. And so, he had suggested simply as a lark, and I do admit to being a little drunk at the time he thought. That I be the donation for Isabel quest to be a mother.
Isabel had been shocked. And even knowing the potential headaches, eventually she would warm to the idea, and so they formed an agreement that he would help her become a mother, and he would have no formal role in the child’s life. No child support was expected.
Isabel had her alimony and divorce coming from her dissolution of her marriage, since Jesse in Boston was making buckets of money, and wanted to help his former wife get settled back in Roswell. So, she could raise her child without needing any support from Kyle, and Isabel had not wanted to put that between them. It was enough that Kyle was offering, she thought.
And then a child came from it, and we are now looking at that child.
Someone who does not look like me, but Kyle Isabel thought as she looked at her eldest child, and only child she gave birth to.
She looks like Kyle she thought.
But studious like me, but also in sports as she thought of what her daughter was signed up for during the summer, once she was home from her studies in Europe. Except she did not expect her to be back.
Now.
“Mikyla,” Isabel said stumbling to think coherently. “What are you doing here?” she asked of her daughter. “How did you even get here?” she asked, as she had many questions as to why her fifteen-year-old daughter was now home instead of being overseas where she was supposed to be for the following week.
“It was heating up over there,” came Kyla’s response. “You know what I mean?”
“Oh,” Isabel murmured I have not been keeping track of that she thought. I wanted to think that life was becoming normal again. “You did not try calling the house, did you?” she asked but then remembered she had not been good at answering the machine, or checking her phone because she had been so mixed up, and dealing with everything with her brother and father these last days. “You should have tried calling?”
“I did, repeatedly,” Mikyla smiled. “You did not answer, so I got tired of leaving messages, and they bundled us up onto planes faster than we thought they would, and so, when I got back into the States. And New Mexico. I took a bus from Santa Fe,” she said as she looked at the concern on both her mother and Kyle’s face. “I managed okay, because I have gotten used to traveling these last months,” she said as she knew she had been able to do the one thing her mother had not been able to do which was travel she thought. She had managed to get out there in the world and see something greater than New Mexico, and even Arizona.
She now knew there was more out there.
And she wanted to get out there again.
With the pandemic far behind us Kyla muttered to herself. “So, I repeat, did I interrupt anything?” she asked once more. “Should I head over to Lucy’s place?” she asked, “Even though I don’t know where she and her parents now live. But I guess I can head over to Grandpa Evans place,” she said. “I mean Uncle Max’s,” she said since she knew that her uncle did own the family house, and her grandfather only just lived with him.
“No,” Isabel said as she came out of the shell shock state that she had been in.
“That is good because I figure that I have missed a lot of drama around here?” Kyla asked as she did not know if drama was unfolding between her mother and Kyle either, or she did not know what to make what she had just walked in.
Home sweet home Kyla thought. There is always drama somewhere she muttered. Which is why it was a breath of fresh air to be in Europe, and among kids her own age. Which was something she had not been in a year by the time she hit the European bubble, because it was almost normal to see kids sowing their oats and being refreshingly normal.
“I guess this is my cue to leave,” Kyle said softly as he looked between mother and daughter, and knew it had gotten close there, but the last thing they should be was confusing anything and making it complicated, given what was going on in their group. “I got that last postcard of yours. It sounded as if you had an adventure.”
“I did,” Mikyla nodded. “I loved it. It makes me want to travel after graduation,” she said with a big smile. “When I have the time, and I don’t have to study all the time.”
And it was a smile that Isabel liked seeing even though she knew she would now have to get used to the fact her daughter was not only fifteen but also now quite capable of moving around on her own, how can that be, she thought. Because she remembered that tiny baby in her arms, but for the moment, she smiled back, and Kyle took it as another cue to leave as he turned around to face the door.
Figuring that Kyle was looking to go, which is probably a good thing because I do not want to think of what might have happened if we had not gotten so busted. “Thank you for coming over,” Isabel said with a smile. “Sorry we did not get to that movie.”
“Maybe next time,” was all Kyle could say.
“Yeah, maybe,” Isabel said softly, as Kyle opened the door and walked out, and she was left to wonder what had just happened. And why is so surprising to me?
Kyla could only laugh as she had just been watching how her mother and Kyle reacted to each other. “So, what have I missed?”
Yeah what?
*
As nearby, “Thank you for dinner Mom,” Maria was saying to her mother as she and Amy exchanged a hug, as she and husband had finally departed from the Deluca/Valenti household and were planning on making their way home. So, that they could catch up with their daughter who should be hopefully home by now. Although they all knew Lucy had a mind of her own, and therefore, it was anyone’s guess whether she was truly heading home. Michael and Maria had stayed longer. Even though the topic was on the top of their minds was not discussed either at dinner, or once impressionable minds were no longer in the house. Because Amy formerly Deluca just wanted to revel in the fact her daughter was home in Roswell to be able to come over for dinner when the mood strikes instead of having to plan months in advance or having only her granddaughter visit for a planned visit. Always deeply planned, so the fact Michael and Maria were settling back in Roswell after so much time away pleased Amy.
She knew how her daughter and Michael vanished. She did not know why it had happened until Jeff Parker summoned her to the Crashdown behind closed doors, to give a story. A story that had many layers. One that she was late to come too. And it did not make her happy because she had been late to the botched graduation ceremony because of a disaster at the house. When she got there, she walked into a nightmare, and her daughter was gone. It was apparent that families were asking questions to the ensuing mayhem. She saw that Jim was not even there also, because he had gone back and took the first step in getting back his rightful job. Because he had shown up later, although only as a deputy.
But you have to start somewhere.
Yes, you did. But when she arrived at Jeff and Nancy’s apartment and got the full story, although there were entries left blank in the book she thought. But it held a unique story. One that she did not believe until she got confirmation from Jim on some of the substance of the story. How could you believe it? she thought now as she watched her daughter and son-in-law walk down the sidewalk, further away from her.
And she remembered how for that year before things settled down. She did not know what side was up, and she did not even get her daughter to tell her what was going on. All she knew was her daughter was in love with Michael.
Who was an alien human hybrid? Who knew they existed? Amy hadn’t. And her daughter’s involvement in all of it was because of a shooting that involved Liz. I remember hearing rumors of something hinky going on, but I would never imagine it being true. Still Amy knew her daughter was safe and normal, but she fell for the rogue and gruff bad boy in Michael Guerin, and once she knew what was going on, whether she believed it or not. Still, it made a lot of sense because Michael was unique.
And always had been unique.
Amy did not always see whatever Michael provided her daughter, although I can see why the bad boy gruff would be appealing given my own youth. Still Amy had to deal with her daughter gravitating to it without telling her while her life was suddenly changing in ways her mother could never understand until I did. But before Amy had read Liz’s journal, she had every reason to believe that everything was starting to settle down. Although I was not always around to see it. And I did not get my daughter back in this town.
Because Maria and Michael had settled in Nashville. And they had only come back for visits, nothing more permanent.
But now they were back, and she was thrilled to have them back. And especially to have her granddaughter in town because she knew she missed out so much on a child who was so much like mother, right down to currently her hair cut that she had in high school.
Amy took some amusement in it, despite what kind of DNA her granddaughter had in her. Still, she was giving her daughter grief. It was everything a mother wanted for her child. To be able to be a parent, and to get back what she had put out herself.
So, she was happy to have the Guerin family back in town. And been happy to have dinner with them because it was something normal. She had missed out on so much over the years. So, she was happy as she closed the door on the warmth in the late May evening. As she turned and saw her husband settling down in the chair by the door to the living room. “They are off.”
“So, I see,” Jim said.
“Can I ask you something?” Amy asked her husband of 10 years. Theirs was a marriage of second chances, okay, maybe we had a few more second chances than most she thought because for so long they did not make it work, until we did.
“What?” Jim asked. Making sure, he was close to the phone in case the department called because his trusted senior deputy was on the night shift, and Jim had it off. But one could not be too careful.
“What was the look that you were exchanging with Michael?” Amy asked as she sat down on her own chair, nearby. “Is something going on that I should be aware of?” she asked because ever since she came into the secret, she never knew what to expect. Because anything could happen, although it had been calm over the years.
Of course, it did help that her daughter and Michael lived elsewhere, but still, you have to wonder now that everyone was back in the same vicinity. Given the kids knack of finding trouble she thought as her daughter as her kid, even though there was a newer generation who were almost the ages that the original generation once was…
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jim muttered even though he knew what his wife was talking about.
“I think you know,” Amy smiled. As town Sheriff. She knew her husband had a way of keeping information under his control until it was needed to be let out, and usually she did not bother with it because she knew eventually it would be divulged to her if it was truly important, but something in the way Michael and her husband were looking at each other, it gave the impression that something is up.
Now that she was in the know, she was also hypersensitive about it.
Am I seeing stuff that is not there? Amy wondered.
It was possible.
“Jim,” Amy muttered.
“It’s nothing that you have to worry about,” Jim said with a sigh. “It does not even involve our family, any of them. Michael is sensitive about some information he found out, which I knew part of, but it does not involve us, so you do not have to worry about it,” he muttered. “It’s for the kids to deal with.”
“Are you sure?” Amy asked.
“Yes,” Jim smiled. “If it involved our family, I would tell you.”
Amy was not so sure he would but believed him on this one, so she walked into the kitchen, and finished the cleanup.
*
Outside,
Nearby,
Nearby,
Maria and Michael were taking the opportunity of a beautiful night and being alone. With their seventeen-year-old already at home, we hope they both thought. But they knew Lucy, and chances were that she would make it home, she is not that wild, Maria thought. She did not rip off a head of a snake and have Armageddon reign down on you like Liz did by being a victim of that shooting back in high school Maria muttered to herself. Only then did things turn out of this world she thought as she and her husband walked the park and took their time. The reason for coming back was to get away from the stress of Nashville in the pandemic, and slow down and try to have Lucy have a normal life for a change. Finish high school and plan for her future, assuming there is a normal anymore she thought.
Personally, Maria did not know if there was one. But she hoped for her daughter’s sake there was. But she was happy for herself that they came back. Because years of being in the music business had started to take its’ toll. And while she loved writing music, she had been good at it. And even became a major success in singing, but it was not only her songs she had written. She had written for other people. And she had proven a hit, and that was something she was planning to continue to do, because you can do it almost anywhere.
Especially these days, and in this world she thought. It was a lot different than when we were in high school. Because you can zoom your writing partners, or submit songs for viewing and life goes on, but she knew it had been a hectic life even when she was not on the road and able to be home with Michael and Lucy at night, and on weekends. So, the opportunity to come back to Roswell was a needed one.
A breather she thought. As she looked around. “The town has grown so much since were teenagers,” she muttered. “It is almost like it is a different place,” she thought. “But still there that essence. It’s good to be back,” she smiled. As she knew she was vastly changed from the teenager who did not know what she was going down and had followed her boyfriend onto the road because the authorities were after him, I did not have too but I wanted Michael she thought. “I did not think I would ever really say that” she said with a smirk.
“Me either, hearing you say it I mean” Michael said with a smile. Because he knew how much they had a mutual longing to get out of this town. And unfortunately, life had its own ideas for what their life would be back in those days. Fortunately, we have been able to create something that I don’t think in any scenario back in high school would we have thought possible.
“I was happy in Nashville, but I do have to say that Roswell is a little more peaceful” Maria sighed. And it was not because it was a lot smaller than Nashville.
“Maybe you should not be putting that into the air,” Michael muttered. “You don’t know what you will stir up with a comment like that…”
“Nice one Space boy,” Maria said as she secretly prayed that their life would not get so crazy as they continued to walk as they took a leisurely pace back home. It was not often they had this chance to take it slow. Because everything was so fast paced in their old life, except for the last year but that was a drastic slow down, now, all she wanted was to revel in normal. Assuming that is possible.
She was not so certain it was possible, but one never knew.
“It is definitely a change of pace, coming back here” Michael muttered because it was a different life but then he could not help but think of what he had learned earlier on, “Even if you don’t think of the drama that might be getting stirred up,” he muttered.
“That is something I wanted to talk about,” Maria was saying as a text came onto her watch, and she took her phone out of her pocket and checked the device, “Lucy is now home.”
“Good,” Michael sighed at the knowledge that their daughter was at home, waiting for them. “I guess we better get home?” Because we do not want to leave Lucy home too long to her own devises, he thought, even though he knew they had in the past. As he thought of how independent their free spirit of a daughter was, truly a version of her mother, and not so me, he thought of their daughter and Lucy’s quest to be unique. It was something he liked, and even though they mostly trusted their daughter, Michael could not help but think that he had a lot on his mind right now, and he wanted to be home and deal with it in privacy.
As it still rocked him to know what he now knew.
Something that he knew his wife did not, if she knew, she would have told me.
“She’s fine,” Maria smiled. “Anyways, I was saying. What was going on back at Mom and Jim’s house?” she asked because it was something that was nagging on her, and she did not like feeling like something was nagging at her, especially not given how everything had been back in high school, and yet, she knew something was going on.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Michael muttered even though he knew.
How could she not ask? he muttered to himself as Michael knew that it was a miracle that dinner was as peaceful as it was, and it was obvious his wife had not known what he knew about the events of nearly two decades before, when Liz upped and left her marriage. Michael knew his wife had not talked with Liz much in those early years, obviously for a reason he now knew. But it was surprising that Maria would be in the dark.
Because Liz and Maria talked about everything.
Ever since they got hit by lightning together, Michael muttered. It was not every day that two teenage girls would fall in love with aliens from another planet. And no, it was not some long and delusional dream because it was very real and still unfolding to this day, and he was now coming to terms with the new added dimensions to it all.
A fact his wife did not know or hoped she did not know because it meant she would have kept it from him.
Although he would not blame her, if she had, because of what it all meant.
Because I do not want to know what I know…
And from Maria’s side of things, she knew something was on her husband’s mind. She could feel it all through dinner, with the way he was looking at Jim as if they had a mutual secret. One that she and her mother did not know, and in particular, her.
Space boy knows better than keeps secrets from me Maria thought. She knew they had a rare marriage in that they knew everything about each other, and even if they tried to keep a secret, the other was bound to know it before too long. Usually it was him, finding out from me, she thought, because he has his ways.
And usually, she did not mind them because it meant that he could see all of her, in ways very few women could claim. Only Liz had a more intense and unique bond with Max, Maria thought. But it means, Michael and I know each other she thought. “Space boy,” she tried as she smiled at her husband.
Oh, geez Michael muttered. “It’s nothing,” he tried, but he knew he was lying because it was more than nothing, and he was not going to get home in one piece if he did not speak up and tell his wife what he did know.
“I am sure it is,” Maria sighed. “But something is up, and should I not know” she asked. “If Jim knows, and you know, then why don’t I know?”
“It’s complicated,” Michael tried.
“I am sure it is,” Maria answered once more. “Everything in our damn lives is complicated and most days of the week I am perfectly fine unless Lucy is doing something she shouldn’t, but I don’t think it is about our daughter, is it?” she asked. “You would not have allowed her to head home on her own, and since we have only been in this town a few days, I have to wonder what it is all about?” she asked. “If it’s important,” she muttered. “And you can’t say it is not because the way you were looking at Jim like you used to back in those days?”
“What days?” Michael asked, but he knew. And how did I look at him?
But both of them knew.
Because those days are hard to forget both thought as they knew they were damn lucky to have gotten out of town after the botched graduation in one piece because it was not looking like they were going to in those early days, when Jim was not their ally, but their enemy. We know we are fortunate to count the town Sheriff as in our corner. “Michael, tell me.”
“It’s just something I found out and I also found out that Jim knew before me, and did not tell me or Max,” Michael muttered. “We had to find out the hard way, or Max did. Because it does not concern me,” except when it does because Liz took the bullet for me, he thought. And knew he should be grateful, and he was, but like Isabel, that feeling was mixed, and complex and came with a lot of emotions because of what Liz had chosen to do, in hurting my best friend.
But also saving our hides.
Although unlike the others, Michael could hold a grudge.
And they all knew this…
“So, this does not involve our family but Max?” Maria asked. As she was trying to figure out what was going on, and what Michael was keeping from him. “Not about our family?” she thought, as she tried to mull what her husband might be keeping from, because one of their reasons that their marriage was working was that I know him she thought. As she also thought of the big and truly complex family of insiders they had in their lives. Although are we not one big happy family she thought of the alien chaos she had tried to run from back in senior year of high school.
Back then, Liz was tied to it more than I, Maria thought. I thought I had my out.
But boy was I wrong.
It turns out Liz was able to get away, and I could not. Maria thought. As I am the one who married and stayed married. “Michael,” she sighed as she knew she did not regret that she had chosen Michael in the end over whatever her future could have held if she had let Michael leave her here in Roswell. “Tell me….”
“Fine,” Michael muttered because he knew his wife needed to know. It’s not my secret, and does not even mess with my life, he thought. I am not Max, he sighed. Someone who lost his wife and daughter because he did not know how to fight for them. As he looked at his wife, a was prepared to tell, but before he could spill, they heard a familiar voice. “Hey Space beings,” and they twisted and saw Kyle walking their way.
Both were surprised to see him because he did not live anywhere near them, or this area.
But Isabel does Maria was quick to murmur to herself. Michael was oblivious to vibes that Maria was getting from her stepbrother.
A fact of life that surprises us to this day Maria thought as she remembered a day when she could not stand Kyle, and actively shipped for her best friend to go another route, what did I know she thought. All I did know was that Liz and Kyle would not have been together.
They are better friends Maria thought. “Kyle,” she said of a fact that was going on ten years. Ever since their parents had finally come to their senses and gotten married, which makes us family.
Because she and Michael lived elsewhere until a few days before, they never really had seen Kyle as much. Because Kyle was always in the middle of marriages, or divorces. “What are you doing here?”
“I was nearby,” Kyle said as he was not going to be open to where he had been. “Are you headed home?”
“Yes, we were at Mom and Jim’s” Maria murmured. “You were missed.”
“I doubt it,” Kyle said. I have enough of those dinners he thought, as they had taken a sad uncertainly since his divorce, and the knowledge he had struck out so often at marriage. Dad got it wrong once before he got it right, he thought, Although it took a long time to have Amy give him a chance, but he knew he had his chance to be there, “I had other plans,” because he had been invited to the family dinner, but he had passed it up because he had not been in the mood, and because he had found himself at Isabel’s…
“Anyone we know?” Maria muttered.
“Maybe,” Kyle said without anything more to go with it because he knew his stepsister was playing around for information, while Michael is oblivious to all of it, he thought. Or does he had more on his mind. “So, have you heard?”
Michael groaned, because by the looks of his wife’s stepbrother. It was easy to see that Michael knew Kyle knew, which meant the secret was not going to stay a secret for long, even if it was a secret, just information not given to my wife by either me or her best friend.
“What have I heard?” Maria asked, ready to play the game. Because she was in the mood, and she could not possibly know what the men knew.
“About Liz?” Kyle asked.
“What about Liz,” Maria asked, as her antennae were up now, and she knew something was going on. “Is there something I should I know that I do not know?” the blonde human asked of her husband and her stepbrother, who was just as normal as she was, but had been saved by an alien. Don’t even ask why Kyle did not change.
No one knew why.
“Just everything,” Kyle smiled. “You mean Michael you did not tell Maria?”
“Will someone tell me what is going on?” Maria asked. “What should I know, and what do you know, you two that you are not telling me?
“It’s nothing,” Michael tried again. “It’s none our business, I don’t know how you do know Kyle but it’s nothing, and we should leave it Max and Liz to work out on their own without us interrupting them.”
“When have Max and Liz ever worked things out without it being hard and complicated?” Kyle asked. The story of Max and Liz is indeed long and complicated.
So much happened in a span of nearly three years They all would think.
Maria now sensed something was up, and she did not like the not knowing. “What is going on?” Maria demanded of her husband and even her stepbrother because she now knew the were in on some information. Something I do not know. “Someone better tell me right now, otherwise you will not like what I will do.”
“Fine,” Michael muttered because he knew he had to be the one to tell his wife. “It’s just…”
“Space boy, just tell me, okay.” Maria muttered.
But Michael was finding it hard to say, because he had not come to terms with whatever it meant, and because he had not talked to the source of all of it. So, Kyle was the one who blurted it. “Liz took a deal with the government and that is why she walked away from her marriage with Max,” he blurted. “And to make the situation worse, Phillip Evans knew all about it and did not tell Max where his wife or what she did for all of us, or most of Isabel and Michael” he murmured. “Liz sacrificed herself for everyone…”
“What the hell,” Maria asked, stunned.
…yeah, it was very much of a what the hell type of situation.
