Reunion (The Monkees Family Vol. 3)

Chapter 62

Appropriately, Dawn gave birth to her "oops baby" on April Fools day, 1986.  She named him Alvin Halsten Tork.  When asked why they chose the name Alvin, Dawn would roll her eyes and admit it was because when Peter was a child he had had a pet lizard named Alvin who escaped and left him inconsolably lonely, a child living in Germany with no friends and no way to communicate with his classmates.  The story of Alvin had been memorialized in a fanciful song Peter had written but never officially recorded for the Monkees in which the lizard was transformed into an alligator who got flushed down the water pipe.  Now Peter wanted an Alvin of his own to cherish forever.  So Alvin it was.  Halsten was Peter's mother's maiden name, and they picked it because his mom more or less insisted he and Dawn choose at least one traditional name to balance out the truly bizarre story behind the baby's first moniker.

This time, there was a christening held for Alvin, unlike Sebastian who went without an official welcome into the world because of his mother's dire mental deterioration after the extremely difficult birth of her second child.  Gabby flew home for the ceremony without Micky, who once again was stuck in Britain shooting his TV show, and waited with bated breath to find out who had been named God parents.  To everyone's shock and amazement, that honor had been bestowed upon Davy and Della.  At the reception following the service, Gabby cornered Dawn and asked for the lowdown on how that came to be.

Dawn held her hands out defensively and said "Okay, Gabby, I'll tell you, but don't give me any shit.  I gave it plenty of thought and Peter and I talked it over and decided it together."

Gabby reared back, a bit offended that Dawn thought she was being overbearing or judgmental, but had to admit in all humility that these were two qualities she possessed in abundance when she wasn't working her own program of recovery.  "Okay, okay, I'm sorry if you felt I was interrogating or bullying you.  I'm just really surprised.  I won't judge you.  Would you mind just telling me the thought process that went into that?  I'd really like to understand.  It's so counterintuitive, considering all that's happened over the years."

Dawn and she sat down on the bed in the master bedroom at Dawn's house, where the celebration was being held, as Dawn nursed Alvin.  This was more convenient and less fraught with possibility for nosy celebrity gawkers to interfere, so they decided to just do the reception there.  That way, the kids could run wild in the yard and the grownups could enjoy each other's company without worrying about the wide world intruding.  And Dawn could rest her weary body, since she was still recovering from her mandatory C-section. 

"Davy and Della came to our house one night to meet the new baby.  We didn't invite them over, they just sort of arrived.  They came with dinner and diapers and household supplies and all the stuff that Davy remembered we used to need the last time around when we had Seb and we were drowning in worries and responsibility and didn't have enough of anything we needed.  I guess he was paying more attention to us back then than I thought.  He wasn't just hanging around so he could hit on you."

Gabby rolled her eyes and gestured for Dawn to move the conversation along.

"Anyway, after dinner, Davy got this kind of constipated look on his face, like he had something he needed to let go of and Della gave him one of those looks she gets when she's quietly giving orders without speaking.  Damn, that girl has her man on the hop!  Anyway, Davy said he's been working the 12 steps in AA and it was time for him to make amends to me and Pete.  We've heard that song and dance with Micky, so naturally we knew what was coming."

Gabby looked frankly shocked and a bit curious.  "How'd he do?"

Dawn bobbed her head up and down sagely.  "Frankly, I have to say, he took it pretty seriously and was very sincere.  He went through a whole litany of wrongs he felt he did to us, talked about all the character defects he had that he felt played a role in why he acted that way, and explained the work he'd done to try to turn his way of living around so that he won't repeat those actions in the future.  Then he asked us ''umbly' for our forgiveness and sat there and sweated it out while I said my peace.  Peter of course just forgave him outright with no fuss."