T w e n t y S i d e d

Michael and Kelly are engaged, and then quickly married. Michael’s mom can be a nosy piece of work, and so although the couple planned to hold a ceremony proper, that quickly proved too dramatic for either of them. They eloped shortly after Logan’s first birthday. She takes his last name, less for tradition and more for the fact that she never liked ‘Whitman’. This makes them Michael and Kelly Zhu, and provides an interesting hurtle of changing their baby’s last name to match.

I was going to insert a family photo here, but two hours of effort and sims infuriatingly ignoring me, I give up. It’s not a Sims play-through if you don’t at least once want to scream into the void. Turns out, the photography stuff doesn’t work with babies yet, since they’re too new a feature, in 2023. I hate this game.

But yes, back to the elephant in the room, the elephant that is now likely bored after watching me shake my fist at a broken video game for two hours.

Michael’s lineage is a mess that he prefers to avoid explaining, because it can take hours if he gets truly specific. His dad is Taiwanese native and Chinese, his mom is French Canadian and through their own long story, they have ended up together, with a son, in New England. Michael often jokes how lucky Logan is that Kelly is ‘pretty much just Irish’ because then, hopefully he won’t need a flow-chart to figure out at least her side of the family. He, of course, isn’t predicting the later occurrence of ancestry tests which will make ‘pretty much just Irish’ a laughable simplification for Little Miss 2% Irish over here. Not that English-French-Scottish-Russian(?)-Scandinavian(?)-Irish mutt is really all that complicated to explain, other than shorthand to ‘white as hell’. But still, not ‘pretty much just Irish’.

Logan’s head-scratching future DNA test aside, his parents are finally married. Woo!

Lorretta has switched jobs by this point, from grocery store clerk to working at a mall kiosk. It’s a horrible job and she hates it, but she’s a full-time student and the job allows her some time for homework. Michael is working a good job in his chosen industry of software engineer, and Kelly is staying home with baby Logan. She takes on occasional online editorial work to keep herself busy, and plans to do online classes next year to hopefully finish her degree.

Sometime when Logan is about two, Lorretta graduates with her associate’s and moves on towards her bachelor’s. Michael and Kelly talk about it, and convince Lorretta to quit her job. They have more than enough income to pay the bills for a bit, at least during Lorretta’s midterms and finals, and her mall job is clearly sucking the life out of her.

Slowly, the roles of everyone in the house click into place.

Kelly works from home doing online work two days a week, Lorretta works seasonal jobs when school is out, and Michael brings in the bulk of the income.  There is no need for them to act as a true roommate situation, because everyone pulls their weight without have-to’s and musts. The water heater finally kicks it, and everyone figures out how best to cover it, chipping in what they can. By the time Logan is forming real memories, they are financially stabilized. Lorretta finishes her bachelor’s in library sciences, and begins working the job she’s wanted all along at her local library.

Kelly drops college all together when she realizes she doesn’t need it to do what she really wants. She sets up a website with Michael’s help, and starts officially taking on freelance editor work for authors.

Lorretta takes on overtime at work, and entirely throws herself into the job she loves. Kelly and Michael are happy for her at first, but then they worry, as Lorretta seems to be overdoing it. She’s arriving home after long shifts and falling asleep wherever she first sits down, she’s being forgetful, and, most concerning to Kelly, has suddenly lost a lot of weight.

Lorretta’s new co-workers find out that Lorretta spent her 60th birthday studying for midterms, and throw a real party for her 61st after-hours at the library. They coo over five-year-old Logan the whole evening, and play intentionally tacky book-themed party games. Lorretta wishes she could enjoy her party more, but she is barely able to function. The problem is made clear by her attempt to just ignore feeling unwell and enjoy herself. She dances with her grandson, laughs with her coworkers, sings off-key karaoke, and collapses suddenly by the punch.

She is confused for a moment, with worried co-workers gathering around her. She snaps out of it fairly quickly, and insists she’s fine, but Kelly’s had it, they’re going to the hospital. Tests are run, and she’s told she’ll likely be discharged quickly, she has a UTI and they’re giving her some medication for it. Kelly breaths a sigh of relief as the doctor goes off to get discharge paperwork. The sigh of relief turns to nervous tapping, to snapping irritatingly at the woman at the desk as the doctor fails to return with said paperwork.

A new doctor comes in almost three hours later, finding Kelly looking a little crazy in the eyes and Lorretta exhausted. Before Kelly can get as close to yelling as she ever does, fueled mostly by worry for her mother, the doctor delivers the bad news. They’d spoken too soon, before. Yes, she has a UTI, but blood tests are also showing markers for cancer. Fuck.

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them