these kids

June 2082 - Jeremy Nova is 66, Alice is 60, Jeremiah Day is 25, Stephanie is 22. Last update, February 2080.

"He's barely any more than a stranger," Jeremy says, and he means his daughter's surprise husband. Stephanie called a couple months ago, to say she was pregnant, and that they needed to come back home for a while. They've met Jeremiah about a handful of times before the two of them ran off on spring break and eloped two years ago. But Alice wouldn't care if Stephanie was bringing home big foot, because she just wants to see her daughter again, and meet her soon-to-be very first real grandchild!

This wouldn't be the first time Stephanie didn't think things through. Moving back home with her army-deserting husband, and where did she think they would live? How would they work? Of course, the answer being that her parents would take her back home, and that who knows how they would contribute to the household. Who knows how Jeremy would explain to his brother-in-law, Captain of Police, Micah Phoenix, that they were hiding an army-deserter in their home?

Stephanie broke her poor mother's heart, you know. Alice prides herself on education, and Stephanie dropped out of college after just one year. And then she goes on spring break, gets married, and never comes back? But still, what do you do when she calls and asks to come back home, with her delinquent husband and soon-to-be baby, but say "welcome back?"

Or what Jeremy says, which is, "My goodness, you're big as a house!"

Stephanie says, "Um, you're not supposed to say that, Dad."

Jeremiah is a little uneasy to say the least, living with his in-laws whom he knows don't think very highly of him.

So Jeremiah is trying to appeal to their good sides, and he brought home rainbow trout and a terrific stuffed recipe, but still nobody says a word during dinner. Her father just stares at her in something like disappointment. But Jeremiah hopes they'll give them a chance. He never intended to end up a delinquent, and he was never a bad boy in his youth, but he supposes this time impulsiveness, on both of their parts, got the best of them.

Jeremy waits until after Stephanie has gone to the bathroom to ask him, "Now how exactly do you plan to contribute to this household?" This is a question Alice is eager to see answered as well.

He has a degree in political science that he can't use given his renegade status. He's good at a lot of things, and people generally love him. But right now, he's just at a loss, and just says, "I have no intentions of free-loading, Sir."

***

He tries to make nice with Alice by telling her about the fantastic garden he had in Three Lakes, you should have seen the size of these tomatoes!

She says, "Digging in the dirt?"

What she doesn't say is that Stephanie is a Nova girl, bred from world-renowned scholars and artists and musicians, and he steals her out of college to go dig around in the dirt? It's bad enough Riley moved out to the country to have babies and live in a house filled with dogs.

Jeremy and Alice go off to work then, Jeremy at the university teaching music, and Alice at Lakeside Heights Public Schools as a principal.

And Jeremiah is off to find work too, whatever work he can find that won't get him in trouble. He's found an add in the paper for a farmhand and fisherman at the Watts farm in Bluewater Township, and that he can certainly do!

Jeremiah says, "I'm here about the farm work. There's no paperwork, right?"

Matthew says, "Why, are you a criminal? I can't have any criminals around here around my family."

"No, not a criminal," Jeremiah says. "Um, kind of like an illegal immigrant."

Matt says, "You don't look foreign, and you don't sound foreign either."

"I'm, uh... from Canada!" Jeremiah says. "Eh?"

It's not exactly a lie. They did just come from Canada, though they were never exactly legal there either. But Jeremiah knows he's a fun guy, and he thinks Matt is going to like him if he just gives him a chance - he could say the same about Stephanie's parents as well.

So he's going out on a limb here, but who doesn't like a water balloon fight? And Matt is shocked at first, he's a shy kind of guy and not quite used to strangers throwing water balloons in his face.

But he gets it, and that's Jeremiah's charisma at work. Matt says, "You funny guy!"

So Matt and Jeremiah are new buddies before he goes home, and not only that, he's got himself a job. Though this might be just as much because Matthew has a toddler, two newborns, a dog and some dying crops at home, and is desperately in need of help.

Meanwhile, Stephanie is home alone and has discovered that her parents kept her dear old soccer net! She knows that nobody of her size needs to be playing soccer, but she just can't resist. It's different if nobody's kicking balls at her, right?

Score! She's still got it, preggo belly and all!

Then someone walks by and it triggers certain memories of a little boy who used to walk by her house before school each morning, just like this, to come play soccer with her.

She breaks into a hobbling run towards the street, looking something between a walrus and a penguin, all but calling out to the boy.

But that's not Tyler. He's nearly identical, at least in her memory, but Tyler was just that age when she left four years ago and surely he must have grown a little.

The kid says, "Hey, hot mama, what's goin' on?"

Oh God, did she just get hit on by a fifteen year-old while eight months pregnant?

She's exhausted. It's too hot outside and maybe soccer was a bad idea being so pregnant like she is. She thinks she'll go have a little bath and lie down for a while.

She has that bath she needed, and she's so big she can barely hobble over to her bed. They're staying in her childhood bedroom. Jeremiah is laughing. She says, "What's so funny?"

"The carpet is bright pink, and you have posters on the walls."

"Hey," she says. "You're lucky you're allowed in here at all, my dad was a bear when I was growing up."

"So I'm the first guy in here?"

She shakes her head. "Uh, no. I said the first allowed."

"How many guys have you had in this bed?"

"What, that I had sex with? Or that just slept in it?"

"Either! Both!"

"I don't know, two?"

"You said you were only with Julian. Who else have you been with in this bed?"

Stephanie laughed and then shrugged. "Justin, when we were kids. We were nine, we had sleepovers. So I guess maybe he was the first boy allowed in my room. But he wasn't allowed either after we were in middle school."

Stephanie was still amused, but Jeremiah didn't think it was very funny. He stewed and crossed his arms. "Have you kissed him?"

"Justin? What kind of kiss?"

"Any kind of kiss!"

"I probably have, like on the cheek or something at some point in my whole life. But I never had sex with Justin, if that's what you're getting at. Especially not when we were nine!"

"But you did it with Julian in this bed?"

"That was like five years ago, I'm pretty sure I've changed the sheets since then," she says. "Let's not talk about it. Unless you want to talk about all the beds and other assorted places you did it with Bella Bradshaw."

So he drops it. He stews on it a little, while she's realizing she hasn't even thought about Julian in ages, but ever since the afternoon, she's been wishing Justin wasn't so tied up with his work and wondering what ever happened to funny little Tyler Jackson?

Jeremiah stews about it until it's time to head downstairs for dinner. Then he says, "Did you love him?"

In her head she's thinking, which one?

"Your first, you know. Julian. Did you love him?"

"And you really want me to answer this?"

Jeremiah nods.

"Sure, I guess I loved him, in a high school kind of way."

"But we were seventeen, and he was a terrible kisser - you know how they're all terrible kissers at seventeen - I bet you were too. And he had no clue what he was doing in bed. Scout's honor!"

"Not funny," he says.

She says, "Since when did you get so insecure?"

"I've always been insecure," he says. And now that she thinks about it, yes, he always has.

She really must have run herself down with that soccer.

"Hey honey," Jeremiah says. "I think it'll be nice having the baby with your family around, for the extra help and everything. Honey, did you hear that?"

***

Jeremiah is working hard on a strawberry patch, and maybe once her parents taste these strawberries, they'll have to like him? He also saved their dying lemon trees, and there is some skill to this. Don't ask him what he learned about political science in college, but he does know one thing - strawberry lemonade makes people happy, and maybe that'll be a start.

Stephanie is very anxious to see everyone again, so Patrick brings the girls out from the city. Jeremy has been dying to see these beautiful grandbabies again. Skye is only three months old, and Raine is going to be four in about a month, and she just couldn't possibly get any cuter!

But most of all, Stephanie really misses Justin. But Keri says her dad has him up to his ears in business, so Keri stops over herself to visit instead. Not that Stephanie doesn't want to see Keri too though. She says, "Look at you! You look gorgeous pregnant!"

Keri says, "Ugh, I just feel all big and fat and round!"

Keri points out the neighborhood and the things that have changed since Stephanie left. "My sister is just over there, through those trees," she says. "She's due in August too. And you remember Chandler? He's engaged now, and God knows how he managed to buy a ring. They've got a little condo just around the corner in the town center."

Stephanie says, "Why don't you guys move out here?"

"Justin wants to," Keri says. "I mean, hell if I want to live out here in the suburbs, but since this is where everybody is... And you know, the houses are nice, and there's lots of grass and everything."

But Stephanie cuts the conversation short and once again, breaks into a hobbling run toward the sidewalk.

Keri says, "Whoa, girl, you're gonna break a hip running like that!"

Stephanie might not have even recognized Summer if not for that she'd come out of Aunt Sophie's house across the street. Wow, these kids grow up so fast, and the last time she saw her, Summer was just this little twig of a thing, with too much makeup for her age, a funny hat, and Tyler Jackson permanently joined to her hip. But there she is, walking in a trance down the street towards Tyler's house - or Stephanie would assume that was where she was going. She knows Summer never liked her anyway, but she just wanted to know how Tyler was. But Summer doesn't even look up.

Keri says, "Yeah, I used to hang out with her when we were kids, but we stopped talking a long time ago. I still hope she goes to college and does well in life and everything."

So Stephanie and Keri, two married "old biddies" now, stand there by a white picket fence in the suburbs, feeling nostalgic about the place where they grew up, these streets where they used to run wild in their youth. Stephanie is glad she'll have some familiar faces nearby, because she doesn't know who half these people are anymore.

Charlie says, "I didn't steal anything! Look, I got nothing! See?"

Stephanie says, "Who are these kids?"

"I don't know," Keri says. "They're all over the place."

"God, tell me we weren't ever that annoying!"

Keri says, "Well, at least you weren't."

*****

notes: So I photoshopped down Keri's belly as best I could. She's only supposed to be about 3 or 4 months along at this point, but there's that preggo belly-bug, where their bellies show as third trimester when they visit, no matter how far along they are...

Anyway, I swear, ALL Stephanie's parents would talk about was money, work, and college (or as I imagine, how she dropped out of college to run off with Jeremiah).

Jeremy and Jeremiah, lol! That's going to be weird. I can't think of any good nicknames though.

I almost never play families the traditional prosperity/legacy style (where a grown child and her family live at home with the parents), but it might be fun for a change. It might be easier when the baby comes, lol! But besides that neither Stephanie or Jeremiah could afford to support a household right now, there are going to be other reasons for this arrangement as well... ;)

author's note on speech bubbles:So, I don't always pay attention to speech bubbles. Most of the time they don't really make any sense, or I have other dialogue in mind for them. But sometimes they can be meaningful, or inspire a conversation.

Funny how the same speech bubble could be interpreted so many different ways. I think it's fun to use their gestures to read the bubble differently, like when Hayden Phoenix and Beau Jackson recently used the love bubble, it felt more like a confession of love to the ladies they were talking to. And a while back, this bubble felt like Dallas Deppiesse was asking permission to love Lucy, and promptly got shot down, lol!

But in this instance between Stephanie and Jeremiah, their facial expressions and gestures really felt more like he was asking her about a love she didn't want to talk about with him. This bubble popped up right after the virginity speech bubble, and both of their gestures became very defensive. Then take into account their characters - that Jeremiah has always been kind of jealous and insecure, and Stephanie never looks very comfortable when people are talking about sex. So when you bung that all together, you can conclude that Jeremiah is asking her about her past and she's not really comfortable talking about it.

It's kind of a fun writing exercise trying to shape a story around it ;)