it's your day: Riley (and Patrick)

November 29, 2086. Riley Hathe and Patrick Nova are 36. (Chad is 35, Lara is 33, Liza is 17, Shaun is 9, Raine is 8, Skye is 4.)


The move out west for the Hathe and Phoenix families came quicker than any of them were ready for. Chad and Hayden had a meeting with their lawyer in Catalina to claim that legendary business grant, and to establish their new gaming start-up partnership. It was a good thing these two have been best buddies since they were sixteen—they were about to marry two entire family net worths into this business. They both had property to sell back home in Lakeside Heights, and they co-signed on a business loan to cover what the grant left over.

At least they were taking it seriously. Maybe more seriously than they'd ever taken anything in their lives, including their combined three marriages and six children.



So they made the move over Thanksgiving break. It was between school quarters for the kids and it would make for an easier transfer. They met with the new teachers and already had homework waiting to complete. Chad got right down to work, Shaun started school. Riley started nothing.

So he finally got this busy, stinky, smelly, noisy move to the city that he always wanted. He'd been begging for this for nearly twenty years.


Chad didn't expect Riley to help out at the arcade if she didn't want to—and no, she didn't want to—just as he hadn't expected her to help at the last arcade. The idea of spending all day in an arcade full of loud children and grown-up man-children felt like a nightmare to Riley.

So she found the park and watched the swans. December here was a dead shade of greenish-brown, and almost lukewarm in the middle of the day.

They didn't have to worry about what to do with Riley's animal shelter, because the state closed it down two years ago. Apparently mixing residential zoning with an animal rescue clinic was not allowed. Chad said he felt awful for her to lose the shelter after more than ten years of work, but you never saw a man so relieved to unload all of those animals, all the hair, all the noise, all the smells. And better yet, because Riley wasn't tied down by her shelter anymore, he jumped at the chance to convince her to move to the city.

He didn't succeed in the convincing, but here she was anyway. She needed to do right by Shaun. He was only nine and he needed both of his parents.


When they told Liza about the move, she was furious. "You can't do this! You're ruining my life! I'm not going. I'm eighteen in three weeks and they won't make me go." She ran straight to Robbie’s house and asked his mom’s permission to move in. Which she granted, of course, because that woman never wielded an ounce of discipline in her life.

Liza wasn't mad at her father, of course, because Chad agreed with her. “She's nearly eighteen, she's a good kid. And she's graduating in six months. Let her stay with Robbie.”

Did he not remember what happened when they were living together at eighteen?

So Riley insisted. "You have the whole rest of your life to live with Robbie. You’ll stay with your grandparents, then you’ll move into the dorms in September."

The fact of it was that, legally, nobody could make Liza do anything. Riley was glad to hear her finally say, "Fine."

So it was settled, mostly. Riley called her parents. "Want a free teenager?"

Riley's father was already retired, and her stepmother, Alice, had just relinquished her position as Education Minister because she wanted to spend more time with family. Just in time, Riley thought. Everyone probably guessed that Alice's retirement meant helping Stephanie with the baby, and Riley supposed that Stephanie would be mad at her for hijacking the grandparents—Stephanie always seemed to be disappointed in her for something—but no, Stephanie had plenty of help, constantly and forever. It was Riley’s turn for help this time, and she would take it greedily. Funny that she never asked for much help when she had Liza at nineteen, but she needed it now.


Riley called often to check in. "Is she really there?"

"Yes, she’s really here," Alice said.

"And she's going to school? She and Robbie skip out at lunch time sometimes. They'll skip the whole day if you're not firm with them."

"Don't worry," Alice said. "Do you think I haven't raised three teenagers before?"

"She drinks from your brandy globe, you know. I hope you don’t think I’m kidding."

Shaun had a homework assignment from his new school already, that much was true.


But he was fine with the move. He was optimistic about it, in fact. Shaun would pretty much side with his dad no matter what. Where his dad went, he went happily. And he was excited to be near his cousin, Raine, and her cool friends.

They were happy as clams here. Maybe they wouldn't have even noticed if Riley had stayed back home with Liza.

"You're mad at me? What's new?" Chad quipped.

It wasn't entirely true. Riley would like to point out that she was normally annoyed at him, not mad. And now she was mad.


Riley didn't like to be the bad guy all the time. He hadn't even given her enough time to try to convince Liza to come. Of course he got what he wanted, his arcade, his move to the city that he'd been raving about for twenty years, to get rid of all those animals. "It's not my fault they closed your shelter down," he said. But he sure did take advantage of it.

It's not my fault we got the abortion, he didn't say. But he had that to his advantage, too. How hard would it have been to move to the city and plunge your entire net worth into a gaming start-up with a toddler to think about?

"We should decide together," she asked of him when it happened. But he wouldn't carry his half of the decision. He said, "Whatever you decide, I'll support you." He thought he was being generous, but now it would never be half his fault.

She and Chad never told a soul about the abortion. They never would, perhaps. There was no reason for anyone to know, although she imagined there may come a day when she might like to talk to someone about it. She couldn’t think of who she could tell. Not Liza, about that sibling she would never meet. She was never really able to confide in Alice, and Stephanie disliked her most of the time. Patrick would be sympathetic, but he was a man. It wouldn’t be the same. Lara wouldn’t judge, but talking to Lara felt like talking to hot air. It was exactly the kind of thing she could always tell Samantha—she hadn't heard from Samantha in more than thirteen years, but Riley still thought of her sometimes and wondered how she was doing.


Liza refused to speak to her until after the move. Perhaps she imagined someone might try to change her mind, or steal her away in the night and drag her against her will away from Robbie. Riley had already decided that she would never want to force her.

But Riley had hoped to get her to choose Sierra Nova for college so she would be nearby. It was a great science school, and Liza would excel there. But no, she wouldn't leave Robbie. Riley didn't see Dresden Arts college as a good fit for her scientific daughter, but she had to let Liza make her own choices.


"Architecture," Liza announced. "I can study architecture at Dresden. They have a drafting program, and there's historical stuff, too."

"You’ve already decided a major? You don't want to commit to anything too soon. You might want to change your mind." She wouldn’t be eighteen for a couple more weeks, but she already had her whole life sorted out. "And I thought you might become a veterinarian."

"No, Mom, you wanted that, not me. Why don’t you become a vet if you love animals so much?"

"I’m too old to start college now," Riley said.


Chad sat down next to her, eavesdropping. He wanted to think that Liza was so mature and independent, but he sure seemed interested to know how she was doing.

"It’s never too late, Mom," Liza said. "You can go back to college. People go back to college when they're like eighty. You can get a two-year degree at Sierra Nova to be a vet tech. You can probably even get one of those scholarships for moms going back to work."

"Well, I don't know."


Chad started to type something on his own phone. Riley could hear Liza's phone chime through the line with a message.

"Are you texting her while I’m talking to her? Don’t do that!"

"You can make dad pay for it since he moved you to that awful stinky city," Liza said.

"Did your dad tell you to say that?"


See, she was often annoyed at Chad, but not necessarily mad.

—

Meanwhile, in Potomac Heights, Nessa scores major wifey points because she’s agreed to stay behind with their three little ones so that Jack could travel out to California for his best buddy's birthday bash!


And because she gives the best goodbyes.



Thirty-six hours later, the old crew was back together again, give or take a few ladies that they lost over the years. These guys (and a gal) have been best buddies since birth (two sets of twin cousins), with the addition of Chad in sixth grade. And now that four of the five have made it out west to Catalina, Jack is feeling the pressure to convince Nessa about a move, too.


Lara baked their birthday cakes. They were coconut carob, 100% vegan, and sugar-free.


First things first, Chad needed to get his uptight antisocial wife smashed so that she wouldn’t hate being out partying on her own birthday. Chad knew how to take care of his lady!


The drink was called "silent film" and Riley had probably about three of them.


Shaun came upstairs to find her. "Dad told me to ask you if you're drunk enough to sing 'Happy Birthday' yet?"

"Happy birthday to me..." Riley started singing.

"No, Mom, downstairs!"


Happy thirty-sixth birthday, Riley and Patrick!








Around eleven o'clock (an ambitious amount of party time for an uptight antisocial introvert), Riley's magic happy juice wore off. "You in the white jacket, singing 'Love Boat,' you look like a cruise ship crooner."

"My mother said I look very handsome tonight," he said.

"Yeah, well my mom is dead. Must be nice to have a mom." The burdens had all piled up inside her. But Riley didn't cry weepy tears, it was more like an outburst of rage and disappointment and sorrow. "My baby's dead, too. And maybe my best friend, Sam, but who knows because nobody's seen her in thirteen years. I miss Samantha. Dammit, Jack, I know you didn't love her, but why did it have to go down like that? It ruined everything! And I miss my mom. I just wonder if she would be disappointed in me. Pat, do you miss mom? Or no, we can't miss Mom because we hardly knew her. We were five when she died! And Alice was fine as far as stepmothers go, but it wasn't the same. She had Stephanie. And now Stephanie is always disappointed in me, and we used to be so close. We shared a bedroom for like ten years and she loved me so much when she was little, and now she just hates me. Why does everybody hate me?"

"Because you sound like a nasty spiteful witch," the man in the white jacket said.

"Back off, buddy," Patrick said.

"Nobody hates you," Jack said. "Look at all the people who came to your birthday party."

"They came for Patrick."

"That's not true," Jack said. Although Jack couldn't honestly say that he would have gone through all the fuss and expense to travel 1500 miles if it wasn't also Patrick's birthday, too. And Hayden just raised his eyebrows from the bar—not that he holds a grudge, but Riley has been cursing him relentlessly for the past three months for dragging her husband across the country and into this awful business deal.

Thankfully, nobody managed to tell Lara that Riley thought she was an airhead.


"Come here, babe," Chad said, pulling Riley into his arms. "That's enough partying for one night. Let's get you home. Let's wait outside where there's less people. I'll call us a cab."

"You're the only person who loves me," Riley moaned into her husband's shoulder. She couldn't be mad at the only person in the whole world who loved her.

"Nah, don't say that, Shaun loves you, too. And Liza. And your brother. And your dad. That's five."


When they were finally alone outside, Chad watched his wife cautiously. "Uh, so, you feeling alright now? Should I be worried?"

Riley grinned, checking her missed texts. She had one Liza, who wrote, "Happy Birthday! I love you, Mommy."

"She calls me 'Mommy' still. That's the best birthday present ever."

—

November birthdays:
1: Emily Miller is 5
4: Cameron Gibson is 34
8: Drake Cannon is 19
12: Delilah Gibson is 5
16: Eric Powell is 15
19: Austin Turner is 17
23: Anthony Booth is 13
26: Robbie McCullough is 17
27: Chantal Powell is 39
28: Nathan Lind is 37
29: Patrick Nova is 36
29: Riley Hathe is 36
29: Aaron Phoenix is 6
30: Calvin Banks is 20

November anniversaries:
11/4/2055: Adam & Heather Thompson—31 years
11/6/2083: George & Blossom McCarthy—3 years

Health Strike:
Nehemiah Pendleton, from +1 to 0

Lot Damage:
Jamie/Jessica Pendleton, wall damage

***

footnotes: how summer got hired and demoted in less than two hours // yes, Liza really loves her grandma's brandy

notes: the state closed down Riley's shelter because TS4 had no pets for two years, but she's going back to school to become a vet because TS4 is getting pets back, lol! 

Age 36 is an "aging up" birthday in my game. Which is sort of anticlimactic for these two since they were already full adults from the previous timeline. However, they do get the chance at some health point bonuses now.

Having many close friends is beneficial for a long life, and Patrick can count his on two hands and some toes. He’s close with his father, his little sister Stephanie, his own children, his cousins and their wives, nieces and nephews, his music buddies… The list goes on and on.

Patrick gets the friendship bonus.

However twins don’t share everything and Riley hasn’t kept as many friends in her life. Not the ten needed for the bonus, at least. She has about five or six, I think. Maybe that will be a midlife project for her to work on.

Drake Cannon also had an "aging up" birthday this month, #19. (Visually, there is hardly any difference between teens and YAs in TS4.) I’ve only known him a very short time, so it was hard to pick a 6th adult trait, but given his recent story, I chose “unflirty”.  He gets a good habits health bonus for his “outgoing” trait. In addition to his cuisine aspiration, he takes a popularity/party animal secondary. So he is shaping up to be a very interesting young man—outgoing but conservative, snobbish, cultured, very fussy, and likes older women, lol!