Deasil

Street1.2

Time marches on, as it does, and James Bailey was about to age up into a toddler. Miranda didn’t want a party, so no one was invited to share the moment with them.

Tellingly, it was Warren who looked after James and the house. He was a house husband, so that wasn’t unexpected or unusual. But Miranda worked from home, and she never took any interest in her son. Even in the evenings.

When Warren went out for job interviews, or even just to the shops, James would be left ignored in the crib next to her desk.

In truth, Miranda had other, weighty matters on her mind. She had had to cut her hair short to hide the fact it was falling out. The headaches were still persisting, and she had no appetite, often vomiting whenever she did eat.

In the end, she went to the doctors. She suspected having James had messed her body up somehow.

Warren waited for her to come back, but she didn’t that night. And she didn’t call either. She’d told him she was working late, not going to the hospital. Still, he was worried, thinking she was working too hard, they didn’t need the money that badly.

The next day, Warren couldn’t understand why she was avoiding his questions. Where had she been, why hadn’t she called? Her evasions just maddened him.

When she collapsed one day, the story had to finally come out.

She blurted everything out to her husband in seconds. She had brain cancer, was undergoing chemo and wasn’t sure if she would live.

Talk about a shock.

Warren did his all to make his wife comfortable. Nothing was too much trouble as long as she’d only rest. Money wasn’t an object, he did odd jobs for people whenever he could top up their income while she took time off work.

As the remains of her hair fell out, she shaved her head. Warren managed to convince her it didn’t matter, he still loved her. He just wanted to keep her morale up. The tumour wasn’t responding, and the spectre of surgery was looming.

He went with her to her appointments, leaving James with Jen Martinez. They chatted about how things would be after she recovered. She’d get her job back, maybe a promotion.

Warren and Miranda found a new closeness. She opened up about her reservations about their son, he confessed he wished he had been able to provide better for everyone.

James didn’t seem to pick up on any of the undercurrents in the house. He was a fairly easy child to look after, happy on his own playing with his toys.

Warren was so impressed with his son, occasionally he’d swear actual tunes would emerge from the random plonking on the xylophone.

He understood that Miranda was having trouble with him, but he was sure once she was well again she’d be better able to connect.

Occasionally though, Warren would leave James alone with Miranda to go out and keep in with neighbours. Pablo Martinez was always throwing parties, he felt he had to go to at least some of them. At this one, even the mysterious Ariette Vickers was in attendance – one of the inhabitants of the original house at the end of Deasil Street.

If Miranda had attended, she would have picked up on far more than he. Warren was completely ignorant of the strange undertones between Pablo and some blonde bombshell he’d not met before.

Jen wasn’t completely oblivious to Pablo’s slightly inappropriate interest in this colleague– but she decided he was flirting with her because she must be a superior he had to keep sweet. So she let it go.

At the end of the Street, was the last property of the once prosperous Vickers family. Once used as a suburban stopover while they travelled between homes, it was now their only home. And they were feeling the downturn in their fortunes keenly.

Ariette was now living with her elderly father in a house with only one member of staff. There were no more glittering parties with society gossip, no more foreign holidays being wooed by enigmatic members of other cultures…. Just Appaloosa. And latterly, a lot of builders creating the rest of Deasil Street.

She kept up with her dwindling number of rich and feted friends as best she could, but the titbits of gossip she could get from them were now few and far between. She was being forgotten.

That was why she’d gone to Pablo’s party. She needed a new network. Why not the one that had literally been dumped on her doorstep?

Miranda was worsening. The chemo hadn’t been effective and the tumour was inoperable.

The doctors made her as comfortable as possible, and it was due in part to them that she slipped away so peacefully. Warren was at her side when her eyes closed for the last time.

Her ghost emerged, as they do in the final moments of a sims time on earth. Though they could no longer communicate, they shared a final look.

Then the grim reaper appeared, and Warren went through the grim spectacle of watching his wife leave without him. Normally an experience only endured by elderly sims expecting to lose a spouse, Warren was utterly unprepared.

Warren filled in the paperwork and returned home without her.

He took his son in his arms, keeping him close in his grief. Miranda never really warmed to her son, but James was all that was left of her now.

The news of Miranda’s death soon spread to the other inhabitants to the Street. None of them really knew her, so the news was mostly considered in relation to themselves. Pablo worried how Jen would react to a motherless urchin across the road, and Ariette was just glad she was contacted. She had been accepted.

No. 2Warren and Miranda Bailey

No. 6Pablo and Jennifer Martinez

No. 1For Sale

No. 5Empty Lot

No. 5For Sale

No. 3For Sale

No. 7Harry Vickers and his daughter Ariette

Deasil Street

How will Warren cope with his wife’s death?Has Ariette really been accepted by the other residents?

Find out next time on Deasil Street!

Next Time…