2.6 The show must go on

Kali was heartbroken and told Carmel that he would always love her, and she didn’t need to think about that heartless woman Stacey ‘Kyoti’ any longer.  The rest of the family would be all she needed until she was old enough to strike out on her own.

Lola and Elias were sad for Kali and the girls, but they were also a little relieved at Stacey’s departure.  Now they could have a second child, and their family would be complete.  It didn’t take them very long before they heard that old familiar lullaby…

Amanda and Rhiannon were slightly stunned by their mother’s departure, and by their father constantly crying that he wanted her back.  They were sad, but seeing as most of their school friends only had one parent, they didn’t find adapting to their new situation as difficult as you might expect.  Well, Rhiannon didn’t, anyway.  Amanda took to playing chess and looking through her telescope all the time, and her homework began to fall behind very rapidly.

The girls didn’t cry about Stacey’s departure in the way their father did, but their grief showed in other ways: they were for ever gossiping with people about how broke their mother now was, and Amanda discovered a new star, which she christened ‘Stacey is a slut’.  Ouch.

Pregnancy suited Lola, and she spent her maternity leave paiting portraits of the family and working on her second novel.

Christopher liked to join in and paint next to his mum, chatting about what they might call the new baby.  Music lover that he was, he favoured Hendrix for a boy or Madonna for a girl.  Lola said ‘we’ll see’ and smiled at her little boy, who was on the cusp of adolescence.  She hoped he’d be a good big brother.

For his birthday, Elias and Lola bought Christopher a suit.  He wasn’t entirely keen, having lived most of his life thus far in pyjamas, but he humoured them.  After all, they had baby-brain at the moment and weren’t really thinking straight.

He grew up into a rather striking young man with the desire to be a hit composer.  However, he decided now he was going to be a superstar muso, he needed a more suitable image.

Over coffee and homework, he asked the girls for advice.  Rhiannon suggested organically sourced clothing was the way to go.  Amanda was more fixated on the goth look.  Or corn-rows.  She wasn’t especially fussy.

It didn’t take Christopher too long to figure it out.  As soon as he’d got changed, he picked up a guitar and started to rehearse.  He already had a well developed musical skill from playing xylophone as a child, so was well on his way to achieving his wish.

Lianndra popped by to see how the household were managing after Stacey’s departure.  Lola was delighted that her mother was able to witness this second pregnancy of hers.  That night, she gave birth to a baby boy.  She decided to honour Christopher’s wish for a musician’s name, yet keep her and Elias’s personal preferences for a more traditional one – they named him Liam.

Liam’s birth sparked off a host of family events.  Alli and Lola became adults, but chose not to celebrate their birthday this time.  Considering their previous birthday parties had always killed someone off, they simply phoned each other to mark the day rather than hosting a party.  Kali had never been one for superstition, though, and was happy to celebrate both his aging up to elder and Carmel aging up to become a child.

Just like Christopher, she’d inherited Lianndra’s hair colouring, but her face was definitely in Stacey’s likeness.  Not that Carmel really knew Stacey.  She hadn’t seen her mother since she walked out on her as a toddler.  An artistic child, she rolled the wish to become Master of the Arts.

Amanda and Rhiannon made sure that their parties were full of all the eligible young male sims in Sunset Valley.  Neither had yet got a boyfriend and both were eager to find one.

They also fought over who’d get to babysit baby Liam.  The girls had been close all their lives, but as they grew through their teens, they started to become rivals for the attentions of all the local boys, and of their baby cousin.  There was a good reason for this.  Their family legacy was determined by the eldest child, yet in the case of twins or triplets, the first to reproduce would become the heir.  If Amanda and Rhiannon were to determine who would carry on the legacy, they needed to develop their childcare skills and bag themselves some mates…