3.8 Four funerals and a wedding

Amanda Kyoti woke with a feeling that this would be her lucky day.  After a long and difficult career, she knew she was going to edge that promotion level 9 of her career today, bringing her that bit closer to her dream of being a Creature-Robot Cross-Breeder.  She could feel it ‘in her water’.

Elias Kyoti was feeling pretty good, too.  Here he was, at 119 years old, and he had the privilege of helping to raise a third generation of children.  With his help, SatelliteJuno was soon chattering away.

Christopher Kyoti was also feeling pretty good.  He’d finally gotten to the top of his career, achieving his lifetime wish to be a hit movie composer.  He decided now was the time to retire, and to move on.  His cousins Amanda and Carmel tried to persuade him to stay at home, but he pointed out that with Carmel and Daniela both approaching their elder birthdays, the house would soon be overrun by pensioners.  He’d always known the Kyoti home as a place for children to grow.  He didn’t think it should be full of so many old-timers.  Besides, he wasn’t going to be far away…

…his movie earnings had allowed him to buy the big house across the road.

Things might have been going well for the second and third generation of the Kyoti family, but the fourth generation were struggling.  Daniela had become tired of Joseph sneaking around and coming in late at night.  She accused him of having an affair.  After all, he seemed to only have female friends.  Joseph had to come clean.  He told her of his job in the criminal career track.  He explained he hadn’t wanted to do it, hadn’t meant to, but it had flexible hours that allowed him to build up his skills and spend time with his daughters.  It paid well, and what’s more, he was beginning to get good at it.  OK, so he’d had a few nights in the cells.  He wasn’t proud of that fact.  But he was using his logic and athletic skills to the max.  He wasn’t a bad person, he just wanted to do the best for his family.  Daniela wasn’t impressed.  She told him he was insane.  She knew that would cut him to the core: he was so afraid of showing his weakness, and he hated it being pointed out.  He begged her not to tell the rest of the family – they’d be so ashamed.

Daniela reluctantly agreed, but when she was teaching SkyBlueGinger to talk, she advised her daughter to make sure she knew absolutely everything about the person she wanted to marry before making a commitment.

Joseph was angry and hurt by his wife refusing to support his career.  Didn’t she understand how hard it was for someone with his ‘weakness’ to  make a living?  Didn’t she want her daughters to grow up well?  Didn’t she want him to achieve his lifetime ambition?  And anyway, hadn’t she been a bit dishonest with him by not admitting how old she really was?  He loved Daniela, he loved her more than he could imagine.  He didn’t want to be like his late grandparents: Amanda told him about how they divorced when she and her sisters were still young.  Joseph had no intention of divorcing Daniela and he hoped she had no intention of divorcing him, but why did things have to be so hard?

Carmella Kyoti aged into an elder and immediately dyed her hair back.  She wasn’t having any of this growing old gracefully lark.  She talked to her sister Amanda about whether it was time for her to move out – after all, she had no job and she’d fulfilled her lifetime ambition some time ago.  Maybe she should do what Christopher, Liam and Rhiannon had all done and strike out on her own?  Amanda begged her to stay – her income from gigs in the park, paintings and novel writing was good for the family, and besides, Carmel was the official family portrait painter – nobody else could even paint a stroke.  Amanda was also worried that someone as ‘special’ (i.e. insane) as her sister couldn’t cope on their own.  They agreed it was in everyone’s best interests for Carmel to stay in the house.

Meanwhile, the last surviving member of generation two, Elias, was brushing up on his charisma skill when death came for him.

At 119, the eldest Kyoti yet departed to make room for the younger generations and to be reunited with his soul-mate, Lola.

Elias’s passing left the rest of the family with some big challenges.  Here was a man who’d helped raise three generations, who’d had a long and happy marriage, who’d reached the top of his career, who’d developed many skills and who’d never once complained about it.  He wasn’t even a Kyoti by birth, but by marriage, and yet he was one of the biggest inspirations any of them had ever had.  Joseph looked at his wife.

Daniela was still angry with him, but she knew he was trying to do his best for the family.  And she loved him.  They agreed to stop fighting and instead do their best for each other and the girls.  For now Joseph would stay in his job, but he’d do his best not to harm anyone they cared for in the process.

Lucas Kyoti started to become obsessed with finding himself a wife.  He tried to chat up every woman that came over to play chess with him.  He was particularly keen on Joseph’s criminal cohort Clara Bunch, despite everyone warning him that the Bunches had ‘bad genes’ and he shouldn’t get involved.  Clara didn’t sem to be interested in Lucas, though.

Amanda, overcome by emotion after her uncle’s death, ran straight back into the arms of old flame (and Lucas’s dad), Dominic.  She didn’t want anything from him really, she just wanted to feel something, to touch someone, to know that in this frightening last stage of life, she could still find passion.

It was soon birthday time again for the Kyotis, and they braced themselves for Grimmy’s reappearance.  Daniela went first, grimacing as she reluctantly ventured into the world of elderhood.

SkyBlueGinger was next…

SatelliteJuno took her turn.  She wasn’t so keen on the whole birthday thing, being neurotic.  It felt like everyone was staring at her.

However, it wasn’t SatelliteJuno that her uncle Lucas was staring at……Kiley Layton, the teenager he’d spotted at the last family gathering, had grown into a very attractive young lady.

Grimmy didn’t attend this party.  But he did send a telegram.  Rhiannon and Christopher had been taking a holiday in the Carribean and there’d been an accident.  Neither they or their gravestones would be returning to the Kyoti residence.

The loss of her twin and her cousin sent Amanda Kyoti into a frenzy of working and skill-building.  She was the third generation heir, she had a responsibility to get to the top of her career – and in a matter of days, she finally did.

The first thing she did when she got home was perform an experiment on the toilet.  Nothing seemed to happen, but it started to crackle with a yellow electric glow, and the rest of the family soon started referring to that room as ‘the guest bathroom’, preferring to argue over the other five facilities in the house than take their chances with it.

The family held a special dinner to celebrate Amanda’s promotion, and Lucas took the opportunity to ask Kiley to stay over… and to become his wife.  Kiley didn’t have a family of her own and she was a loner, so they held a private ceremony in the bathroom.

Whilst this was going on, Amanda went out to tend the garden.  Buoyed from her promotion, she was determined to max out her gardening skill, and she was only a couple of hours away from doing so.

As she weeded the bell peppers, she looked up.  She hadn’t been expecting this visitor yet, but it was her 98th birthday, so she must have known he was coming soon…

The Kyoti legacy had officially passed into its fourth generation.

3.6 Go go go Joseph

Daniela Kyoti couldn’t believe her luck.  She was new to Sunset Valley, having moved there on a whim.  She was approaching old age and had figured her child-bearing years were over, so she wanted a new start.  And yet here she was, newly married to a rich man with a pool!  OK, so he was a bit ‘quirky’, but he was sweet and attractive and encouraged her when she said she wanted to be known for having a golden tongue and golden fingers.  She didn’t think he even spotted the innuendo in that phrase.

She was having a swim one evening when she found herself experiencing a lot of pain.

It was a girl!  Reluctantly, she’d agreed to call her daughter SkyBlueGinger.  It was a compromise.  She’d wanted ‘Sarah’, Joseph had wanted ‘Xyghfrtg’.  She was about to bring the baby inside when she felt another sharp stab of pain… and gave birth to a second daughter.

Elias was bowled over that there were twin girls in the house for the third time.  He felt he was a bit of a twins expert now.  He was also so excited to be in a household that had four generations living in it.  He had spent the past few days longing for death to take him to be with Lola, but now he had something to give him a purpose again, raising SkyBlueGinger and her sister, SatelliteJuno.

Joseph, however, was freaking out at the responsibilities of fatherhood.  He hadn’t even got a job yet, and the house was full of old people.  He couldn’t keep relying on their incomes.  He needed employment.  He scoured the job ads, looking for work that would fit in with the time he needed to build up his logic and athletics skills, and one that would preferably use them.

The one option that seemed to fit was in the criminal track.  But how could he tell his family that this was what he was doing?  Elias used to be a cop, and Amanda and Lucas were so good that they kept giving money to charity.  And how could he tell Daniela?  They’d just had two babies.

His first night on the job, Joseph was terrified.  He spent the whole day pacing up and down or going for a swim in his boots.  Eventually the time came and he told them he was going out to the gym to work as a trainer.  His mouth was dry, he hoped none of the family would go to the gym and catch him out.

The first night seemed to be going well…  until… ‘KYOTI!  YOU’RE NICKED SUNSHINE!’

3.5 Marry me, bury me

Since losing his wife and childhood sweetheart, Elias Kyoti’s life felt devoid of meaning.  He’d risen to the top of his career, he’d raised several children.  He had nothing much left to live for.  He spent his days pottering about in his dressing-gown, occasionally pausing to play rugby with the cleaners.

Elias wasn’t the only member of the Kyoti family with heavy concerns weighing him down.  Joseph Kyoti, eldest son of the current heir (and therefore the one destined to take on the heir’s mantle for the fourth generation), also had a lot to think about.  He’d decided his lifetime ambition was to have a healthy body and a healthy mind.  He hoped these two would temper his insane traits somewhat.  His little brother Lucas decided he wanted to be a chess grand master, and playing chess games together was helping both of them with their relationship as well as giving them a good chance of achieving their ambitions.  However, ambition wasn’t enough.  Joseph needed to think about how he would earn money and who he would marry.  He’d had no luck getting a date with childhood friend Cody Blank, and the town seemed to have a lack of eligible young women.

One day, he was playing chess in the park, when he spotted the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.  She was new to the area.  He knew he had to get to know her.

He invited her over on a whim and discovered she was called Daniela.  It wasn’t long before they shared their first kiss.

Nobody in the family had ever proposed (the last person to do so was his late Aunt Lola) so Joseph hadn’t been schooled in the etiquette of dating and marriage.  Therefore, he decided that it was appropriate to propose straight after his first kiss, in the midst of crying over his dead Aunt.  Unsurprisingly, Daniela said no.  Surprisingly, she did agree to stay the night.

For the first time (well, it was the first day they’d met!), they made love.  Joseph couldn’t have been happier.

The next morning, he worked up the courage to propose again.

This time, she agreed.  Perhaps she’d fallen for Joseph’s charms, or perhaps she’d just realised he lived in a pretty nice gaff.  Anyway, the date was set for that afternoon, just before sunset, and they planned to have a beach wedding.

They rang round people to invite them, and Elias went to visit Alli’s daughter Sherita to invite her in person and break the news of Lola’s death.

He met Sherita’s daughter, Nakia.  She’d got the Kyoti hair, and had grown up with the traits of Loner, Kleptomaniac and Loser.  This was perhaps no surprise, considering she lived in a house with only one bed and one window that hadn’t been decorated since Alli first moved out.

Carmel Kyoti became the first member of the family to achieve her lifetime wish (to become a Master of the Arts) before elderhood, and she was asked to play guitar at the ceremony.  Of course, every now and then she’d break out into a bit of freeform jazz-reggae-hip-hop, but such is the way of the insane.

The ceremony was incredibly beautiful.  The couple looked gorgeous, they exchanged some very attractive rings and the whole congregation applauded.

When it came to signing the register, however, Joseph got a bit of a shock.  He, only a couple of days into his young adulthood, had married a woman who was very close to becoming an elder.  He loved Daniela, he thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but he’d assumed she was his age.  Clearly the spa was offering more treatments than he’d realised.

Both Daniela and Joseph knew there was no time to delay in starting a family.

And so a honeymoon baby was conceived…

3.4 Live and let die

Things were going well for the Kyoti family.  Christopher, Elias and Amanda were all making good steady progress in their careers and maxing out yet more skills.  Carmel was painting, playing guitar and writing novels with every spare minute she had.  Joseph and Lucas were making good progress at school.  Lola was enjoying retirement and earning a nice income from painting and novel writing.  All of them were happy.

The neighbourhood appeared to be flourishing, too.  Miranda, Alli’s old flame, was still going strong despite being an elder when Alli and Lola were young(ish) adults.After many years of marriage, Elias and Lola were as in love as ever.  They would often spend long evenings chatting, dancing, making out and woo-hooing.  They just hoped Joseph and Lucas would find the kind of happiness they had, and both were a little sad that the third generation hadn’t managed to produce any happy marriages.

Joseph started trying to find a girlfriend.  He wanted to hook someone who would help him carry on the legacy before his insanity became too apparent.  He could see the signs increasing in his aunt Carmel as she grew older, so he figured time wasn’t on his side.  He was keen to woo his childhood friend, Cody Blank.  She often came round to visit, as did Destiny Ursine.  Destiny wasn’t sure Joseph and Cody would make a great pairing, though, and she told him many times that she didn’t believe Cody was right for him.  Joseph couldn’t imagine any other girl being interested in him.  He knew Cody wasn’t perfect, but who else would love him?

As the family prepared to celebrate Amanda and Lucas’s birthday, however, they received sad news.  At the age of 98, Alli had passed away.  Lola was afraid this would mean her time was coming.  It was a birthday, her twin had passed away, it must now be her time as well…

Lucas aged up to look very similar to his dad, Dominic, and not much like Joseph.  He decided that he wanted to be a chess grandmaster and Amanda encouraged him to follow the dream.  She was secretly worried about her own dream, though.  Time was marching on, and she was still three promotions away from where she wanted to be.

Over a game of chess, she discussed her worries with Christopher, who shared his own worries that his mum, Lola, might not make it through the night.

Fortunately, the family’s fears were unfounded, and Lola continued to flourish and to write novels that made her a tidy profit.  Elias achieved his new lifetime wish to become a Superstar Athlete but decided not to retire – he found that the sport kept him feeling young, and now he and Lola were both over 100, keeping active was a priority.

Lola accompanied Joshua on fishing trips and they talked a lot about the pressures of running a legacy.  She told him how her brother Kali had always helped her to feel important, that she never felt ‘spare’ to the family, and hoped Joseph would treat Lucas in the same way.  Joseph confessed that he was worried he would never find a girlfriend.  Lola assured him that he was a lovely young man and he would make a good husband and father one day, as long as he was careful and didn’t overdo things.

Christopher was one promotion off the top of his career when he became an elder.  He’d been dreading this transition – the sagginess, the dreadful hair and clothes… but he took to it quite well.

It was also Joseph’s birthday, his time to become a young adult and start to consider how he would continue the legacy.

He turned out to be surprisingly attractive – which would be a bonus in attracting the ladies – yet hot-headed, to add to his cowardice and insanity.  As he aged up, though, he heard a startling sound…

A familiar Kyoti party guest had made his regular appearance.  This time, his guest had anticipated what was coming, and didn’t put up a fight.

At the age of 110, having helped raise seven children (two of her own, three of Kali’s, two of Amanda’s), having achieved her lifetime wish, written several novels, painted many great art works and after having a long and joyful marriage, Lola Kyoti and the Grim Reaper met at a birthday party for the sixth and final time.

3.3 Two Little Boys

One quiet afternoon in the Kyoti household, Amanda went to use the toilet… and her waters broke.  Carmel was shocked – she hadn’t even realised her sister was pregnant.

Elias went over to Dominic’s house to tell him the baby was on the way, but he wasn’t there.  Elias did, however, spot a baby just lying on the floor, all alone.

He asked Dominic’s sister about the child.  She was rather blase about it.  She said it was another of Dominic’s children.  He had three now.  They just kept turning up on the doorstep.

Elias feared for Amanda.  Was this the kind of man she really wanted in her life?  Would Dominic even give her any maintenance money for the child, much less pay it any attention?  He looked at the little baby girl on the floor and his heart bled.  What kind of a man would bring children into the world and then abandon them.  Mind you, what kind of man would cheat on his partner with his partner’s cousin?

Elias vowed that he and Lola would help Amanda with the new baby as much as they could as it was clear Dominic would be an unreliable father at best.

Baby Lucas was born good and a genius, like his mother.  Amanda stared at this little boy she’d brought into the world and took stock of her life.  What was she thinking, taking so many risks with her and her family’s happiness by screwing around with Dominic?  OK, so he was handsome, and charming, and oh, so irresistible… but he was still a cad and a coward.  She decided that she couldn’t keep messing around with him.  He could see his son and come over for parties, but other than that, she would cut all ties with him.  She’d spend her time now with her family, with her sons and working on her career.  Men were definitely off the agenda.

She started to help Joseph with his homework.  Even when she was hungry, she made sure her little boy was coping with the work before she put the stove on.  She started fishing and gardening like mad, and fixing things around the home, in order to build her skills up for work.  Her dad and grandad had been avid gardeners and fishers and she liked to think she was carrying on something of them.  Her mother, for all her faults, had been great at DIY and Amanda found it was actually quite nice to have something of Stacey in her life as well.

She encouraged Joseph to go out and spend time with friends and family.  He was a little worried about this, but found he actually got on very well with them.  Sherita invited him on a picnic and introduced him to the magic of hot dogs.  Joseph was very excited at this, as at home, his mum kept feeding him boring old healthy autumn salad.

Lola achieved her lifetime wish to become a Star News Anchor and decided to retire so she could spend time writing novels, painting masterpieces and enjoying the children growing up.  She didn’t have any grandchildren of her own: Liam was busy with his career and Christopher was too absorbed in his music, so Amanda’s boys were like granchildren to her and Elias.  As their own grandparents were dead, the relationship with Lola and Elias was just as important to Joseph and Lucas.  Lucas was another little bald toddler, but no less attractive for it.

One day, Amanda sat Joseph down and said they needed to have a serious talk.  She explained about the family legacy, about how her grandmother had passed the role of heir to her father, and how Joseph would one day inherit the title from her.  Joseph nodded, taking it all in.  He had a big responsibility.

However, Amanda didn’t expect him to be quite so forward in looking for a mate, and quickly had to tell him that asking girls (in this case Cody) to share your bed was not appropriate until you were at least a young adult.

With confidence that his life was important, that he was special (he was going to be an heir!), Joseph leapt into teenhood… and rolled ‘coward’.

He decided to celebrate his teenhood by taking to hairdye and make-up.  His ‘grandad’ Elias encouraged him to work on his athletic skill so that he would be able to fight off any of the bullies, burglars or other terrifying people he might meet.

Unfortunately, Joseph hadn’t quite got the hang of appropriate exercise-wear…

He was a proud big brother though, and promised to teach little Lucas everything he could.  Of course that didn’t amount to anything very useful, but the sentiment was there.

Lucas was in awe of his big brother and when he grew up, he was very excited to discover that he looked just like Joseph had.  Their personalities were very different, but they had a real affection for one another.

Dominic turned up to his son’s birthday.  He and Rhiannon couldn’t resist flirting in order to wind Amanda up.  Neither would admit it, but they were both jealous of her life.

Amanda just rose above it all, though.  Now she was a mature adult, she’d put away the concerns of her younger days.  It had all been about her, about proving she was better than Rhiannon, proving she could be the heir, that she could make men fall for her.  Now that wasn’t her concern.  She spent time helping her sons with their homework and playing chess with them, as well as continuing to build her skills and work hard.  It had taken her time to realise what was important, but she hoped she would be an heir who proved her worth as much as her father had done,  and that she would pass the legacy on well to Joseph (or to Lucas, should any unfortunate fate befall her eldest).

3.2 Please please let me get what I want

Rhiannon Kyoti knew she should be there for her twin sister Amanda.  After all, Amanda had a little boy and on her son’s birthday, his father suddenly died.  Being a new mum, and a bereaved one at that, was hard.  Juggling that with trying to forge a career as a creature-robot-cross-breeder was even harder.  But Rhiannon just couldn’t do it.  She couldn’t be second-best.  She had desperately wanted to be the family heir, but that role had gone to her sister.  She didn’t want to be like her Aunt Lola, chained to the family home, raising children that weren’t even hers.  Rhiannon knew it was time to strike out on her own, to make a life away from the family home.  If she stayed and watched Amanda living out her role as the heir, she knew she’d only grow bitter.

Amanda was troubled by the responsibilities of heirdom.  She’d wanted this role.  She’d made sure she was the first of the twins to have a baby in order to secure this role.  But it was harder than she realised.  She’d given birth to a child who was insane, she’d lost her partner, she was struggling to advance at work, and she had the business of trying to produce a spare to attend to.  With an insane child, you could never be too careful.

Even though Rhiannon had moved on, there were still plenty of relatives on hand to help Amanda raise little Joseph.  Her cousin Liam, generally shy and uncommunicative (well, he was a teenager), loved the little boy and got involved in his upbringing.  Of course, it wasn’t all childrearing.  The family had lots to attend to with developing their careers.

Amanda’s little sister Carmel was well on her way to becoming a Master of the Arts.  She spent all her time painting, writing novels and playing her guitar in the park.

Well, when she wasn’t talking to herself… or shouting at herself, as was her usual wont.

Lola and Christopher were making good progress in their journalism and music careers, and both started a nice little sideline in writing novels.  Elias, Lola’s husband, wasn’t so excited about his police career, however.  The work was tiring, promotions were hard to come by, and he didn’t enjoy it that much.  He kept getting job offers from the athletic stadium asking him to come and play for their team and help lift them from the losing streak they’d been in since Lianndra retired.

Elias was so tempted.  He loved sports and he knew he was qualified for the job.  However, if he changed his lifetime wish to become a Superstar Athlete, he would be repeating the feat of his late mother-in-law, rather than forging a path of his own and giving the Kyoti family a new achievement to be proud of.

He had a long heart-to-heart with Lola.  She assured him that the happiness of fulfilling his desires would add more to the legacy than him stressing out trying to reach the top of a career he just wasn’t cut out for.  He had given so much to the family already by his willingness to help raise all the children that he didn’t need to burn himself out in a job he hated.  She knew athletics was something he loved and she was happy that he had been offered promotions.  Besides, it would be a lovely tribute to her mother if he led her team to victory once more.

Amanda invited her old flame, Dominic, over more and more.  The family did not approve of this.  Dominic’s partner, Solomon, was Amanda and Carmel’s cousin, after all.  It was bad enough she was seeing a man who was taken, let alone one who was practically family.  Amanda didn’t care, though.  There was something so magnetic about Dominic that she couldn’t resist.  And after all, she wasn’t planning to marry him… just have his babies.

It wasn’t long before Liam grew up, and with his parents’ blessing, he too left the family home to forge a new life for himself.

Dominic stayed over more and more, and often hung around the house afterwards.  Carmel and Lola were very unimpressed and often had harsh words with both him and Amanda, warning them not to break Solomon’s heart.  Amanda didn’t let their criticisms get to her.  If Dominic and Solomon were that serious, Dominic wouldn’t be spending every night with her (or flirting with the maids).

Joseph grew up with little fuss.  His family was rather crazy and once they’d made sure he could walk, talk and use the potty, they’d kind of left him to his own devices.  He was incredibly lonely since Liam moved out and really hoped he’d get a brother or sister or cousin to share his life with.  He didn’t want to be the only kid in the family.

He took to visiting the cemetery on a regular basis.  Amanda was worried about this but Joseph told her he was just looking for the best bugs, seeds and rocks, and the graveyard was a great place to find them.

What he didn’t tell her was that he’d also go and visit Garrick’s grave and cry on a regular basis.  Was it his fault his daddy died?

3.1 Be my baby

The morning after Kali’s death, both Rhiannon and Amanda got up and went to the bathroom.  The twins were each hoping that the previous night’s woohoo had led to a pregnancy, thus ensuring that they would be the third generation heir.

Rhiannon wasn’t feeling too sick, though.  She was more concerned with fixing the broken toilet on the second floor.

Downstairs, however, Amanda was in an altogether different predicament from her sister…

Amanda couldn’t wait to tell Garrick the news that he was looking at the third generation heir to the Kyoti legacy, and the fourth generation heir was on the way.  Oh, and he was about to become a daddy.

The time soon came for Amanda to give birth, and for a moment she wished Rhiannon had been the one to get pregnant instead.  Why didn’t anyone warn her that labour hurt this much?!

Baby Joseph, who would become the fourth generation heir if all went to plan, was born athletic like his grandma… and insane.  Uh-oh.

Speaking of insane sims, Amanda’s little sister Carmel was keeping herself busy by burning down the barbecue.

Talking of acting strangely, the family elders, Aunt Lola and Uncle Elias were also behaving in an odd manner.  Their elderhood had caused both of them to spend their free time rummaging in people’s bins in order to further their careers in journalism and law enforcement.

Becoming the heir naturally meant the job of tending the garden fell to Amanda, although she wasn’t yet as dedicated to it as her father and grandparents.

She preferred to go to the pool with Rhiannon and check out the dungarees-and-grey-sweater clad talent.

On one of their jaunts to the pool, they witnessed something unexpected…

…one of the other people at the pool suddenly died… and there wasn’t even a birthday cake in sight!

Amanda’s cousin Christopher was making a real name for himself as a star musician in Sunset Valley, but he knew that there was an untapped, and ever-growing, market to play to.  He began to become a regular on the cemetary circuit.

Of course, where there are deaths, there are birthdays, and it was soon Joseph’s.

His aunt Lola took him to the cake, trembling as she wondered whether she would be the one to die on this birthday.

Joseph’s father Garrick was there, and had suddenly aged up.  Amanda’s stomach turned.  She’d been hoping tonight would be the night she could persuade him to provide her with a ‘spare’ (after all, Joseph was insane, so you could never be too careful).  But his haggard appearance and sad insistence on keeping his youthful hairstyle really put her off.  For one thing, he looked way too much like her late dad at the moment.

Joseph grew up to be a cutie with dark hair, like both of his parents.  The party carried on throughout the afternoon with no major incidents, and everyone left early enough that the family could get to spend some quality time with little Joseph before bed time.

Did you read that right?  Could there possibly  have been a Kyoti birthday without a death?

Is that even possible?

Of course not.

Moments after leaving the house, Garrick passed away.

Amanda was distraught.  Not only had she lost her boyfriend, not only had Joseph lost his father, but Garrick was barely into elderhood when he died.  What damage had his genes done to the future of the Kyoti legacy?

2.10 The final countdown

Rhiannon Kyoti was feeling smug.  She’d got herself a boyfriend.  OK, so he was a maid, which wasn’t the most glamorous of careers, but who cared?  She was surely that bit closer to becoming the heir to the Kyoti legacy.

Amanda was finding it hard work to try and meet a man, win her chess games and progress in her career.  She took to sleeping at strange times of the day, and started to neglect her personal hygiene, not quite realising this might be why she was having such trouble bagging a mate.

The twins’ father, Kali, was experiencing the common questions and desires all elders face.  What mark had they left on the world?  What did they want to achieve before their time was up?  What would their legacy be?  He was worried about his daughters and their failure to produce him any grandchildren.  He was worried about his youngest daughter, Carmel, and whether she would grow up well.  There was so much he had to think about, and so much he had to put right.

His first decision was to persuade Alli and Lola that they needed to celebrate their next birthday.  They both resisted.  All of their birthday parties had involved death, and they couldn’t face that happening again.  But he pointed out that it might be the last chance they got to really celebrate with the whole family there.  Everyone was getting older.  The elders in the family may not be around much longer, and the young adults and teens would soon be off doing their own thing.  They decided to hold a joint celebration with Lola’s youngest, Liam, and invited the whole clan round.

Alli and Lola were secretly rather pleased that they could celebrate together for their final birthday.  They were so much closer now than when they were younger, and they were happy to mark that fact.

Still, neither was all that impressed with the aging process…

Liam was equally unimpressed with teenhood…

Amanda left the party early with Garrick, a young man she’d known for a while, and was determined to get to know away from the madness of her family and the stares of her sister.  They went to the park and chatted about work, family and fishing.

They seemed to be hitting it off OK, but Garrick looked at his watch and made some excuse about having to be up in the morning for work.  Dominic was there, though, and they arranged to go for a picnic the next day and catch up on old times.

Amanda discovered he was still with Solomon, but that didn’t stop them having a cheeky flirt and playing a couple of games of chess.

Whilst the girls were busy with the men of Sunset Valley, Kali received a rather unexpected phone call.  It was Stacey, asking him to bring over some vegetables to stock her kitchen.

Kali’s vegetable business had been earning him a tidy profit, and Stacey was offering to pay well.  With a family to support after his death, he couldn’t really pass up the opportunity… but he hadn’t seen his ex-wife since Carmel was little.  He’d heard she was broke but other than that knew nothing about what she was doing these days.

Full of trepidation, Kali approached the door.  What would things be like between him and his ex-wife?  He’d hated her at the time for breaking his heart, but a lot of water had passed under the bridge since then, and he was too old to bear grudges.  Part of him wanted to make amends – after all, she was the mother of his children.

Somebody clearly wasn’t broke any longer.

They chatted for hours.  They both apologised for the mess they’d left their marriage in and forgave each other.  They hugged and held each other tight, both glad they’d managed to heal the wound before they reached the end of their lives.  Kali invited Stacey to Carmel’s birthday later that week.  She was nervous about whether she’d be welcome but he assured her that it was his house, and she was his guest.

Stacey was incredibly nervous at the party.  She found it difficult to interact with the rest of the family, and felt uncomfortable being back in the home that she’d found so repressive when she was a young woman.  She looked back on her life and wondered if she’d made good choices, and most importantly, whether the decisions she’d made had affected her daughters.

Kali encouraged his ex-wife to join in with the party, and brought her to the front of the group so she could see Carmel age up into the beautiful young woman he was confident she’d become.

Carmel did indeed grow up to be stunning… but also insane.  Perhaps the stress of losing her mother at such a young age and being reunited with her on the threshold of adulthood had caused her deeper scars than anyone had realised.  Stacey bought her daughter a twinset and pearls.  Begrudgingly, Carmel wore them…

…but as soon as her mother left, she changed into something that was much more her style.

Kali seranaded his youngest with a special birthday song.  He was so proud of raising three beautiful daughters as a single dad, of seeing his two little sisters age up into confident women with families of their own, of becoming a renowned musician, fisherman and gardener, and of healing the rift with his ex-wife.

There was nothing more he needed to do.

Surrounded by his whole family (plus Garrick and Andrew), in the afterglow pf Carmel’s party, Kali breathed his last.

The Kyoti family’s most frequent party guest may have turned up a little after the cake for a change, but he was still here…

Elias was the first to break down and cry as his best friend departed.

Amanda turned to Garrick and cried on his shoulder.  She told him he was such a strong support to her, she’d love it if they went steady.

Amanda whispered to her new boyfriend that if he really wanted to help her through her grief, there was one thing he could do for her…

…Funnily enough, Rhiannon was upstairs saying the same things to Andrew…

Whilst the rest of the family cried downstairs and cleaned up the cake crumbs, Amanda and Rhiannon took their boyfriends up to their bedrooms in the hope they could persuade them to give them the one thing they needed in this time of grief… a baby…

2.9 I want that man

The rest of their family may have been content with simply focussing on the mundane things in life such as working, aging up and building their skills, but Amanda and Rhiannon were young women on a mission.  Their father, Kali, was an elder, which meant they needed to get on with the serious business of deciding who would be the heir to the Kyoti legacy.  The first of them to bear a child would inherit the role.  Amanda found another guy at Liam’s party wearing the Dungarees/grey sweater combo that was all the rage in Sunset Valley.  They got chatting, and it turned out he was called Dominic.  He was in a relationship with some guy called Solomon, but Amanda figured this relati0nship might not be all that serious, and even if it was, she might get a new gay best friend out of it.

It didn’t take her long to convince him to stay over that night.  Or the next.  Or the one after that.  She figured his relationship with Solomon couldn’t be that special if he was spending all his time with her.  They started to flirt a bit, and even kissed.

The rest of the family weren’t impressed with the growing friendship between Amanda and Dominic.  Carmel and Rhiannon accused her of being disloyal to the family.  Amanda was nonplussed.  They pointed out that Solomon was their cousin, son of Delbert  (Stacey’s brother).  Amanda hadn’t ever met her uncle or cousin, and she didn’t think her sisters had either, but apparently they believed blood was thicker than water or somesuch nonsense.

Rhiannon was also unhappy with Amanda’s growing closeness to Dominic, as it meant her sister was a step closer than she was to becoming the heir.  She couldn’t understand it.  She’d been trying to talk to every guy she’d met at a party, at work or in the park, and none of them were interested.  This made no sense, she was the pretty twin, after all.  In desperation, she asked the maid, Andrew Seay, to hang out one night after work.

She wasn’t surprised to discover that Andrew’s ‘civvies’ were the same as most of the guys in the Valley.  They stayed up all night talking about Rhiannon’s new job in the business sector, her Aunt Alli’s illegitimate daughter, and how much of a bitch her mother Stacey was.

The girls’ competition to become the heir started to escalate.  They were not only spending as much time as possible with Andrew and Dominic, they also tried their luck with every vaguely eligible man in Sunset Valley.

When teen Eric Frio came round to play chess with her, Amanda asked him to stay on, and promised to help him with his homework.  He was only a few days off becoming legal, and they were only a little bit related (his granddad was Connor, brother of Amanda’s granddad Jared), so it wasn’t too wrong… was it?

Rhiannon saw what her sister was up to and decided that anything Amanda did, she could do better.

When Carmel brought home a friend from school, it was Rhiannon who started dancing with him…

And whenever Andrew came round to clean, she made sure she was wearing her low-cut swimsuit that highlighted her figure so well…

Amanda even went looking for men on the internet, although when she went to use her dad’s computer, she found he was in his bedroom with Elias ‘composing new material’.

Rhiannon took to stalking Andrew in his off-time.  She followed him to the swimming pool, where she saw him chatting to another girl.

She wasn’t having any of that, though, and soon muscled her way in to the conversation.

She’d finally bagged herself a man… was it now game, set and match to Rhiannon?

2.8 Secrets that she keeps

With twins Amanda and Rhiannon battling over who would be the third generation heir, the rest of the family got on with achieving their lifetime rewards.  The twins’ little sister, Carmel, wanted to be a Master of the Arts, so she joined her aunt Lola in painting most of the time.

When Carmel wasn’t painting, she was skulking around with her cousin Christopher.  They were both loners, but both liked art, music and writing, so they found a level of kinship.

Kali, having achieved his lifetime wish of living in the lap of luxury, spent his time playing guitar, fishing and gardening.  He’d often stay up late talking to brother-in-law Elias swapping tips for chord progression and suchlike.

Lola looked at her twin nieces growing up and pursuing men and she became nostalgic for her own youth.  Her relationship with her twin Alli had been tempestuous when they were younger, but since becoming adults and Alli moving out, they’d been a little closer.  They didn’t particularly share the intimate details of their lives, but Alli was often round for family parties and they’d have a good gossip about which teenage boy their nieces were fixated on that week.  However, Lola had never been to Alli’s new place, because her sister was so often round at the big Kyoti residence.  Lola decided she’d pop in to surprise Alli after work.

When she arrived, though, it was Lola that received the surprise.

A little girl was there, with the Kyoti hair inherited by Carmel and Christopher.  Who could she be?

Alli came home, slightly flustered to see Lola there.  She asked her sister why she’d popped round.  Lola said she thought it would just be nice to visit Alli’s place for once.  Alli stared at the floor, embarrassed.  She took a deep breath.

So, I take it you’ve met your auntie Lola then, Sherita?

Lola was hurt, why hadn’t Alli told her she had a daughter?  Who was her father?  It was clear from her genetics that she was a Kyoti.  Alli apologised for keeping Sherita from the family.  It had just seemed easier to keep quiet than answer difficult questions about Sherita’s father.  Alli asked if it was Miraj Alvi, the recently deceased sim Alli had fancied as a teen.  Or was it someone more shocking – Christopher Steel, Stacey’s father and Lianndra’s old friend, perhaps?  Or that strange guy from the comic shop, Mortimer Goth?  Alli simply replied that Sherita was her daughter, and that was all anyone needed to know.

As they were talking, Alli felt a tug on her shoulder from Sherita.  They turned around… and saw Sherita had become a teenager.  She was the spitting image of her grandmother.

Lola said that they both must come to Liam’s birthday party the next day.  All the other cousins had grown up so close to one another it would be awful for Sherita to miss out.

Sherita was immediately accepted as one of the family, and like her cousins, took to schmoozing another Sunset Valley man in dungarees and a grey sweater.  The guy explained how he wished he’d bought shares in the dungarees and grey sweater shop, as their trade was roaring.

Lola hoped her youngest child, who was the cutest toddler since she was one, would grow up to be an attractive and intelligent boy.  Liam was just excited about cake.

He didn’t do too badly…

But as Liam focussed on cake and Sherita got to know the rest of the family, the boys at the party were facing an altogether different challenge – fighting off the advances of Amanda and Rhiannon…

[Author’s note: The game surprised me with Alli’s secret as much as it did Lola.  I sent Lola round to talk to her sister because I thought it would be good for the story… I got as much of a shock as she did when she arrived.]