1.5 Something to Cause

 

 

A moment captured, but reduced to two dimensions.

Darshan reads at the table, while everyone else has waffles. The girls don't know he's a vampire, but they've also never asked why he doesn't eat in front of them.

 

Darshan and Alexandria were married in a private wedding, with only their daughters to witness it. They didn't feel like they knew enough people to justify a large party, and the realities of caring for the three children meant putting any honeymoon plans on hold. They can take a nice vacation sometime in the future, right? No rush.

 

"I like your smile in that one," he says. He's about to leave on a guild assignment to some place called Twinbrook. His mother, Sitara, lives there, and he wants to show her pictures of his new family.

 

Maybe they'll all visit when Iris is older, Alex suggested.

 

"I'll hurry back," he promises, before he rushes out the door, a blur of motion too quick to process.

 

But as the days pass, it's clear something is delaying his return.

 

Alexandria begins to fear Darshan is not coming back.

 

Had she done something to cause him to abandon her?  

Had his mother disapproved of her?

 

Could he not handle that Iris was born human?

Was the love she thought was real this time, not?

Iris grows into a toddler, without her father there to see it.

She has his nose, and his red eyes.

Iris doesn't seem aware of Darshan's absence, but this is a confusing time for her older sisters, who need to be comforted and told everything will be okay.

Flora keeps a more optimistic outlook than Echo, "Please cheer up, Mommy. I bet Dad's just looking for the perfect souvenir to bring you, and he lost track of time."

Alex misses Darshan very much. She's certain something happened.

 

 

"You don't look like you have good news..." Alex skips all pretense of greetings when Lucretia shows up at her door.

"Took a while to get word back, but... Sitara's house is abandoned, and when one of our witches went to poke around, the police got all squirrely about it. We think Sitara was found out, and the cops are still watching the place, so when Darshan went to visit they nabbed him too. If that's the case you won't be seeing him again. They like to keep this kind of thing hushed."

"I don't intend to stay quiet about it! I'll talk to whoever I have to to find out where he is."

"Are you crazy? You better be careful not to attract the wrong kind of attention to us."

 

"I'm not stupid." 

 

Lucretia rolls her eyes. "Looking kind of fat, there, aren't you?"

 

Alexandria gives birth to a son this time. She names him Lupin, after the flowers, and can only hope Darshan won't, or wouldn't, be culturally offended — Lucretia told her Lupin is a generic name for werewolves.

Echo and Flora deal with the situation by escaping into worlds of fantasy. Their dolls are "kidnapped" by the "tree people" to pay for "human crimes" and must live in the tree village now.

 

Flora is young, but she's old enough to know their washing machine is low quality. 

 

"It's so loud..."

Unfortunately, Alex cannot afford to pay for a better one. 

 

"I know."

 

 

She just had to sell one of the cribs to pay the bills, so Lupin now sleeps in the baby swing.

 

 

 Alex is depressed. She sleeps a lot more than she used to.

It's hard to face the day, sometimes.

 

Some outsdoorsy adventures for Flora, as an adventurous-trait sim who loves the outdoors.

Buying a cake is cheaper than paying for a babysitter, so Flora is given the honor of aging up early in the morning on her birthday, so she can watch her younger siblings while Alex goes to work.

It's traditional to make a wish. Flora isn't sure what to wish for. Should she wish for Darshan to come back? Is it legal to use a wish to control other people? Should she wish her mother made more money? Should she wish for her own future success? Should she wish to have talents? Should she wish for super powers? Or to find a pirate's treasure buried in the back yard?

Should have wished for Echo to age up before me, Flora thinks, as she hears Iris and Lupin's screams from the nursery join Echo and Alexandria's happy birthday cheers.

There will be many diaper changes in Flora's near future...

 

With Flora at home watching the younger kids, Alexandria can finally go out and do more private readings, to increase her work performance. 

Lupin grows into a toddler. Like many of Alexandria's ancestors, he and both of his biological sisters have freckles, even though Alex herself does not.

Alexandria's inquiries into Darshan Turner's disappearance go nowhere. The police in Sunlit Tides are thoroughly disinterested it seems. However, one morning a few agents from the contiguous Sim Nation territories arrive on her doorstep, asking uncomfortable questions about Darshan. 

 

They inform her he was a vampire. She pretends not to believe them. 

 

"He was arrested in Twinbrook," they say.

 

"Where is he now?"

 

"We aren't at liberty to discuss the rehabilitation programs."

 

"When will he be released? Can I see him again?"

 

"We don't have that information. It's unlikely though."

"Well that's ominous..."

 

"You have Turner listed as the father on the birth certificates on your two youngest," the officer says, gently. "You know this means they'll have to be tested for vampirism."

 

"That's ridiculous," Alex protests.

 

"If anything comes of it you'll be given the resources to relocate. There are very obvious reasons we can't have people raising vampires in areas without donor programs."

Alexandria is forced to take her two youngest to the local hospital to be tested. She didn't fear much for Lupin, he would have had glowing eyes by now if he were a vampire, but she could face harsh legal consequences if she fails to comply with the law.

Flora never realized Darshan was a vampire, and her mother did not discuss the reason for this hospital visit, so she's feeling unsettled about the whole thing. What is her mother not telling her?

"Your brother and sister are healthy, that's all I care about," Alex dismisses her questions.

"But you suspected something was wrong," Flora pries. "And the hospital staff was looking at us so weird..."

"Nothing is wrong," Alex says firmly.

Everything is wrong, though. Nothing feels quite real.

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Etc.: I wrote this so many years ago. Apologies if you wanted to see more of Darshan, it was just convenient for the single parent roll to get rid of him offscreen and suddenly.

I'm dealing with a lot of traumatic stuff right now and I was afraid to have to re-read this chapter, but once I did I felt ambivalent towards it. Vampires are silly.