Chapter 4.1 - Flower Child

Willow was almost always the first one up in the mornings. She liked it that way. She enjoyed the quiet of the sleeping house.

As was her habit, she made breakfast before everyone else got up, and she was almost done eating by the time Felix dragged himself downstairs.

“Hey, Will, what time is it?”

“About 7:30. The girls are still asleep.”

He nodded. “Marissa should be up soon.”

Willow restrained herself from saying that should and would were two very different things, especially where Marissa was concerned. “I’m sure she will,” was all she allowed herself to say.

Predictably, though, when Felix boarded the school bus, Marissa was nowhere to be found.

Willow headed up to Marissa’s room and knocked softly on the door.

“Go away, Felix.”

“It’s Willow.”

“Even worse.”

“The school bus left an hour ago…”

“And if I wanted to go to school, I would be on it. Now go away.”

Willow just frowned and headed back downstairs. It was time to wake up her favorite niece.

When she reached the nursery, she peeked into the crib, not surprised to find its occupant still asleep. She hadn’t been put to bed until Willow got home from work last night, which was a lot later than her usual bedtime.

Still, they had established a routine, so Willow woke her up. “Did you sleep well, Flora?”

Little Flora smiled. “I think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“How do you sleep bad?”

“Sometimes people have bad dreams, and they don’t like sleeping.”

“Not me! I never have bad dreams.”

Willow smiled, hoping that it would always stay that way.

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Willow almost always spent her mornings watching Flora, and this one was no exception. Sometimes she felt like she did more parenting than Flora’s actual parents. She knew that they weren’t in the best circumstances, and she had volunteered to help them, but she also knew that there was a difference between helping and taking full responsibility. What Willow did was perilously close to the latter.

So when Marissa finally came downstairs, at almost noon, Willow took action.

“Marissa! If you’re not going to school today, you should watch Flora while I do the grocery shopping.”

Marissa sighed. “I can’t, I have to be somewhere in half an hour.”

“Where?”

“Does it matter?”

Willow had to utilize a formidable amount of self-control not to snap at Marissa. Instead, she smiled cheerfully. “Well, if you’re going out, then you can get the groceries. Here’s the list.”

Marissa looked at the shopping list like it was a dead rodent. “Can’t you do it?”

 Willow’s temper was fraying. “I can’t do everything around here, Marissa. If you want to eat this week, you’ll either do the grocery shopping or watch Flora while I do it. Those are the only two options.”

Marissa let out a sigh of a long-suffering martyr. “I guess I’ll get the groceries.” She looked at the list. “Do we really need this much food?”

“Yes, we do. Now you’d better get going if you want to be back by the time Felix gets home.”

Marissa left.

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The afternoons were always a hectic shuffle. Felix got out of school at two, and he had to rush home so that he could be back by the time Willow’s shift started at three. Until recently, he would then be home until school started the next morning. But, since money had been a little tighter than usual, he had picked up a part-time job from seven to ten. When he’d done it, no one had thought it would be a problem. They neglected to realize that leaving Flora home alone with Marissa for three hours was a disaster waiting to happen.

“Marissa, you have to actually take care of her tonight.”

“I do take care of her!”

“Giving her a toy and then leaving her alone for three hours isn’t taking care of her.”

“I didn’t leave her alone!”

“Then why was she hungry and exhausted when Willow got home? You should have been able to feed her and put her to bed!”

“Is that what she wanted?”

“Did she not ask you for food? Say she was tired? She can talk now, you know, it’s not like it was when she was just a few months old.”

“I don’t know!”

“You have to pay attention to her the whole time!”

“It’s just so much work, Felix! I can’t handle that much responsibility!”

He tried to contain his anger. “You have to, for Flora’s sake. You’re her mother. It’s your job to take care of her.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“That’s not an option.”

Author's Note: I'm back! I know it's been forever, and I am really sorry about that, but I can say with certainty that I will have a lot of time to spend with the Does over the next few weeks, so you should prepare to be seeing a lot of updates. In that break I forgot how painful it is to try to coax good facial expressions out of Marissa. For all the pictures of her in this post, there were at least twice as many that were painfully unnatural-looking. Also, I hope you enjoyed Willow's painfully patterned house. As explanation: I felt like Willow would end up renting the sort of house that's a "before" on a home makeover show, so I tried to think along the lines of "house previously owned by an older lady who hasn't changed anything in fifty years". Anyway, on to the good stuff!

Here's a CAS picture of Willow, whose adult trait is Family - Oriented (pretty sure you all saw that one coming). Jonah and Amanda, who are already YAs, can be seen on the Rolls and Traits page. I'll put Serena's up when she ages up.

And this is baby Flora, who is Good and a Heavy Sleeper. Next chapter: we take a look at Willow's work!