The Sims of Silvery Bay

Silvery Bay is the neighborhood I created using The Sims 2. This is my log of the Prosperity Challenge.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Welden: A New Beginning

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Title: A New Beginning

Lot: Welden, Josh
Tammie, Ryan, Nyasia, Brent, Francis
10 Silver Vein Rd.


First Visit

"Hon, I'm home!" Josh yelled as he walked in the door. He was excited. His boss had just recommended him for a major project and he wanted to tell Carrie right away. Where was she? Josh shook his head in mock annoyance as he thought about his pretty, petite, accomplished wife shopping for a new dress downtown with her girlfriends.

"That's right. I'll bring home the bacon and you go spend it,"he muttered to himself. He loved Carrie deeply, but her latest obsession with designer fashions and materialistic longings had been burning a hole in their pockets. But, if it made her happy, he guessed that with his new promotion, they could indulge her whims within reason for a little while, just so long as she didn't go overboard.

He went upstairs to his bedroom to change into shorts and a tee-shirt. He might as well take the opportunity of free time to workout before all the kids came home from school. Daydreaming about taking his wife for a nice, romantic dinner, Josh accidently bumped into one of Carrie's shoeboxes in the closet. It fell on his head and the contents spilled out.

"Ow!" Josh griped, rubbing his head as he bent down to pick up the box. Surprisingly enough, there wasn't a pair of Amalfi pumps in the box, instead there was a stack, or rather stacks, of small, blue envelopes. What's this?, Josh wondered as he flipped open one of the little cards. What he read next made his blood boil and his heart stop. They were love letters to his wife from someone he didn't even know, and, according to the dates, they were recent. His wife has been having an affair? The question and answer hit him, suddenly, like a ton of bricks. He started reviewing the past months in his mind and things started falling into place.

Carrie had dyed her hair, started buying new clothes, went out with a new group of friends...It all made sense now, but not the kind of sense that makes you feel secure, just the opposite. Josh just couldn't believe that Carrie, his Carrie, his high school sweetheart and the mother of his five children would do something as tawdry as that.

Suddenly, Josh started opening her dresser drawers. Everything was gone, as was her suitcase. He looked at the clothes hanging in the closet. They were all her old clothes, none of the fancy, pretty clothes she'd recently bought. The truth sank in slowly at first and then with a thud. His wife had left him. He had to find her. If he found her he could talk her into coming back.

The days following his wife's dessertion were now a blur in Josh's mind. She'd not only left him with two teens, a child and twin toddlers, but she'd cleaned out all their accounts and the kid's college funds as well. How did he miss the signs? How in the world, didn't he figure this out before she left his life in a shambles? There were times when he was angrier with himself, than he was with her. The last he'd heard, she was living high on the hog with her lover in a villa somewhere in Europe. The worst thing about it was that he still missed her, not this new Carrie, but the old Carrie, the woman he met in high school and the woman he'd built a life with and around. The woman she'd become is someone he detested and he hadn't even been able to even speak her name since she'd left. He'd never trust another woman again, with his heart, his home, his life.

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The past year had been very difficult for the Welden family and Josh didn't know how he would've gotten through it without his eldest daughter, Tammie. Tammie was just 13 months older than her brother, Ryan. She had made alot of sacrifices. Josh felt horrible about that. It wasn't fair that she'd had to take on so much of the responsibilities of caring for the babies at her young age. This was a time when she should've been out having fun with her friends at parties and dances, instead of coming home to help potty train the tots, Brent and Frannie. Josh didn't have alot of time for regrets and feeling sorry for himself, but that was the one regret that he did allow himself to indulge in from time to time.

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Now, as he looked at each of his children, he couldn't help but wonder how this past year was going to affect them for the rest of their lives. Things had gone from bad to worse after Carrie left. Josh had lost a large account, because of all the chaos at home and trying to raise five kids and hold down a complex sales job as well had just been more than anyone could handle. Now, Josh was thoroughly depressed. He couldn't even afford a hotel room for his brood and they ended up living in an alleyway, until he received a notice in the mail. The Weldens, it seemed, had been accepted as one of the deserving families to participate in a sociological experiment. Josh was ecstatic. It couldn't have come at a better time, with winter right around the corner. Even if they had to live outside on the island, at least it would be warm and more of an adventure than living in an alleyway.

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As the cab pulled up and dropped them off on their new lot, on the island, Josh looked around. He'd spent alot of simoleans to buy this lot, and he had only enough let over to purchase furnishings. It seemed odd to buy furniture for a house that didn't yet exist, but it was almost as if he were buying with the faith that the house would be built, eventually. Until then, it was a beautiful grassy lot with plenty of space for the kids to play and they'd simply set up camp to live here until he could afford to build a house. The neighbors were kind enough to let them run a long extension chord to an outlet on their lot, so they'd have some electricity. There was running water and an outhouse set up on the lot already, so all the basics were covered.

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Josh took a deep breath of relief. Today would be the beginning of the fresh start that they all needed so desperately. Whatever the future held, couldn't be as bad as what they'd been through over the past year. He didn't know what was around the corner, but he knew what he had today when he looked at the five young faces looking up to him for guidance. He had his family. Not Carrie nor any other disaster, natural or unnatural, could take that away from him. And, when a man has his family around him, he has no need for anything more.


1 Comments:

  • At 5:26 PM, Blogger ASimWen said…

    Wonderful start! Great writing! Keep us posted.

     

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