Family Portrait (Round 15, Winter 2014/2015)

Winter 2014/2015: Orion and Bessie Gates are 56, Xander and Chelsea Gates are 25, Kat Gates is 5, Caleb Gates is 3, Olivia Gates is 1 (Lucas Craig is 7, Violet Craig is 5, Charlotte Craig is 4, Nathan Gates is 25)

It’s an unseasonably warm early winter day and Kat Gates called earlier to invite Violet Craig over to play on her new playground set. Violet’s cousins were visiting her for the day, so she brought Charlotte and Lucas along with her.

That’s fine by Kat. The more kids to play with, the better!

At least, it’s all fun until Violet brings up a topic that is still a little weird and confusing for Kat.

“Do you really have two daddies?” Violet asks. “A real daddy and a fake daddy?”

Kat shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I heard my mom say you didn’t even know who was your real daddy until a few months ago,” Violet goes on.

Kat makes a face. “So?”

“That’s weird,” Violet says. “I only have one daddy. Lucas and Charlotte only have one too. Don’t you guys think it’s weird?”

“Yes,” Charlotte says, since she always agrees with her cousin, who is older and therefore more knowledgeble.

Kat doesn’t like being weird and she’s not even sure yet whether she likes having two daddies.

“Your face is weird,” Kat tells Violet.

Violet scowls and crosses her arms. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” Kat begins chasing Violet all around the yard, calling out, “Weird face! Weird face!” Until finally, Violet has had enough and calls her mom to come pick her up. And while they wait, she convinces her cousins to take her side over Kat’s and the three vow never to come play with her again.

“It’s just a stupid jungle gym anyway,” Violet says. “I have one of those at my apartment and I can play any time I want.”

Once they leave, Kat sits outside on the swingset by herself. “I’m not weird,” she whispers.

###

Things have been a bit strained in the Gates house ever since the truth about Kat’s paternity came out. Orion and Bessie can’t help feeling betrayed by Xander for keeping such a big secret from them.

“Didn’t you even think how this would affect everyone else?” Orion asks. “River is my brother. How do you think he feels now, knowing that I’ve been raising his grandchild as my own?”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Xander says, unable to meet his father’s gaze. “But I had to protect Chelsea and Kat.”

“So you did all of this–the marriage, the family–just to help Chelsea keep her secret?” Orion asks. “You couldn’t even come talk to your mom and me and let us help you?”

“I didn’t marry Chelsea just because of this,” Xander says. “I would have married her anyway. I do love her.”

“Are there any other secrets we should know about?” Orion asks.

“No,” Xander says. “Caleb and Olivia are biologically mine, is that what you want to hear?”

Orion grunts in response.

As Xander watches Chelsea tend to Caleb in the kitchen, he feels torn. He doesn’t regret anything he’s done. He would help Chelsea again if he had to do it all over. But his dad is right–he didn’t think about how this would affect anyone else. He didn’t think about his Uncle River and Aunt Carrie. And he didn’t think about the affect it would have on Kat herself once it was all revealed.

###

Aside from the weirdness of adjusting to the new situation, life goes on quietly at the Gates house. Xander tries to teach Caleb all about three point throws and dribbling, but Caleb just isn’t catching on to the basic idea of basketball yet.

But hanging upside down and giggling he totally gets.

The days are busy, with running the art gallery and taking care of the two little ones still at home. Kat heads off to school with Xander each morning, and some days Orion is busy with a new painting and Chelsea is at her current job at the record store, leaving Bessie to watch over both kids by herself. It’s much easier when Orion and Chelsea both have a day off and Bessie can relax for a bit.

The old family dog Leroy is showing signs of his age, with the gray whiskers around his mouth and the way he moves slowly up and down the stairs, but the kids adore him.

And he always makes sure to check on them throughout the day to ensure everyone is okay.

Kat doesn’t miss those stupid old kids at all, she tells herself. She doesn’t need Violet or Charlotte or Lucas to play with. She has plenty of people to play with in her own house. Even if Livvy does chew on her doll’s feet and messes up the furniture in the doll house by putting a bed in the bathroom.

Or there’s always Grandpa Orion to play ball with. Even though he’s not really her grandpa and the man she has always called Great-Uncle River really is.

Her other daddy comes over sometimes to have dinner with her, after everyone else has eaten, so they can sit alone. Kat doesn’t understand why she has this new daddy, but she knows that her mommy and old daddy had to go to the courthouse over the summer a lot. And then they had this woman who came and visited them at home several times. She asked Kat a lot of questions about how did she like her mommy and daddy and her school and everything.

And then, after that, Nathan, her new daddy, started coming over each week.

“So,” Nathan says, trying to think of something to say, “do you have a lot of friends at school?”

Does it make her weird if she says she has no friends? That the kids who she tried to be friends with now don’t talk to her anymore? Kat decides she doesn’t want her new daddy to think she’s weird too.

“I have lots of friends,” she says. “Everyone always wants me to play with them.”

“That’s great,” Nathan says. “It’s important to always be a good friend. Don’t say or do anything behind your friend’s back that will make him mad at you.”

Kat doesn’t like talking about friends. “Do you have a Playstation?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Nathan says.

“Can I go to your house and play with it?”

Nathan pushes his salad around with his fork. “Maybe soon,” he says. “We’ll have to ask your mom.”

They play with the old arcade game in the family room for a while before Kat has to go to bed. When Chelsea comes in to tell her to say good night, Kat gives Nathan an awkward hug before running up to her room. “Good night, New Daddy,” she tells him.

“How long are we going to keep doing this?” Nathan asks once Kat has disappeared up the stairs. “She’s my daughter, I should be allowed to see her outside of your house.”

“We’ll do it this way for as long as it takes for Kat to feel comfortable with this situation,” Chelsea says. “This is all new to her and I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“Whose fault is that?” Nathan snaps. “If you had told everyone the truth years ago, she would have known me all along.”

Chelsea laughs. “Like you were ready to be a father back then. You can still barely take care of yourself now.”

“I take care of my children,” Nathan says. “I am not a bad father, but you never gave me the chance to prove that.”

“Good night, Nathan,” Chelsea says in a sharp tone. “If you want to talk to Kat, you can call this weekend. Otherwise, we’ll see you next week.”

——————————————

I don’t have any Sims in the law career right now, except Darcy who is just a receptionist, so I decided not to play out the custody battles in a courtroom setting. Instead, we’ll assume that after the truth came out, Nathan hired a lawyer and fought for visitation rights to Kat. He’s hoping to eventually get joint custody, but for now he’s allowed to visit her each week at her house, until she becomes comfortable with him being around and then he can get unsupervised visitations.

Kat got the ROS “Fail with shame from your socializing skills class. Make 4 new enemies.” While I was playing, I was thinking that it was 3 enemies, not 4 so I had only Violet, Lucas, and Charlotte there. So Kat still needs one more enemy before the end of the round. I had to cheat and set them to enemies manually because everyone kept getting plus signs whenever I had Kat torment them. But anyway, now Violet, Charlotte, and Lucas all hate Kat.