Changing Seasons. Autumn III, part 2

Autumn III, part 2 “Now, what is it you’re needing?”
“Cleaning stuff for definite!” Honey went over to look at the shelves and Frank began to chat to Minnie.
“The pictures? Yes, that’s the grandchildren. They’ve got a kind of thing going on about gnomes at the moment. The other ones are about due a change – they’ve promised me some new ones next time I see them!” There was quite a pile of stuff by the time Honey had finished, and Minnie’s shelves looked a lot emptier!”
“I’ll just ring up so that I know how much you’ve spent, but you don’t owe me anything yet. You’ve got some credit here – everyone put a little in. We figured from what you’d said in your letters that you’d not be bringing much with you…”
“Just what we could pack in our suitcases,” Honey said, laughing. “Everything else belonged to the landlord anyway.”
“Do you need any pots and pans? I’ve got a couple of old ones I could lend you? I don’t know what there was in those old cupboards.”
“We haven’t really looked yet either! But Marcus said he’d take us into Newborough tomorrow…” “You’ll be wanting to go and visit Old Tench,” Minnie had said. “He remembers your folks so well.” And now Frank was shaking hands with him.
“My, you’ve sure got a look of your grandpa about you. It’s real nice to meet you – and you too, Miss Glaze.” “But do call me Honey, please,” she said, after Old Tench had paused in his reminiscences of Frank’s grandfather – “Course, he were quite a few years older’n me” – and Frank’s father. “Fine young man he were. Mary and I were right pleased when he married Lily.” “Well, iffen you want me to call you Honey, than I guess I can. Ain’t no harm in givin’ you the respect you deserve, though. Specially as seein’ you’re so young an’ all.”
How old was Mrs McPhail, Honey wondered? She had young children – but she could still easily be mid-thirties. To Honey’s not-yet-twenty-three, that seemed like a long way off.
“Patience, now, she’s kinda got a natural authority, I guess. Won’t hurt none iffen we all show we reckon you should be respected for the job you’re doin’.”
It was kind of nice to feel like the whole community wanted her to succeed. Some of her nervousness subsided. “Right,” Frank said when they got back home. “We’ve got the whole of this week before you start work. What do we want to try and get done? Marcus says he’s back in Newborough tomorrow, so if we want more paint, he’ll pick it up for us.”
They’d bought large quantities of white paint – emulsion for ceilings, gloss for windows. They knew that would all get used. “We’ll need more than this for the whole house,” Frank had said. “But this will get us started.”
“Which rooms do we think are the priority?” “Rooms,” Honey said. “I’m not used to that!” Their rented house had had three rooms – bedroom, bathroom and then the kitchen/dining/living room.
Two new cardboard boxes sat on the floor – one was full of paint, but the other had kitchen basics in it.
“Let’s go and look at the kitchen first. We need to make a home for that stuff.” “This could be a really nice room,” Frank said thoughtfully. “We could put a table in the window, have breakfast there…”
“Paint,” Honey said. “We’ll look at those colour charts and tell Marcus what we want. The paint’ll be here before we’re done with the windows.”
“We’ll start those today then.”
“Now?”
“No, let’s finish looking round properly first.” “Two downstairs rooms as well as the kitchen!”
They had moved into the big room at the back of the house. “And the little storeroom off the kitchen,” Frank added. “I’ll take those old crates out front to pieces and make us some shelves for it.”
“We should do the garden as well. This could be lovely – and we’ve got water on the lot.” “Look! A guest bedroom,” Frank said, lying down on the bed.
“A banish-you-to-it bedroom,” Honey said, laughing. “If you’re bad.”
“I’d better be good then!" He laughed back. "This bed is dusty. I think we’d better visit the laundromat with this lot.” The smallest bedroom only had an old chest of drawers in it.
“I’ll clean that up,” Honey said. “And then we can unpack the suitcases. These two rooms can wait until we’ve got more money.” “Bedroom door first,” Frank said decisively. “And we’ll have to buy that.”
“You can fix that screen, can’t you? We could board it over for the winter to keep the cold out. It’s very romantic, having a balcony to step out onto. And you can’t be worried about burglars here!”
“No!” He laughed at that as well, and Honey suddenly realised that she’d not heard him laugh so often before. “No. But I’d like a proper door we could shut and lock. A balcony’s not a very safe place for small children.”
Honey felt as though her world had suddenly been shaken up like a kaleidoscope and settled into a new pattern. Here, in this shabby room, with its unmade bed and still-packed suitcases, Frank was hinting at something more than their current easy-going arrangement. He reached for her hands, tongue-tied as always when it came to the deeply serious.
“Maybe we could think about it. In a couple of years or so. If we stay here.” She leant towards him and kissed him. “Maybe we could. We’ll see how we do here. Just the two of us.” “Okay!” Honey was on a roll. “I’ll finish the walls off today.”
They were putting their remaining money (and there wasn’t a lot of it left!) into painting the kitchen. Amber and Lucie had called by to introduce themselves and got very enthusiastic about that.
“We’d have come to help, but we’ve both got a deadline to meet on my new book! This is technically our coffee break! Having a good kitchen has made such a difference to us though. Come round in two weeks’ time, when the deadline will have expired.”
"Or we have, with the effort!" “And I’ll get that ceiling sorted. Finish getting it sorted. If you start where you left off, I’ll be done before you get to that end, so I won’t drip paint on your hair.”
“Good. I’ve no desire to be grey before my time. Then you can help with the walls. And we must go to the laundromat as well. After we’ve painted.” “Phew, that was exhausting! Laundromat then? You cycle, and I’ll pile all the stuff on here and drive down?”
“That’ll work. Don’t forget all that smelly bedding – we’ll see how clean we can get it, and if it’s worth keeping. We did it, though! We’ve painted a room!”
“And five windows. No wonder it’s taken all week.” “So you’re Fred’s son. Nice to meet you in the flesh instead of by letter. Tom Tench told me as how he’d met you. He’s right – you do have a real look of your grandfather about you. He was older’n me of course – Tom and I were at school together, and your dad was just a little below us…” It was nice, Frank thought, to be recognised, known, in relation to his parents and grandparents. There was a sense of homecoming here.
“Thanks. It’s good to meet you too.” And there was someone else was coming round the back of the building, heading to speak to Honey. The place wasn't as empty as it had seemed at first! “Hi! You must be Honey. I’m Patience Mcphail.”
She was nothing like Honey had expected – younger, prettier and more easy-going – but she got what Tom Tench had meant by the air of authority. There was a serene calmness about Patience.
“This is Barnabas…”
“Ride!” said Barnabas, very loudly.
“…and the two girls are at home with my husband. And I am so glad you’re here!”
“Ride!”
“Let Mummy sit down for a moment or two first.”
Patience was noticeably, though not hugely pregnant, and just as obviously tired. “I’ll watch him on the ride, if he’ll let me,” Honey offered.
“Ship!” said Barnabas. Loudly. Again. Frank and Artie Campbell were well away chatting, with Patience listening interestedly while Honey watched over Barnabas and stopped him from getting too carried away.
“If you’ve been painting the kitchen all day, you won’t want to be trying to cook,” Patience said. “Come and eat with us tonight instead. And you and I can talk about school stuff for tomorrow as well.”
“That would be lovely. On both counts,” Honey said gratefully. “Thank you so much.” Honey was putting the toys away as Patience came in with the food.
“You didn’t have to do that, Honey.”
“You’re cooking for us. Why not? Besides, it’s the teacher in me.”
Patience laughed. “I know just what you mean. But come and sit down now.” Euan was even quieter than Frank, Honey thought. The he spoke, and she saw why.
“I’ll sit here. B-Barnabas can g-get a b-bit messy with his f-food. This way I can shelter you f-from the f-fall-out.”
“Ah,” said Honey. “Weaponizes his food from time to time, does he?”
“And then some,” said Patience from the kitchen doorway as she came in with her meal. “This is so good,” Honey said with a great deal of enthusiasm.
“Let me guess,” Patience said. “It also doesn’t taste of paint! Tell us about yourselves. What made you decide to come? After all, you didn’t know about my spag bol when you made that decision.”
“Well…” Honey said, and began with the unexpected letter arriving. She didn’t mention Maddie, or their deeply suppressed desire to get away from her, didn’t even realise just how much of a factor that had been.
“And so we packed up and came!”
In an unacknowledged corner of her mind, she wondered what Maddie had thought when she’d turned up at their house… “So have you any idea where they went? Did they say anything to you? I know they will have written to me, but a couple of my neighbours said some of their post had gone astray – you know, letters they knew were coming…I’m so fond of my stepson…”
Maddie had gone to the neighbours’ house. They usually knew everything that was going on in the street. “It does you great credit too. No, they didn’t mention anything to us. We were just as surprised as you when the board went up. Mind you, we thought they might be planning a holiday – my sister just happened to be weeding right next to the boundary fence when they were in the garden, and we heard them mentioning something about going to the lakes. But not moving away.” “Going to the lakes? Did your sister hear anything else?” If she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been for want of trying, Maddie thought. These two thrived on gossip, and were always grateful for anything she could pass on to them.
“No. That was all. And we didn’t see them leave. We saw the van coming for the bookcase, but we just assumed that they were hard up again – you are so good to them, the way you support them from your small pension…”
“I do what I can. And of course, when I come and stay, I can take so many of the chores off Honey’s shoulders. She’s not really very capable, you know…”
Now what was she going to do? She’d lost her rent-free lodgings for the autumn and winter. Blast!

The house and family were made for me by Hidehi as a lovely gift.
I’ve tweaked them slightly to fit the scenery of Two Lakes, so if you’re going to play them, they won’t look quite like this. I’ve tweaked Maddie’s personality too…
Link here for the house:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351879
And for the family:
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9351878