Chapter 6: Time Marches On

The news of her father's impending death sends Elizabeth into a quiet shock. As if to reverse her own childhood, she throws herself into motherhood and neglects her career.  She's a professional blogger now, but her ambition is gone.

She breaks the long silence with her father and sends him an email. She writes a little bit about herself and Robert, but mostly sends lots of pictures of his grandchildren. She does not want him to pass away without seeing his only grandchildren. He replies the next day, thanking her for sending the photos.

"You've done well, my Bessy," he writes affectionately. "You've built yourself a good life and have a lovely family. I'm proud of you. I hope your happiness continues for many years."

Robert practically has to force his wife to go to work to get any time with the babies.

Not long after the twins are born, Elizabeth gets the phone call that she has been dreading. Henry Tudor is dead. The paperwork to sign over the shares to her siblings will be sent immediately. The funeral is in a few days, if she wants to come.

Despite their strained relationship, Elizabeth genuinely mourns her father. He wasn't the best or most loving father, but he could have been a lot worse. Even if she didn't see him for weeks on end, he always sent enough money for her to have good food on the table and clothes that fit on her back. His priorities were mixed up, in her opinion, but he was no deadbeat father.

The best thing he did, she realizes, was to not begrudge her the right to start her own life. He didn't accuse her of being ungrateful when she told him she wanted to move to Sunset Valley, declining his offer of a job at the company.  Henry, who typically demanded complete loyalty, let her go, wishing her nothing but happiness. Instead of berating her for not keeping him informed about his grandchildren, Henry had simply thanked her for the email she had sent him, touched that she had taken the time to send him photos. Henry had realized that his relationship with Elizabeth would always be a distant and accepted it, rather than try and force it to be closer than it was.

When a person who has defined one's life as much as Henry defined Elizabeth's passes on, it leaves a hole and a partial loss of identity. Elizabeth throws herself even more fervently into motherhood to help fill that hole, but she also turns to music to help salvage her identity. Music was the one thing that she did bond with old Harry over. With her music, Elizabeth feels that she still has a part of her father with her.

The twins grow up quickly. James looks like his father except for his eyes and nose, both of which come from Elizabeth.

Jane has her mother's reddish hair and her father's green eyes.

Two toddlers doubles the work load. Elizabeth and Robert end up dividing and conquering.

Robert begins taking James on library trips. James loves playing with the toys there, while his father loves getting out of the house every once in awhile.

Despite having to devote a lot of time to James and Jane, Elizabeth makes sure Catherine is not neglected.  Sometimes they have mother-daughter movie nights.

"Mom, the book is SO much better than the movie."

"I know, I know..."

No movie night is complete without pizza.

Robert makes sure to ask Catherine how school went every day and remind her how proud he is of her.

If Robert's goal was to make sure Catherine feels loved, he certainly succeeded.

The Tudors make concerted efforts to have family dinners so they can talk about what happened during the day. Catherine doesn't understand why her parents are so insistent that they all share their meals together, but she doesn't mind.

Catherine loves visiting the park and swinging on the swing set. It feels like flying!

She also loves the dollhouse. Sometimes she reenacts scenes from books she has read with her dolls.

Unaware of the history between the Tudors and the Raleighs, Catherine befriends Carmen Raleigh at school.  When he invites her over to play, her mother insists on going along, to her embarrassment.

Carmen wears ugly sweaters and has his mother's chipmunk face, but Catherine likes him anyway. He's fun to play with when he opens up.

He loves talking about movies and acting out his favorite scenes from different films. Catherine just likes watching him be all dramatic. It's funny.

"I'm sorry about your father," Bess says, sitting down next to Margaret Radcliffe. Margaret still lives with Bess and Walter. "Are you all right?"

Elizabeth keeps her face neutral. "Yes, thank you. It is hard to believe he's gone, but I'm all right."

After watching a little television, Bess gets up to take a phone call.

"How are your siblings handling your father's death?" Margaret asks.

Elizabeth shrugs. "I don't really know. I'm not in contact with either of them. I feel bad for Edward, though. He just finished high school."

"That's terrible," Margaret says sympathetically. "It'll be hard for him not having his father there."

Elizabeth nods. "It will be. Edward was close to our father. He'll be all right, though. He's a bright kid."

Margaret chuckles. "I think he's a little older than a child, Elizabeth. We're almost middle-aged!"

"Don't remind me!" Elizabeth groans. "I already see faint wrinkles in the mirror." She is silent for a moment. "I can't believe he's already an adult. It seems like yesterday Mary and I were reading the back of his granola bars to make sure there weren't any peanuts in them."

"Time marches on," Margaret says sadly. "It stops for nobody. If it didn't stop for old Harry Tudor, it certainly won't stop for us."

"You're right," Elizabeth says quietly. "All we can do is march along with it, I suppose."

Elizabeth leaves with Catherine feeling confused. After the warning she had gotten about Bess, she was almost certain that she was going to be grilled about the fate of her father's estate and the company. Did that mean that Bess was not working for her father? Or was there something more sinister planned?

Oh, dear. Elizabeth knows this feeling all too well.

"I'm sorry my mom had to tag along the other day. I think our parents knew each other or something when they were kids. They wanted to catch up, I guess. Next time, we'll just go to the park."

Yes, Elizabeth is definitely pregnant.

Catherine is excited to have another sibling.

She already enjoys helping her parents take care of the twins.

She teaches James how to sample his food.

Elizabeth plans a beach birthday party to celebrate Catherine's birthday. It also happens to be Robert's birthday.

Catherine blows out her candles.

She grows into a beautiful young lady. She is excited that her cake didn't catch on fire this time.

Elizabeth snaps a photo, thinking to send it to her father. She then remembers that her father is gone. Henry will never see how beautiful Catherine has become.

Robert puts on a brave face for the party guests. He's not afraid of a few wrinkles, no sir!

Heeeey, Robert. How you doin'?

Elizabeth wakes up the morning after the party feeling achy. She assumes she over-exerted herself the night before. She's not as young as she used to be; all that running around while pregnant must have caused some muscle strain.

It's just her luck that her contractions begin immediately after she wakes up.

One would think that Robert would have a pretty good idea on what to do in this situation the third time around. He'd like to think that, too. When he sees his wife doubled over in pain, however, the carefully formulated plan flies right out of his mind and he proceeds to panic.

"Dad, calm down and take Mom to the hospital. I'll watch the twins," Catherine reassures her father. "Seriously. I can handle a few hours of babysitting."

Robert is a little nervous leaving the twins behind, but after Elizabeth threatens to ride her bicycle to the hospital, he quickly hails a taxi and leaves his eldest daughter in charge.

The parents emerge from the hospital with one beautiful pink bundle. They decide to call their youngest daughter Philippa. Elizabeth feels a pang of sadness looking at the baby. Her father will never see photos of little Philippa.

"You know, I sort of feel sorry for James," Elizabeth remarks idly to her husband once they are in the taxi. "The poor boy has three sisters. He's completely outnumbered. Not to mention his friends may end up trying to date his sisters. That's even worse!"

Robert chuckles. "True. But I don't even want to think about my girls dating just yet." He smiles fondly at his wife, then lightly touches Phillippa's nose with his finger. "I don't want to think about James dating anybody either. Why can't they stay small and adorable forever?"

Elizabeth smiles sadly. "Because time marches on," she replies, "and there's nothing we can do but march along with it until the inevitable end."

"You're right of course," Robert says, putting his arm around her. "But that is no reason not to enjoy the ride."

He's right. Her father's gone, but she's not gone yet. It's time to take her life back in her hands, instead of wallowing in the past. Her father marched on boldly. Elizabeth vows to do the same.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that's all four children. After I named Philippa, I realized that three of my Sims share names with the three Middleton siblings - Catherine, James and Phillippa.  Whoops. That was totally unintentional. I came across the name Philippa in a genealogy of the Tudor family line. Ah well.

This plotline has been difficult to write, mainly because it is so difficult for me to make it interesting. If I could rewrite this, I'd write Henry as a politician. It would have been much easier to make it interesting. Oh well. Water's under the bridge now.

I've tried to write Henry and Elizabeth's relationship as being a complex one. She resents him, and yet, her world still revolves around him and she still loves him, in her own odd way. The relationship between their real life counterparts was as decent as any relationship between a monarch and their child, but he did banish her from court a time or two for different reasons. Henry VIII was a force of nature (and a fascinating man, if one looks beyond the wives), and I have no doubt he left quite an impression on her as a child. Whether she wondered what he would do or looked to him for inspiration during her own reign is difficult to say, but I'd like to think she at least learned from a few of his mistakes and thought of him from time to time. She was the daughter he wanted to forget (hence her being behind Mary in Henry's will concerning succession), but she was the most like him and the most successful of his children. Anyway, I've tried to capture what I think her relationship might have been like in real life in the context of the Simverse, had Henry lived to see Elizabeth as an adult. He died when she was thirteen years old.

So, Elizabeth is technically a job hopper, but between three maternity leaves and some bad moods, she's still only managed to reach level 4 of her first career.  I have no idea how many of her rolled careers she's actually going to be able to get through at this rate...ugh. Robert's written six books, but none of them are outstandingly successful. Sunset Valley is one picky audience.

The birthday was supposed to be the party to remember that is required by my roll. The only problem is that I realized too late that the food had to be a certain quality. Sigh. I'll pospone the party to a later date.

By the way, remember Buddy Keaton? The baby born in the first chapter? He's a teenager now. Here's a photo.