1930s: A summer of transitions
As summer starts, it's Nash's time to be reached by the news of a death as his aunt, Emelie's mother, is dead. While he cannot make it in time for the funeral, Nash still wants to makes the trip to pay his respect to his uncle and cousins. After all, for a good many years, until well after the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother, Nash grew up in the same house as his cousins and aunt. It wouldn't feel right not to visit, so leaving the rest of the family at home, Nash makes the trip across the country and knocks on his old front door.
He is well received by the family, but the house is very different from what it used to be. Of his aunt he sees very little in the decor, more of the new lady of the house. "Elisabeth was very inspired when we visited Paris," his cousin James tells him. "She decorated accordingly after mother got sick." Nash does not ask what Victoria felt about that, though he is a bit worried about his cousin not really speaking to his wife much.
As they later head out to the Blue Velvet bar, still in the same basement it moved to when it was a speakeasy, he prods more. James shrugs his shoulder as they play poker.
"I don't mind her, she doesn't mind me, I let her decorate the house and she doesn't interfere with my affairs as long as I keep them discrete."
"And you are happy with that?"
"You married for love, I married to avoid the draft, and she... well there was some sort of scandal at the university, I think involving the famous sister-in-law of yours, though Elisabeth has never told me the details. She won't even see a movie with her in. Not that I care. We had our agreement, marriage, one child. I got that and since then we leave separate lives."
"You have two children," Nash points out.
"Well, yes, but the boy wasn't... as agreed upon. It's nothing I am proud of, but it happened, now he's here and his mother's joy and pride so there is that."
Nash doesn't comment. After all, James has done nothing illegal. In the 1930s it's a man's right to have sex with his wife, whatever she may feel about the issue.
(Marital non-voluntary sexual encounters (the legal term is apparently not allowed on the forum) wasn't an issue until the 1970s when some states started to make it illegal. In the US as a whole it wasn't made illegal until 1993, and even with that law, Louisiana didn't change its state laws until 2003! In comparison the Soviet Union made it illegal already in 1922. The second country to make it illegal was Sweden in 1965.)
The more the night progress, the happier Nash becomes with his own marriage, as he later sees Frank in the company of a woman. The last affair Frank had ended up in the papers, and Nash wonders if he should say something to Emily but decides it's non of his business. After all, it could just be dinner. Although why Frank would have dinner with a woman who is not his wife, alone, in a bar...
Even with the drama, Nash finds his visit generally a nice one, as the family gathers to remember a woman who was instrumental in their lives, sharing the stories of their lives as they are. "You really work at a farm?" Rhett asks. "For your sister-in-law?" He laughs. "What a waste. The banking industry is improving, you know, there are plenty of jobs better suited for you. I'll see if I can't get you an interview with the Landgraabs of Oasis Springs. I hear they are looking for people."
Nash follows up by visiting his sister the next morning. Mostly because it's the right thing to do, as what he wants most at this point is to hug his family and be with his wife. He's surprised to find his nephew in uniform as he arrives though. "With times being what they are, you have to be ready," Victor says. "It might turn out to be nothing, but if it turns out to be more I will be ready to defend the country and besides, dad is not ready to hand over the business just yet." Nash is impressed. Victor seems very different from his opportunist father.
As he returns home, Nash is delighted to find his crowded, busy, energetic and sometimes chaotic family life just as he left it. As summer is getting warmer each day they almost always eat outdoors, and days go by fast with the work on the farm and everyone pitching in. Independence day is spent with the entire neighbourhood coming buy with food that they all share and the table is not nearly enough for everyone to eat at the same time, and yet no one seems to mind. It's not strange that Nash in the middle of it all finds himself making a self discovery that he is really a family orientated man.
Not long after, Nash gets an opportunity to interview for a job with the Landgraab firm. Taking the opportunity, he packs the entire family in a rented car and heads over to Oasis springs, where the family spend the afternoon in the newly built Desert Bloom Park. They swim, relax in the sunbeds, barbeque and generally enjoy themselves. Barbara and Arthur build a sand sculpture, Hazel and Grace play on the playground and Thomas challenges Arthur to a foosball match which he, being on the brink of turning 15 and much older, easily wins. "You could have let him win some of the sets." Nash says afterwards. "I did. I let him win one!" Thomas defends himself.
As the day starts waning, Arthur and Thomas goes exploring, finding something very exciting. Thomas runs to get Nash, who obliges in breaking it open, only to look inside and decide that the risk is too great. "He wouldn't let us in at all!" Thomas will later complain to Anna, who agrees that it is a terrible offence.
It's a tired but happy family which return to the farm where life quickly returns to normal. Horses need riding, feeding and tending, as does all the other animals and the farmland. But summer is soon over, and it's time for the kids to start school again. But first, another birthday party as Thomas is turning 15. Even Alice comes over from Del Sol Valley to help mark the occasion as a boy turns into a young man! Tomorrow he'll start a new school, but today is the last day of the summer holiday and he intends to enjoy it.
I figured a new family tree would be in order. As the tree in its entirety is now too big for one screen (Joseph has 27(!) descendants at this point), I'll settle for Abigail's side of the family tree and her more modest 9 descendants (she really think her other three children could have been more generous with grandchildren).
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