Round 3: Brennan

Dawn Brennan and Liam Brennan are Adults. Their daughter Autumn Brennan is a Young Adult.

* * *

Despite what felt like countless applications and interviews, Liam still couldn’t find a job.

He began wondering if he should start thinking of his new life of cooking and cleaning as permanent. He tested out the thought, and tried to convince himself it wouldn’t be so bad. But his mind rebelled against it every time. This just wasn’t what he was meant for.

Autumn, on the other hand, couldn’t have been happier. She was finally starting to develop her own unique painting style, and collectors were starting to recognize her name. She knew what it took to have a career in the arts; she had been prepared for it to take much longer than this for her to make a name for herself. But her dreams were already coming true, and much faster than she had anticipated.

Autumn spent a lot of time at the museum to help herself get inspired, and that was where she met Juan. He wasn’t the guy her parents kept subtly pressuring her to find – he was a lot older than her, which she knew would spoil her mother’s image of the picture-perfect family, and he worked as a fisherman, which her father would never approve of. But she wasn’t looking for a husband. All she wanted was a date. She hadn’t had a real date since high school. When she realized that, she couldn’t believe it at first. Maybe she took after her dad more than she thought; maybe she had been working herself too hard.

She talked it up in her head so much that by the time she actually asked him out, it was a foregone conclusion in her mind. She never even thought about what would happen if he were to say no. But although he had seemed interested when she had tested the waters earlier, he seemed bewildered and downright offended at the suggestion that he might want to go on a date with her. Humiliated, she threw herself into her work again.

She resurfaced weeks later, to brave an afternoon of dancing at the Blue Velvet. When she saw Juan at the bar, she almost fled. But she gathered up her courage and got onto the dance floor as if she didn’t see him, and ended up striking up a conversation with a random woman there who was a lot easier to talk to than Juan had been. Maybe dating just wasn’t for her, she thought as she talked to Yesenia. Maybe friendship was all she needed.

But after a few drinks, she couldn’t resist the temptation to approach Juan. And this time he was a lot more receptive…

… at least until he suddenly announced that he was bored and walked out while she was in the middle of a sentence.

At least Yesenia was right there for her to vent her frustrations to. No dating for her, she vowed. There was a good reason she had avoided it for so long. It was friends only for her from now on.

Of course, the next day had to be the day Dmitri Fish came over to ask her for romantic advice.

He was having a hard time getting over Liss, and although he knew he should just move on, he wanted to know whether he thought there was any chance she might change her mind. All Autumn could tell him was the same thing she had told Liss: that it wouldn’t even matter to him soon enough. That was the way high school relationships should be, in her opinion. It wasn’t healthy for two people to be so wrapped up in each other so early.

Dmitri had a hard time accepting that advice – but once they got off the subject of Liss, Autumn found him surprisingly easy to talk to. They kept in touch, until Autumn realized she was actually starting to think of him as a friend. She didn’t mention her friendship with him to Liss – she knew Liss was trying to avoid him, and thought Liss might see it as a betrayal of some sort.

Autumn had been thinking over Liss’s suggestion, and at last she made her decision. She announced to her parents one night at dinner that as soon as he found a place to live, she was going to move out and live with Liss.

Liam was happy that his daughter was finally showing some initiative. But Dawn, who was getting some work done as they ate, didn’t know how she felt. Of course she had known Autumn would never live with them forever… and of course she had been hinting for years that it was time for Autumn to leave… but the thought of not having Autumn around made her surprisingly afraid. She had never known adult life without Autumn. What would it be like with just her and Liam in the house? At least their relationship was doing better these days – otherwise the thought would have been unbearable.

An idea began to grow in her mind. At first it was just an idle thought, but she found herself thinking about it more and more – until she finally had to bring it up with Liam.

She had hoped he would be excited. Instead he was only confused.

“Adopt a child? But I thought we had decided our family was enough the way it is.”

That was true – she remembered that conversation very well. But she wasn’t talking about going back to trying to have another baby. She was just talking about giving them the thing they had wanted for so long. If they did this, they wouldn’t have to give up on the family they had always wanted – and they could offer a home to a child who needed one.

It wasn’t as if Liam had stopped wanting a larger family. But he had only just started getting to a point where he could accept that that would never happen. It was easier that way than to keep having the possibility dangled in front of him – and how did he know this wouldn’t just come to nothing? Plus, there was the issue that Dawn hadn’t talked about, but that was at the forefront of Liam’s mind – after how much Dawn’s job had brought her to life, he didn’t see any chance that she would be willing to quit to take care of a child. That would fall on him – and being a stay-at-home parent had never been what he wanted.

But as he thought about Dawn’s idea, he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like.