Time for another update. A lot longer passed than I would wish, I love this story and I want to finish it but health does what health wants and I've been short-stacked on energy as I usually am in winter. But here we are, once again, taking a trip to Evergreen and one of the families therein. And today, we are stopping back in with the Sawyers!
Chapter 19 - The Sawyer family
Reminder that this story is a little dark, and deals with topics like abuse, so although I keep it PG13 as per the site rules, if you are sensitive to that type of story, you may want to skip the Sawyers for now
In our last visit, the dynamics in the family had changed a little. Sally Mae is pregnant yet again, and she has started making more demands on her husband in defense of the kids. She is so overwhelmed she can't cope on her own and Billy Bob has to either step up or risk pushing her past the point where she'll take it. He let her go on an outing with the oldest girls to get them some clothes, thanks to a work bonus, and he's been helping out more at home. It's made easier on him by the arrival of his son Joe Bob, who takes on his daddy's hair and eye genes, but deep down it infuriates Billy Bob that he should have to adapt in any way to Sally Mae. She's supposed to adapt to him, pleasing him and giving him everything he needs. Initially he got back at her by demanding she perform her wifely duties more regularly, having woohoo daily or even multiple times a day, but now that she is pregnant once again he has to ease up on that too. Which is how he found himself becoming a regular at the Hot House downtown where he can pay for subservience and doesn't have to pretend. He scored some big husband points by purchasing a third trailer for the grown up kids to live in, away from their younger loud siblings, and putting down money to make it a little nicer than their previous trailers. But having 6 kids to care for, three trailers to clean, and yet another pregnancy draining her reserves is proving very difficult for Sally Mae.
As we join the family in their little slice of desolation, we find Sally Mae sound asleep even though it's 7am and she's usually the first person to wake up.
The older kids are very responsible for their age, and can take care of themselves in a pinch. Thanks to Sally Mae's prep they have breakfast food ready in the fridge which Anna Nicole took out for her and her siblings, so they could eat and then they headed off to school.
Billy Bob headed off for work too, leaving Sally Mae behind to sleep. The owner of the modern bachelor pad across the river probably isn't thrilled that the Sawyer lot is part of their view
Sally Mae slept through them leaving, and slept, and slept. Billy Bob had kept her up late last night with his urges, and she slept right through her internal clock and woke up quite late. Now she's desperately worried about the little ones that were left in their cribs all morning and part of the afternoon.
Thankfully they are study little babies, and they didn't seem any the worse for wear despite being alone for so long.
Soon the older kids were dropped off by the school bus, and one of them brought a friend with them! Little Tyrell Kansal. Who apparently is a hot-blooded little guy showing up in shorts in winter. Brrr! Or perhaps it is because his mother does not pay enough attention to what he's wearing, and forgets to check if he has outerwear with him to school
Billy Bob also arrives back home not long after, and sees Tyrell in the distance (you can maybe see him, he sort of blends into the leaves of the apple tree, he's right by the compost bin). Now you might wonder, is Billy Bob going to chase Tyrell away? He's usually not keen on any sort of outside male presence in his family, of any age.
That is why the kids don't really bring home anyone from school, because they know their dad is not cool with visitors. But today Tyrell convinced them that their dad wouldn't mind him and they risked it. And so far it seems Tyrell was right, as Billy Bob ignores him.
Sally Mae is still with the babies in their trailer, so Lulu Belle takes out a plate of food for everyone to partake.
Over in the babies trailer Sally Mae is really feeling that she too could do with a plate of food. She dashed off to check on them as soon as she woke up and she hasn't had time to go eat something, so she's not had a bite since the day before and she's ravenous.
Outside it has begun to snow heavily, and the ground is soon covered in a thick layer of the white stuff. The kids head outside to make use of this with a fun snowball fight.
Billy Bob didn't even come inside to say hi when returning home from work, instead opting to stay outside and work his muscles on the obstacle course.
Lulu Belle decided to build a snowman, and I was a bit alarmed by her choice of decorations. Apparently our girl has a mean streak! Or perhaps living in this environment is getting to her, and it's her interpretation of her dad
Sally Mae finds time to make a warm pot of spaghetti for the kids to warm up after their play in the snow, I think she too fancied something hot rather than more leftovers.
When Billy Bob finally comes inside that night, Sally Mae is pissed. She's worn down to the bone, and he doesn't even come say hi when he's back from work, doesn't involve himself in the kids and just runs his stupid obstacle course all evening. What does he think this is, some kind of vacation? Sally Mae tells him in no short terms that it's not a vacation so he can go right ahead and think again.
He can't shout back at her, so what does he do? He turns around and marches straight out the door and off into the distance. As he's walking he reminisces back to the early days when they weren't yet married, when she was too spellbound and smitten to even dream of shouting at him.
He heads to the store, and buys some clothes for her and the kids to appease her. Taking a page out of Stoffe's playbook are we Billy Bob? It hasn't been working great for him, just so you know.
And then he heads to the Hot House, to work out his aggression and frustrations there, so he can keep himself from taking it too far with Sally Mae. He could not have put up with his life without this outlet for himself, that's for sure.
That night once he came back home, they both kept to their separate sides of the bed. Both still angry with the other.
The next day Sally Mae was feeling guilty about barely seeing the kids the day before, so she makes sure to make time for them first thing the next morning, going over to their trailer to say good morning and check in before they head off for school.
Junior seems to sense that mommy is having a rough go of it and could do with a hug from her little boy. He's a very sweet sensitive little man.
The shower is broken, yet again. With 2 adults and 4 children taking constant showers the plumbing breaks with mind-numbing regularity. They don't have money for a repairman, and Billy Bob has never shown an interest in helping so it always come down to Sally Mae to get it sorted.
Billy Bob has gone off to work again, and after the shower fixing Sally Mae finds herself spent. This pregnancy turned out to be the straw that broke the camels back, her body is worn out from all the new humans it has grown over the years, and working round the clock day in and day out. So she heads back to bed to take a nap. She doesn't want the little ones to be all alone without supervision again so she brings them to the bedroom to sleep next to her so that she'll wake if they do.
She's awoken by Junior, who is excited to show off his latest report card where he managed to get top grades. She's a good mom, proud of all her kids and wanting to be there, but she definitely wishes Junior had chosen a different day to get a good grade.
She manages a cheer, then tells Junior that mommy isn't feeling well. And she really does look unwell, barely able to stand on her own two legs for that brief moment. Her arms and legs are all thinned out, you can tell she's barely eating and the new pregnancy is sucking up all the nutrients leaving her with nothing much to nourish herself.
When Billy Bob comes home from work an hour later, he finds her fast asleep with the two babies awake but calm next to her. He's angry, because he was going to make a thing of coming in to say hi to her today and present her with the gift, and his ungrateful wife isn't even awake to notice him! He's positively fuming as he leaves the gift box next to the bed so at least she'll see it the moment she wakes up.
He settles in to keep stewing, reading his newspaper, until he notices Lulu Belle next to him chowing down on some leftover spaghetti from yesterday. No daughter of his is going to be allowed to put on the pounds, he's in tip top shape and his kids should be too, in his opinion. So he marches her off towards the obstacle course to run til he says she can stop. Right as they exit Sally Mae, who has finally woken up, comes out with Tamie Lee in her arms.
As usual Peggy Sue gets roped in alongside her twin sister. Billy Bob doesn't abide by quitters, and he keeps them working, in the snow, until late before letting them traipse off to bed.
Sally Mae has stayed in the main trailer, taking care of the two babies. When Billy Bob comes in, she's settled them in the danglemasters and is giving herself time to eat something.
When Billy Bob comes in he quietly picks up Joe Bob and gets him fed, then heads out to put him in his crib for the night, making a new milestone in his relationship with his baby son. He's not best friends with any of them, but Joe Bob gets there. First one to interest him enough to build up a relationship.
He comes back and tells Sally Mae to hand over Tamie Lee as well and he'll settle her in, so Sally Mae can go have an early night since she's so so tired.
The next morning, he keeps it up. He wakes up before Sally Mae, going and getting the twins to feed them while she gets to sit down and have breakfast right away, for once.
After breakfast Sally Mae gets started on the chores, she hasn't had a chance to clean at all in the the last two days. Suddenly Billy Bob starts playing with the babies. What is going on?
And to make it even weirder, he went and made their bed. First "cleaning" chore he's ever done.
Sally Mae went over to the kids trailer to keep them company as they ate breakfast, but she gets called back to the grown up trailer by Billy Bob who made some kind of phonecall.
Who did he call and why you might ask? Why is he taking care of the babies, even doing a minor cleaning chore? What's he got up his sleeve now? Believe it or not, he arranged a playdate for the kids. He's called Tyrell's mom and invited her and her son over to spend the day with them.
Those of you with good memories (and good back of head recognition) may recognize her from a past episode. Jaqueline Kansal, the mother of Tyrell, and sometime host at the Hot House Here Billy Bob is, introducing his wife to Jaqueline.
Sally Mae doesn't know what to think of what was happening, Billy Bob had never invited anyone over before. And arranging a playdate for the kids? What? Since when does he care? It's well timed though, because it's saturday and the kids will be home all day. Billy Bob tells her he wanted to do something fun for the kids that keeps them busy, and he further explained that Jaqueline is great with kids and can help him keep an eye on them so Sally Mae can get even more rest and hopefully have energy for another surprise he's planning the next day. As they work together to settle the babies in before Sally Mae goes to take a nap, he even splurges on calling for a pizza to be delivered.
While Billy Bob keeps the older kids busy with the pizza, Sally Mae seems to be dreaming of spring and the planting she'll be able to do. She doesn't get much time for herself, her little vegetable garden is the thing she does that's sort of about her, even if the veggies also help feed the family. Meanwhile Jaqueline brought Tamie Lee over for a bath.
Which is the first thing Sally Mae sees when she wakes up, somewhat horrified to see a total stranger on the other side of the windows giving her daughter a bath.
But by the time she's dressed and emerges out to the main room of the trailer, Jaqueline is there ready to hand over a newly bathed baby girl to Sally Mae, who does look quite pleased at having her baby back, nice and clean. Billy Bob is once again giving Billy Bob his bottle.
The trailers are usually some degree of chaos, because of all the kids, but this is a type of chaos that is totally unfamiliar to Sally Mae and she doesn't look quite sure what to make of it. Strangers, the smell of pizza, Billy Bob giving Lulu Belle a dance on his toes.
She seems almost relieved when she can turn her back on it all for a moment to wash up plates from breakfast.
The kids seem to have picked up on the fact that their father is in a charitable mood today, which Peggy Sue takes advantage of and goes to show Tyrell how bouncy her parents bed is.
Meanwhile Sally Mae has time to give Lulu Belle help with her homework, for the first time in a good while. Jaqueline and Billy Bob told her to take her time, they got the babies covered so Sally Mae can focus her attention on the older kids that evening.
Peggy Sue wants to talk to the belly and her upcoming new siblings. Given that Sally Mae has had three sets of twins by now, and this is the most tired she's ever been during a pregnancy, everyone fully expects another pair to drop, or even more than 2 perhaps.
Sally Mae even gets to kiss her precious kids goodnight, for once. And you for once get a clear view of the one thing Sally Mae ever spent on for herself. A pretty ring of an apple blossom, her favorite scent. It was a bit of an extravagant purchase for her, she usually funnels all her money towards the kids. But this one time in her life she splurged on herself, using money she made by digging in the yard for things to pawn.
Then she too heads to sleep after a very strange, but for once somewhat relaxing day for her. Billy Bob wanders off after everyone else has gone to bed, heading to the orchard in Bluewater to pick some apples as a gift for Sally Mae. She's been unable to make pepper punch to perk her up, because she ran out of apples. She absolutely relies on the pick me up effect of this juice to get through the day, and not being able to make it anymore is largely why she's been sleeping so much. She can't really manage without it, there's just so much to be done and the pregnancy drains her energy so heavily. Billy Bob figures she'll be nice and grateful to him if he gets her the apples she needs to make it again.
Once he's done apple-picking, he heads to his real destination for the night, which I'm sure you have guessed is Hot House. But he's not just there to partake in the usual offerings, he's arranged to meet up with someone. And who else but Jaqueline?
They arranged the whole thing, a few nights back when Billy Bob came there. He spoke to Jaqueline about his growing frustration with his wife and having to play the nice husband to her. Jaqueline suggested this little scheme, as a way for Billy Bob to get back at his wife without her realizing it. Bringing Jaqueline home, letting her take care of Sally Mae's beloved kids, while secretly sleeping with Billy Bob behind Sally Mae's back. It was a great way for Billy Bob to get back at Sally Mae, in a way she would not know about but he could enjoy secretly.
Jaqueline, you may be surprised to learn, is actually married, but has an open relationship and sometimes comes to the Hot House with her husband to spice things up. She is not part of the staff, she's just a woman that enjoys her kicks and she finds Billy Bob extremely attractive. The fact that he's rude to her is just more spice. And Billy Bob thoroughly enjoys what she has to offer, both bodily, and the fact that she's got a selfish and cruel twist to her just like he does. He doesn't have to pretend with her, he can act as he wishes he could to Sally Mae and know she'll accept it as part of a kink. He's thrilled by the fact that she helped him come up with a way to insult Sally Mae, without her being any the wiser. In a way he's managing to turn his role as a good husband, which he feels compelled to maintain to prevent Sally Mae from questioning her existence, into acts of domination that he can feel good about. It helps him feel less frustrated and angry because it puts him back in control, and that is exciting to him. And as Billy Bob heads into the Hot House with Jaqueline in tow to celebrate this new scheme of theirs, we leave the Sawyers for today.