The nouvelle Nouvel Legacy

For the first time ever, the Nouvel house was dominated by men. August moved in after his father passed away. He had to sell their house to help pay his dad’s hospital bills. So he, Conrad, Dominick and Darius  made their presence known. I got used to checking for the toilet seat when going to the bathroom. The tv was constantly tuned to Sim Sports Network unless a multiplayer battle royale was in progress on Simwar 2. Con and Dom occasionally mixed things up with a chess match. It was so sweet to watch them together, reminded me of Dad teaching Conrad to play.

Conrad and August both pitched in to help care for Darius as well. I was home during the day to get Dom ready for school and spend time with Dare before work.

August taught him to walk. He seemed to be a great father and spent as much time as possible with Darius.

Watching the two of them together, I started to think maybe marriage wouldn’t be so bad. I didn’t have a problem with monogamy, just the idea of marriage, the legal commitment and all the societal expectations made me really uncomfortable.

August was really into the idea though. He had all kinds of arguments to try and convince me. “What if something happens to you, like that birthday cake incident? Do you know how hard it would be for me to stay here and take care of the boys with all your money tied up in estate proceedings? And Danial would try to get custody of Dominick just to get his hands on Dom’s inheritance. He’s been out of work since his band broke up.” I hadn’t thought of that. I’d always assumed Con would take care of the boys if something happened to me but that wouldn’t be fair to his plans with Bambi.

At August’s urging I even went to a few counseling sessions to get to the root of my “issues”. The therapist suggested my aversion to marriage was probably influenced by my parents’ unusual relationship. They never shared a bedroom and generally behaved more like friends or siblings than lovers. August jumped all over that too. ” See you could be doing serious damage to both of the children. We need to give them the right example of adult relationships.”

I couldn’t get his arguments out of my head. Morning to night I heard “..better for the kids..what if something happens…don’t be like your parents.” The only argument I could muster was a whiny  ”… but I don’t want to.” Then he hit me with the trump card.

“Clem, I’ve been patient but I’m not going to raise another child with you unless we’re married. I can’t keep hanging on in limbo like this.” His ultimatum made things so clear. I could have another baby as a single mother or I could give my children a traditional family. So the next time August asked me to marry him, I said yes, even though I still didn’t want to.

Oh boy, what am I getting myself into.