Mom drew the line at me when it came to the Brooks' criticism, therefore if they had anything disparaging to say about me, they never said it in front of my mother. I kept my disagreements with the in-laws out of my mother's knowledge, and as soon as they departed on the following Monday, I bought black hair dye and chopped off the rest of my 'proper' hair cut, instead turning it into a pixie cut that was anything but prim or proper. " Much, much better," She assured me as I cleaned up my father's office before he was to be picked up at the airport later today.

" Thank you, even though I feel a little naked without long hair,"

Contrary to popular belief, women didn't always have long hair in the Regency era. A small trend emerged where ladies wore short bobs, and no, I wasn't one of them.

Sweeping the floor, I mulled over what would soon take place. John is going to move back home, and I am going to stay home with my parents. My father is going to help me with my schooling, and no one ( excluding the stuck up snobby pricks known as Mr. and Mrs. Brooks) wanted me to fail at schooling. John's new career and newly started college education would launch him into a career he was already semi-familiar with. In fact, he promised to move me out to him after he saved up enough of a down payment to purchase a house for ourselves at least a half hour to an hour away from his parents.

We already discussed adopting a dog from the local shelter when this happened and maybe a cat or two.

What I didn't know is that his parents already worked on him to divorce me. Every night. At the dinner table. When I refused to go to church on Sunday while they were here, his mother threatened to cut off his 'allowance' which basically paid for our car insurance, car maintenance, and transportation costs. She refused to accept that my school work came first and that if God cared enough about me attending, he'd help me win the lottery for many, many millions and then I wouldn't worry about taking classes on Sunday.

" God's will will provide," She said in heated anger.

If God's will provided for us, John wouldn't have been barely scraping by, corporations would be paying their taxes instead of putting them in off shore banking institutions and then complaining about needing to pay 35% interest on profits earned by moving that money back to the US soil. If God's will provided for us, you wouldn't have people shooting up churches, schools, or Timothy McVeigh types going crazy simply because they became radicalized. Americans running off ISIL or Al-Qaeda or the Taliban - is that God's will? So no, I don't buy that bullshit excuse that Mrs. Brooks peddled out to me. If God fucken cared, he'd get off his fat ass and do something something productive like putting himself on the world stage and saying " I am God. Here I am. You all worship me. Stop these wars," And then click his fingers and the wars would be stopped and people would love thy neighbor and accept thy neighbor as they should.

Maybe I'm cynical. Maybe I'm the product of a defective social gene where religion has become as corrupted as every government in the world. Either way, God wasn't going to pay my bills and going to church and skipping out on a good education was a no-no. I refused bow to their money and catholic 'superiority'. Are there good, decent catholics out there who don't heckle non-believers? Sure...but those people weren't my in-laws. I got stuck with the Jim Jones fanatical catholic in-laws from hell.

" Honey, I'm going out to the food store," My mother warned me before she left the house.

Taking up my binders I moved them to the ensuite that was now solely occupied by me. Without John's possessions cluttering up the space, it felt too large. My pregnant belly decided I was too comfortable, and the urge to vomit hit me. As I heaved into the toilet, tears at the corners of my eyes, my phone vibrated on the floor. Shoving it a way with my hand, I just wanted to not taste vomit in my mouth. Pregnancy is horrible. I don't know why women love it - I'll love the baby but the pregnancy - nope.

The phone kept vibrating in repeated agitation until finally I answered it. On speaker phone no one spoke immediately.

" Em?"

" Dacy?" I reached for the mouth wash and filled the small cap half way.

The silence that followed stretched for about a minute. " Can you drive me into the city? I need to go to a doctor,"

" Give me a moment. I need to change and pick you up. Where you at?"

" Work,"

" Are you leaving early?"

" Mike fired me when I told his fiancee that he cheated on her,"

Rinsing out the vomit taste, I took a moment to just breathe. " Are you pregnant?"

" No. But he promised to drive me to the doctor's and now that he's angry with me, he's not willing to drive me," Her voice echoed. Most likely she was in the bathroom, probably crying. Poor girl. At least Lydia avoided the likes of him. I hoped that she didn't hop on the Mike train as well, because she might need the doctor for that STD testing. " It's not fair…"

Life isn't fair. I have asshole in-laws. She got fired for telling the truth. An education these days cost an arm and leg. The government wanted to impose more taxes on mileage screwing over the rural or suburban populace. Life was beyond not fair. It is impossible for the middle and lower class to scrape by or even break through the socio-economical barrier anymore. And the Rich just kept getting richer and storing their money in off shore accounts and complaining about needing to pay 35% in taxes. Boo fucken hoo.

God I hated being pregnant. It made my mood swings even worse.

As it turns out Dacy's doctor is a drug dealer. Dacy is abusing heroin, and she just spent her last paycheck on heroin that would help her find another job. Odds were she'd fail a drug test and end up in the slums with all the other drug users after her sister kicked her out, when her sister finds out she's abusing drugs. Everything I knew just seemed to be falling apart or held together by ghostly straps of normalcy. All of the surrealness just bashed me over the head repeatedly.

The return of my father grounded the reality to where it needed to be. " No monster-in-laws," I assured him jokingly as he off loaded his luggage by the shoes. Sunny watched him from the couch where she took up majority of the sitting space. I held out his Sports Illustrated to him, his one small 'need'.

" Mr. Brook's let his wife drain his bank account?" He teased.

" Worse. He has a business manager who's probably whispering in his wife's ear and persuading an affair that is against God's holy word," I shrugged. " Prenup. She leaves with $1500 because that's what she came into the marriage with. Everything goes to the kids, and the kids have to provide for her - reasonably,"

" You married well then," He scratched his beard.

Again, I shrugged. " Not intended. But guess what I didn't sign?"

My father chuckled. " A prenup?"

I nodded. " Doesn't matter though. Blood money is tainted money," I held out my arm to hug him. " You need a shower and I need finish reading the chapter for this week."

We hugged.

Hours later with a head full of new mumbo jumbo that needed integrated into my new bank of knowledge that would shape the future of architecture one day, I sat at the table with my mother and father. My mother dropped an official looking envelope on the table addressed to me before my father helped serve the meal. I opened it up curiously and slipped out two sheets of white stiff paper. My eyes quickly scanned the page, my heart dropping out of my chest.

Numbers popped out at me. $1000 per month in child support guaranteed. $50,000 paid alimony, yearly till my death. All I had to do was divorce John and offer up joint custody without fighting in the courts.

" What's wrong?" My father asked as he cut up the ham.

I lowered the sheet that laid out the calculations meant to seduce me into accepting this offer. " Mr. Brooks is asking me to divorce John on the base of $62,000 in income yearly, $50,000 after our child turns 18. He even suggested stocks I could put the money into, hedge funds that were willing to work with such a small amount of money,"

My mother picked up the front page that verbalized the parents desire to see their son more desirably married. " I'm going to kill that b-"

" Jenn, sit," Robert Banfield ordered his wife gently.

" I'm going to kill her," My mother repeated with growing volume as she sat down. " How dare she dictate to my daughter -"

" Our daughter," My father smiled at me. I returned it briefly because I honestly didn't know how to feel or whether I should feel anything at all. " Our daughter is very capable of telling her monster-in-laws how to travel and where to travel to,"

Directly to hell. " All hail Zeus, Thor, Odin, and Satan. I'm sure if I prayed to them they'd fulfill my request of removing the monster-in-laws. Either that, or I can just get cozy with Henry's wife…." As appealing the idea was, I didn't even know my sister-in-law's name. Now if I could find her email address or phone number...Google! I'm sure she had to be mentioned with a family this rich, even if it was just a stalker's blog.

My father was an absolute ray of sunshine and my mother volunteered to help me in composing the email to my elusive sister-in-law. The entire family affair actually amused us for two whole days before my father and I turned our attentions to the emerging trends and construction materials on the market.

" Big project?" I shuffled through his sketches.

He watched me with general pleasantness. " We're working on a custom home using eco-friendly materials and recycled building materials. Should reduce the footprint," We always were conscience of our footprint on mother earth, and Mom insisted we recycled as much as possible. I am proud to say that our footprint is small. The heartwarming effect it has in just knowing we were doing our part in keeping our planet whole and healthy to the best of OUR ability.

" Did you see the construction lego blocks they are using in one of those war ravaged countries?" I snapped my fingers in trying to remember what country it was again. " Like...they're in blocks and made of recycled plastic-"

" We were communicating with the creators to test the limits of its endurance and what climate it is best used in. We were also looking into other common materials - tires, bottles, glass - that are polluting this wonderful planet," He stopped on a page of his latest sketch alongside a series of photos. " Maybe I could build you a home using recycled materials entirely?"

I hugged him. " I wish I had the money to pay you,"

" Well, we could start small with the house. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, sitting area," He pat my hand. " I'll talk to John about it and hope he is willing to grow with the house itself,"

It was times like this that I loved my father. But not even I could take advantage of him when I was already living on a private loan from my mother and practically rent free with a car I didn't need to make payments on. I wagered that my parents wouldn't be so free with their money if the mortgage weren't paid off already.

" You have the keys to my office again," He promised me.

" If you need help or want-"

" Worry about your classes for now," He kissed my forehead and moved upstairs to pack his suitcase again. I wondered how he and Mom survived as long as they did with his constant traveling.

He'd never let me fly pregnant anyway.

My mother consoled me. I wondered at their ability to hold a stable marriage with his constant traveling. " But they'll allow a car to transport you, which is more likely to kill you than a plane," My mother grumbled at the stupidity of the doctors and society in general. " Eygptian shorthand again?" She compared my notes to my father's notepad.

I shrugged casually. " It's Dad's fault,"

She laughed. " Your father is to blame for many things, and I am pleased to see that his daughter adores him. He wanted a boy, you know…." She teased me. " But the moment he laid eyes on you and looked into your eyes and held your little hand he didn't care if you were a boy or girl. You were not allowed to lay in your crib any longer than five minutes if you were not sleeping, and I swear he woke up more often in the middle of the night to check on you than I did,"

I arranged the desk to my liking. " Dad offered to build me our own house, room by room, but we don't have a down payment and until we do, I guess we'll just have to settle for John pandering to his parents' whims and hopefully my education pays off,"

" We're always proud of you, baby doll," Mom kissed my forehead and helped me move my father's folders, binders, and books to their appropriate shelves. " And you have a wonderful husband who would lay the world at your feet,"

Yes, John Brooks laid the world at my feet every opportunity afforded. It frightened me that he is so capable of it. While I was being fully supported, John's misery only increased.

Another dinner, another opportunity to be assaulted by his parents' demands. " If you divorced your wife-"

" I'm Catholic, remember?"John snapped at his mother. " Divorce isn't sanctioned by the Big Man,"

Their spread of sushi, spring rolls, and rice balls brightened the glass and metal table that spanned the elevated dining room in the half a million dollar home.

Crescida Brooks shook her head. " Divorced individuals are accepted now. We can find you a nice catholic girl to marry and fight for full custody in court. We can afford the lawyers-"

John said nothing to his modern mother and kept his eyes on the flooring visible through the glass. He checked his phone again. His father-in-law called him and left him a voicemail but he couldn't answer it at the dinner table. If Emery were here, she'd tear his modern mother a new one without batting an eyelash. He'd come to appreciate that about her - the passion that pushed her into every choice she made. Her stubbornness turned her into Mrs. Banfield, and he had yet to see his mother-in-law in a foul mood.

" You should think of the future, Jay. If she's going to take you for half, you stand to lose more than at least half the company's worth," His father pressed, seeing his mother failed. " Your brother already married a good girl and he's next in line after you to inherit. He was smart enough to make her sign a prenup,"

" I trust Em. She won't divorce me," John insisted harmlessly.

He dialed Emery whether his parents liked it or not.

" Well, you shouldn't. We offered her a tempting sum and she will likely accept it," Crescida boasted. " Our lawyer is already drawing up the papers-"

Suddenly his intent on dialing his wife changed. Now he just wanted to make sure that his wife hadn't written him off. " I quit," He placed his ID badge and card key for work on his half eaten dish.

" You can't quit. This is your future, your blood right-"

John accepted who was and who wasn't his blood, and these 'parents' of his were not really his parents at all. His real mother surely wasn't this scheming! " My blood isn't born yet, and it's mother is either going to kill me or kill you. At this moment, I'd prefer it to be your blood and not mine,"

Good bye college education. Good bye free rent. Good bye a hope that he could be closer to his family here than he was in his home period. Hello, beautiful wife who grated his nerves every so often and a busy life. He handed the house key to his mother and in a blink, they were no longer in the current but the past free of all their parents and hassles of the modern.