Whatever Occurs: Life, Love, and Loss

Intro!

You and Ethon go to visit Malyssa again. This time, Jeremy is dropping Braylee and Tessa off at Nick and Carrie Cox's house. You also meet one of Malyssa's close friends, Louisa Markston.

You walk in through the door, and Malyssa comes to hug you. You both embrace when you look over her shoulder.

"Who's this?" You ask.

"Ah yes, intro! Mumma, Louisa. Louisa, Kayla," she speaks as she moves her hands toward you, then to her.

"Maly told me so much about you, Kayla! I'm Louisa," she says with a bright smile on her face and shakes your hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Louisa," you reply, "she told me quite a bit about you too!" You sense positive energy from her when she shakes your hand. She seems to have a kindred spirit.

Malyssa then tells you why she wanted you to meet Louisa. "Her brother Keith is currently battling stage three thyroid cancer. I wanted to invite you to come with us down to Centralia for a baseball and softball camp coming up. I'm the manager for the softball match, and Jeremy is playing in the baseball match. Keith is a pastor of an Episcopal Church down there. He and Spencer are good friends too."

You ponder it for a while. "He's a pastor of an Episcopal Church? He must be pretty progressive," you think to yourself. You grew up in the Episcopal Church when you lived with your family in Scotland.

You finally have an answer for Malyssa and Louisa. "I want to watch him play," you say, "I can't wait for Jeremy to knock it out of the ball park."

Malyssa and Louisa smile.

"You can always call her Maly too, you know," Louisa tells you.

"I know she goes by Maly, but I just don't want to end up calling her by her nickname so much that saying her real name sounds weird. Besides, I always loved the name Malyssa, I just didn't like the regular spelling of the name, M-E-L-I-S-S-A. That spelling of the name is my middle name, but I changed it up when I gave Malyssa the name. Sometimes I call her Maly, Lyss, or Lyssa too."

"Oh yeah, I agree. My sister's real name is Shaylee, but I call her Shay so much that saying Shaylee feels really weird to me. But I also use nicknames to remember someone's real name."

"Anyway, when is this softball and baseball match, Lyssa love?"

"It's on Friday, June 26th at one o'clock PM at the Centralia High School baseball field. Keith and Spencer are really good friends, so he and Beaudry are playing baseball there too."

"Oh yeah? Dad and I are going for sure! Are there tickets?"

"No tickets! You just have to pay a twenty dollar admission fee."

"Deal! Are you playing softball, Louisa hon?"

"I am! I loved softball in high school and college."

"I played softball in college until I got pregnant with Beaudry and went onto being a full time student and mummy. My parents kicked me out of the house though, so I came here to Seattle from Aberdeen to find some new opportunities. And because I resented my parents."

"Aberdeen? I didn't know you've lived in Washington your whole life."

"Scotland."

"You're from the UK?! I always wondered how Maly and her brothers had that broken British accent!"

"Well, that's what happened. Ethon told his parents too, and they kicked him out of the house. He lived in Ireland at the time. He came with me to America where we spent the rest of our college days. We've lived in Seattle ever since May of 1981, just a month after Ethon and I got married in Glasgow in April of that year."

"I was always asked about my British accent for God knows how long!" Malyssa jumps in, "I didn't ever think I had any of it until my parents told me about their immigration to America from Great Britain! Just a few months back, I found out that my parents made us watch British television and had us listen to a lot of music by Brits."

You and Louisa start to laugh.