The Steele Family Album: Volume XIX
Back at the Steele family home, there's an important event taking place.
Simon is meeting his daughter Laura for the first time.
But there's also a goodbye to be said - this time to Lucy. And William is actually cheering about it! 😮 Things have been rather frosty between them, ever since he witnessed Lucy's moment of weakness with George, but this is a whole other level of vindictiveness!
And then - perhaps through divine providence - the living room furniture catches fire. Thankfully, the urns containing the ashes of Lucy and Meg on the mantelpiece survive the blaze intact!
Catherine and Simon have also been a little careless again. Or perhaps it was by design this time?
Catherine very sensibly goes into labour in the nursery...
...and gives birth to a second daughter - Rebecca. Let's hear it for recessive genes! She has her great-grandmother's eyes, passed on through her grandmother Kitty.
Shortly after, arriving home from work one evening - with a colleague in tow - karma finally sneaks up on William from behind, in the form of Grim.
He doesn't mind too much. After all, he is going to rest in peace in a tropical paradise - or maybe just to sit on the mantelpiece, next to his fiancée and his cat. Who can say?
Brie is noisily outraged at the departure of her Sim. But Independent Dolly - having no strong bond with the rest of the family - makes the pragmatic decision to try her luck elsewhere, and slopes off alone into the darkness of the night.
Of course, Catherine reports Dolly as missing straight away - she is an elder now, and Catherine is worried about her being out on the streets. But whether she will be seen again is anyone's guess. Cats, after all, are their own masters.