- Prologue -
Ray Henson let out a long, contented sigh as he looked out over the yard of his new home and sipped his cold beer. It had been a long day of unpacking, sorting, arranging, and cleaning. There was still a lot to do, but his empty house was starting to look more like a home than it had when the moving vans had arrived earlier that morning.
His wife, Diane, stepped up behind him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I think this place is really going to work out," she said.
"Me too," he replied, draping his arm over her shoulder and drawing her into a warm embrace. He rested his other hand on her round and very pregnant belly, hoping to feel a kick.
Ray and Diane had been high-school sweethearts. They'd attended college together where Ray excelled in computer science while Diane focused her creative energies on a degree in studio art. They married soon after graduation, and within a year she was pregnant with their first child, John.
Ray found a well-paying job in the IT industry, while Diane stayed at home, caring for their newborn. Three years later, Diane found herself pregnant yet again. Deciding that their two bedroom apartment was already crowded enough with just the three of them, they decided it was time to take the next big step and purchase their first real home.
As they looked out over their new yard, Diane smiled and interlocked her fingers with Ray's. For several long moments, the pair stood there in silence, imagining all of the happy memories they would make together in their new home. Ray was already making plans to build a playset in the back for John and their unborn daughter. Diane, for her part, was imagining everything she'd plant in her new garden.
They jumped in surprise as the loud ringing of the telephone shocked them out of their reverie.
"Our first phone call!" Diane exclaimed as an excited grin spread across her face.
"Henson residence!" she said as she picked up the receiver. "Hi, Mary!... Yep, our phone lines work too... Hold on a sec, let me check with Ray."
She covered the receiver with her hand. "Mary and Tim want to know if we'd like to come over for some pizza," she said.
"Sounds good to me," he replied. "Let me get my shoes on."
Ray went upstairs to make sure that John was fast asleep and checked to make sure the baby monitor was working properly. Back downstairs he grabbed a few cold beers out of the fridge before heading across the backyard with his wife. They knocked on the patio door of the house behind their own and were greeted by Mary, who was tired and sweaty but her radiant happiness shone through her exhaustion. Ray smiled and gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Diane did the same, giggling as her belly bumped up against Mary's equally large pregnancy bump.
Mary was Ray's sister. The pair had been closer than most growing up. Mary was the quiet type and had always found it difficult to make friends. For as long as either of them could remember, Ray had taken it upon himself to look out for his little sister and include her in his social outings. Even during the trials and tribulations of their teenage years, the two of them were practically inseparable.
The closest they ever came to serious conflict was when Ray started dating Diane. The two girls clashed at first, neither wanting to share his attentions with the other. Once they got to know each other, though, the two girls formed a strong friendship that persisted on into adulthood.
When Ray and Diane left for college, Mary was finally forced to break out of her shell. In her freshman year of college, she met Tim. Their professor had matched them up as lab partners in Geology 101, a subject both were spectacularly terrible at but needed in order to fill a credit requirement for graduation.
Tim and Mary couldn't have been more different. Mary was quiet, prim, and socially awkward, while Tim had a level of confidence that would have been obnoxious if not for his genuine smile and friendly attitude towards nearly everyone he met. Unlike Mary, he had a talent for quickly engaging people and putting them at ease, a skill he would put to great use in a sales career later in life. Mary was smitten, but when he asked her out to dinner she panicked and turned him down. Fortunately, Tim was persistent and kept asking. It only took three more tries before she finally agreed. Things progressed quickly from there, and the pair went from dating, to moving in together, and finally, to marriage all within the space of a single school year.
His sister's hasty nuptials had been one of the biggest surprises of her brother's life. It seemed to go against everything Ray thought he knew about Mary's quiet, conservative nature. Even so, he'd never seen her happier than she was with Tim, and at the end of the day, that was all that really mattered.
Soon after Diane had given birth to John, Mary and Tim announced yet another surprise: she was pregnant with twins. Nine months later, Mary gave birth to Abby and Allison. Over the next two years, the couples learned to rely on each other as they confronted the many responsibilities that came along with parenthood. A few weeks after Diane announced that she was pregnant with her second child, Mary found that she, too, was expecting. The four of them couldn't have been happier.
After much discussion and planning, the two couples decided to buy a pair of houses that were back to back with each other. They liked the idea of living close enough that their children would grow up together. Ray and Mary hoped that their children would be as close with each other as they'd been in their own childhood.
As Mary lead them into the living room, Ray saw that his sister's house was in much the same state as his own. There were half-empty boxes strewn randomly around the living room floor, and a stack of trash was piled haphazardly in one corner. Much of the furniture was still wrapped in clear cellophane and only the barest of kitchen necessities had been unpacked. Tim had arranged a makeshift dining area out of overturned boxes and some lawn chairs until the dining room table could be assembled.
The four of them chatted and joked with each other as they ate, each of them excited for the bright future that lay ahead of them. Despite all the work they still had to do, none of them could remember a time when they'd felt more happy and content. As Diane and Mary laughed along with their husbands, they rubbed their stomachs, imagining all the joy their children would bring to their growing family in the years to come.
- Nineteen Years Later -
Christina Henson and Danny Wheeler were more than cousins, they were best friends. Having been born within a week of each other, they had a closer relationship with each other than with their own siblings. For as long as either could remember, they'd done everything together. Whether it was summer camp, after-school clubs, sports or merely swimming in their shared family pool, they were always by each other's side. At the age of eighteen and only a month away from their high school graduation, they were as close as close can be.
While neither of them were friendless, they tended to prefer each other's company to that if their classmates. Both of them were rather quiet and introverted, preferring to spend their Friday nights at home, watching classic sci-fi movies and playing video games over going out to rowdy parties. They excelled academically and had both been accepted to one of the top state universities, which they would be attending together in the fall.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and the pair were studying for an upcoming calculus test. While many of their classmates had been struck with chronic senioritis after receiving their college acceptance letters, Christina and Danny refused to let their academics slip. Normally, calculus was Danny's worst subject, but with Christina's help, he usually managed to pull out a decent grade.
That day, however, something was different. Math was usually a source of extreme frustration for Danny, but whenever Christina pointed out one of his mistakes, he merely smiled and let out a nondescript murmur of acknowledgment.
"What's got you in such a good mood?" Christina asked.
Danny hesitated a beat before responding. It seemed to take a moment for the question to register in his head.
"This is going to sound crazy," he said, starting to blush, "but I think somebody asked me out today."
