Woodgrain

Round 27: Summer 2026

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Mina Lachance is 76, Abigail Carmody is 43, Jesse is 41, Mitchell is 7 and Austin and Lauren are both 5.

(Nick is 23)

Narrated by Abigail Carmody

For the last several months, I've been feeling really on edge. I've been so nervous about Nick and this whole paternity test thing with Adrienne. A few days after the baby was born, Nick received the results and found that he'd been excluded as the father. These tests are supposed to be completely accurate and I couldn't be more relieved.

Nick's still a little bit down right now. This whole ordeal was emotionally exhausting for all of us but of course, Nick felt it the most.

He's picking up a little every day though and he's starting to see why not being the father isn't such a bad thing.

Nick really wants a family one day but he knows this wasn't his only chance. Raising a kid alone is tough and Nick would have had it harder than Caleb and I did.

Adrienne is giving the baby up for adoption and I'm not convinced she would have wanted to be involved if it did turn out to be Nick's. I know that's not really how Nick pictures his life when he thinks about having a family one day.

Mum is on his back to get a jump start on that. Every time he comes over, she asks him if he has a girlfriend, or if he's started dating again yet.

I don't blame him if he's a little nervous about getting back out there. Secretly, I kind of hope he doesn't take too much longer. I'm not going to bug him about it. Mum's doing a fine job of that already.

Things have been a bit crazy around here recently and I feel like I'm shouldering all of it. Since Jesse started working for Jonas, his hours are much better. Yet when I get home at 7pm, dinner isn't made, the house is a mess and I have to do everything.

Half the time, the kids haven't started their homework and all three of them are sitting in front of the TV playing video games.

That's really fun for me to try to organise, especially with Austin's whining.

Jesse adores the kids and vice versa but lately, he's been doing all the "fun" stuff with them, while I get stuck with the rest.

If I ask him to do the littlest thing to help out, like pull up the bedspread, he whines about it like a 5 year-old.

And then he has the nerve to try to get all romantic with me afterwards, when I'm dead tired from doing everything around here.


That's if you can call butt grabs in the kitchen romantic.

Mum and Dad always made their marriage look so easy. She always says marriage takes work, but it never looked like that when I saw my parents together.

I keep venting about Jesse to Mum and finally she told me that maybe I should talk to him about how I'm feeling.

I probably should have waited until I wasn't so pissed off at him though. Once I was done, it didn't feel like it was a particularly productive conversation.

Maybe it worked though. The next day, he got Mum to watch the kids and insisted on taking me out to dinner. I was a little suspicious that he was just sucking up to get out of trouble.

That wasn't it at all though. Jesse actually sounded like he was really sincerely sorry about letting me do everything lately and he admitted he'd been very lazy. Lazy even for him, which is really saying something!

Jesse and I used to go out to eat all the time but it had been so long. I didn't realise how much I missed it. We ended up having a really wonderful time.

Until the stupid waiter spilled a salad over my head, that is.

He was falling all over himself to apologise but ugh...there wasn't really much else he could do.

I tried to ignore the fact that I smelled like salad dressing and enjoy the rest of the night.

When we got home, I felt so much more relaxed! It was a nice change from how I've been feeling lately.

Jesse made dinner for the whole family the next night and I'm hoping this is a sign of him turning over a new leaf.

He didn't exactly do a great job but he tried, at least. It's the thought that counts!

The soup was revolting but I choked it down. I don't want to do anything to discourage Jesse from helping out around here!

Notes:

• Title is from Woodgrain by Wilco.
• Jesse and Abigail's marital issues were caused by a very weird glitch these two have with ACR. It's been happening for at least a few rounds now and I can't really figure it out. Their attraction score is displays as 0, even though their relationship panel icons still show them as 3-bolters (their score should be 138). Anyway, it results in their romantic interactions being rejected sometimes, even when their moods are high.
• I haven't really written it in before now, because it didn't seem to be following any sort of pattern I could make sense of. But this round, Jesse was rolling hardly any romantic wants for Abigail and when he'd autonomously flirt with her, she'd reject him. I had her yell at him and a couple of hours later, he rolled the want to go on a date. So he took Abigail out to dinner and all of a sudden, they were all over each other again. And he made dinner autonomously the next night.
• When I had Nick over, he had rolled up the want to talk to Adrienne. Who he doesn't even like any more. Poor Nick...he's too nice for his own good!