in my life

November 2025 - Benjamin Long is 34, Elizabeth Ng is 28 (Viola Cameron is 34, Clara Long is 7).

She knows what people say about her - homewrecker, scarlet woman. It would be funny if it weren't so hurtful. She's always been so shy, such a focused student. She hardly dated in college, and for the first few years after college she didn't do anything but work. That's where she met Benjamin. She certainly didn't plan to fall in love with a married man, but she also can't regret it.

papa was a rolling stone

November 2023 - Benjamin and Viola Long are 32, Clara Long is 5, Elizabeth Ng is 26.

Now that their daughter Clara is in kindergarten, Benjamin and Viola have been talking about having another child. They always thought they'd have more than one, but for some reason having a baby just doesn't feel right. Maybe it's the long hours he works at the hospital, or the fact that they just bought their first house. Even though neither of them can put their finger on the reason, they both agree that now isn't the time to have another baby.

angels of the silences

February 2023 - Orlando Centowski is 28, Steffi Centowski is 27, Phoebe is 2, Nate and Theo are 3 months, Elizabeth Ng is 25.

Orlando met Steffi in college. He didn't think a popular cheerleader would ever date a nerdy math major like him, but they fell in love, and he proposed to her one morning in the cafeteria.

They got married in August at the college chapel, and they moved into a nice house in Providence. She worked as a police officer, and he got a job as an oceanographer. After a few years of marriage, they had their first child, a daughter named Phoebe. It's everything he thought his adult life would be.

He's not sure why he did it, what he was thinking.  He was back on campus again that spring, around graduation, and he ran into Elizabeth Ng at the student center. They had lived in the same dorm when she was a freshman and he was a senior. They've been friends for a long time, and somehow one thing leads to another.