Michael had always hoped for a big family. He was an only child growing up and times got very lonely. He loved his son with every waking breath. He held him more than Lucille did. He fed him and changed him and laid with him when he was falling asleep. He was equally affectionate when the twins followed along. Lucille and Michael's passions expanded with each child they added to their little herd and Lucille fell more in love with Michael as the years went on.

After their daughter, Theia, was born, however, Lucille got very sick. Michael prepared the children for the worst, but when her heart healed and she was able to walk on her feet again the family celebrated by adopting a son from India. The doctor predicted that Lucille would never have anymore children and with all the wealth from Michael's heritage flooding in, the Quinton's didn't see the harm in brining another life into their partnership. Akila was a merely a baby when it came to them, but old enough to stand on his own chubby legs. The Quinton's thought that Akila would be the baby of the family, but they were wrong...

Lucille ended up pregnant again. Their family was not done growing yet.



The last few years spent together was strange. Lucille started to notice off behaviour from her beloved husband. It seemed that with each passing year he lost a bit of himself. His mood shifty drastically from anger to content. His voice grew louder with the intent to scare. His footsteps beat heavy on carpeted rugs. One night he had gotten so frustrated that he tore his desk to shreds and threw a chair against the wall, planting a large indent in the plaster. It cost a fortune to get patched up.

Michael was finally forced to admit defeat and Lucille left the children with a caretaker for a day while she took her husband to the doctors. It was there that they discovered Michael had a rare brain tumour that was eating away at his persona. Eventually there would be nothing left but a shell of a man who used to be human. Devastated by the news, but driven to heal her family, Lucille decided that it was best to keep this a secret between the adults in the house. The children were never supposed to know, but nothing could explain their father's sudden change in personality.

Michael's irritability poisoned the house and all that lived inside. His teenagers quit brining friends to the house out of fear that their father might be in 'one of his moods'. Lucille tried her best to act as if nothing was wrong, but the more time that passed the harder it was to regain herself... Let alone a two-hundred pound man with a temper of a toddler. Michael was no longer Michael, but a shell... a rotting shell. Lucille was driven mad with despair.



There were times when Michael would look at her and she would see the man that she fell in love with. There were times when he would hoist his children onto his shoulders and go dancing around the house with them twirling around him. There were times when the tumour was all forgotten and life seemed right again. But those were seeming more and more rare.

There was particularly rare day when Michael seemed to have remembered all that had happened and his normal, beautiful shelf was piercing through the enclosure he was trapped in. On this day, Michael got down on his knees and asked Lucille to renew their vows with him. He proclaimed that he wanted a wedding with the people he loved most in the world-- his own children. So Lucille made those arrangements as quickly as she could, before his temper was lost again in a mist of forgotten. Her children helped set up a lavish outdoor wedding where they danced down the aisle and kissed under the sunset. They made love under the stars and rested in each other's arms until the sun came up.

But when noon came, Michael was his usual irritable self.