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The air inside the Simpson house on 742 Evergreen Terrace is thick with the metallic tang of old coffee and the suffocating weight of unresolved static. It is November 30, 2019, and the gray Oregon sky presses against the windowpanes like a bruised palm. Lisa Simpson, eighteen and carrying a burden that feels heavier than the three-month-old life inside her, sits at the kitchen table. Her fingers, stained with ink from a frantic attempt at journaling, tremble as she presses 'Redial' for the twentieth time.
The call goes straight to voicemail. Again. Marge’s cheery, recorded greeting—recorded back when things were simple—is a serrated blade against Lisa’s nerves. Ruth isn't answering either. The silence from her mother and her stepmother is a vacuum, pulling all the oxygen out of the room.
Below her, in the living room, the floorboards vibrate with the percussive force of a shouting match. Homer’s voice, raspy and strained, clashes with the authoritative, gravelly bark of Clancy Wiggum. They are supposed to be family now—or close to it—but the impending nuptials between Clancy and Homer have done nothing to bridge the gap between their volatile tempers. The argument is over something trivial—a misplaced wedding vendor contract—but it sounds like a war.
"I’m not paying for a vegan buffet, Clancy! It’s an insult to the hog!" Homer bellows, his voice cracking.
"It's about the optics, Homer! My department is watching!" Clancy fires back, the sound of a heavy chair scraping against the hardwood punctuating his point.
The noise is why the house feels so empty despite the shouting. Laura Powers, sensing the impending meltdown, had gathered eleven-year-old Maggie’s things hours ago. "Come on, Mags," Laura had said, her voice a cool balm in the heat of the house. "You can hang out in my dorm. It’s better than listening to the Grumpy Old Men reboot."
Maggie hadn't argued. She had simply grabbed her heavy backpack—likely weighted down with the spray paint cans she used to "redecorate" the middle school hallways—and reached into her pocket for a fresh cherry sucker. She unwrapped it with practiced ease, the plastic crinkling loudly in the tense kitchen, before popping it into her mouth. Having skipped a grade, she was already more intellectually advanced than most of the kids she spent her time outsmarting. She’d spent the morning listening to aggressive trap beats on her headphones, her fingers ghost-mixing an EDM track on an imaginary deck, while her pet turtle sat stoically on the desk. A practicing Wiccan at eleven, Maggie seems to have more spiritual grounding than anyone else in the house. She followed Laura out into the crisp autumn morning, the white stick of the sucker protruding from her lips as she walked away without a glance back.
Lisa feels a wave of nausea that has nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the isolation. Oddly, the physical symptoms haven't arrived yet. Before they went missing, Marge had commented on it with a hint of motherly envy, recalling how her own pregnancies had been marked by months of hovering over the toilet. Ruth, on the other hand, had just shrugged and told Lisa she never had a day of morning sickness in her life—"It’s the tough genes, kid," she’d said.
Still, the emotional weight is its own kind of sickness. Bart is gone too, though his absence is permanent. Married for six months now, he’s ensconced in the domesticity of a life with Robert Terwilliger. Lisa finds it hard to wrap her head around it—Bart, Bob, and young Gino living as a unit—but at least they have a home that doesn't vibrate with rage. She stands up too quickly, the room tilting on its axis. The psychological dread, a cruel reminder of a night she spends every waking hour trying to meditate away, claws at her throat. She needs air. She needs to be anywhere that doesn't smell like Clancy’s cheap cigars and her father’s desperation.
Lisa pulls on a heavy, oversized knit cardigan and slips out the back door. The Oregon air is sharp, smelling of damp cedar and woodsmoke. She walks aimlessly, her sneakers crunching on the frost-dusted grass of the neighborhood. Her hand instinctively rests on her stomach—a protective gesture she hates herself for making. As a Buddhist, she tries to find the center, the path to detachment, but the trauma of Milhouse’s betrayal is a knot no mantra can untie. He is behind bars, but the prison of her own body feels just as restrictive.
She's passing the Lovejoy residence when she sees them.
A sleek, late-model SUV is parked in the driveway, and leaning against the trunk is Jessica Lovejoy. At twenty-one, Jessica has traded her Sunday school dresses for a look that screams "Portland Art Student"—dark, heavy eyeliner, vintage oversized flannel, and combat boots. She’s currently grappling with a massive Douglas fir, her face flushed from the exertion. Helen, looking harried and remarkably single since the divorce, is fussing with the bungee cords.
Jessica looks up, catching Lisa’s eye. The old spark of mischief is there, but it’s tempered now by a strange, newfound empathy. "Lisa?" Jessica calls out, letting the tree slump back into the trunk. She wipes a smudge of pine resin onto her jeans. She takes in Lisa’s pale face, the way she’s hugging herself, the slight but unmistakable curve beneath the cardigan. "Are you okay? Actually, wait—stupid question. You look like you’re about to faint into the hedges. You wanna come in? We’ve got cider, and my mom is currently obsessed with some overpriced 'hygge' candle she bought."
Lisa hesitates, then nods. The thought of going back to the shouting match is unbearable.
Inside the Lovejoy home, the atmosphere is a jarring contrast to the Simpson house. It’s quiet, smelling of cinnamon and expensive wax. Helen is bustling around, her movements nervous but well-intentioned.
"Jessica, dear, we really must get the tree stand ready," Helen frets, gesturing toward the corner. "And Lisa, it’s... it’s good to see you. I heard about... well, I heard."
Jessica rolls her eyes, tossing her keys on the counter. "Mom, chill. Lisa’s not here for a sermon." She turns to Lisa, her voice softening. "Seriously, sit down. You look like you're vibrating."
Lisa sinks into the plush, velvet couch. It’s the first time she’s felt her muscles relax in forty-eight hours. Jessica begins to unpack a box of ornaments—glass spheres, ironic pop-culture references, and hand-painted stars. She works with a lazy grace, a cigarette tucked behind her ear (unlit, for now).
"We need the angel on top first, Jessica!" Helen insists, holding up a delicate porcelain figure. "Lisa, wouldn't you like to help? It’s so therapeutic."
Jessica interjects before Lisa has to find the words. "Mom, stop. Lisa’s a Buddhist, remember? She’s not into the whole 'idolatry' thing. Plus," Jessica adds, her eyes meeting Lisa’s with a direct, unsentimental honesty, "she’s pregnant. She’s probably exhausted from carrying around a human and a literal ton of stress. Let her just exist for a minute."
In the past, Lisa would have bristled at the mention of the pregnancy—at the reminder of the lack of agency she had in its beginning. But coming from Jessica, it doesn't feel like a judgment or a pity party. It feels like a recognition of a fact. A difficult, heavy fact that requires a comfortable couch and a moment of silence.
"Thanks, Jess," Lisa murmurs, her voice barely audible over the hum of the refrigerator.
"Don't mention it," Jessica says, hanging a neon-pink skull ornament next to a traditional bell. "The world is trash, Simpson. The least we can do is make the living room comfortable while it burns."
Lisa closes her eyes. The sound of Jessica and Helen bickering over the placement of tinsel becomes a white noise that finally drowns out the echoes of her father’s house. For the first time in three months, the knot in her chest loosens, just a fraction.