Always Come Home

### Cindy Madison, Richard Simmons, Jemma Simmons, Leonard Simmons, Amelia Simmons

Dr Cindy Madison smiled as she looked around her. Somehow her entire family; kids, grandkids, and even great-grandkids had been able to make it out for her 99th birthday. She had never expected to have this many people around her who all loved her so much.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have  a big family when she was younger. Cindy had three children, enough that she was often asked why she chose to have so many.Cindy was one of the top-most mirco-biologists in the world, and had married a brilliant physicist, Dr. Richard Simmons. After her first daughter, Jemma, was born, people said that she had “fulfilled her duty in passing on their genius genetics” and expected her to return her complete focus to science. But as much as Cindy loved biology and her research, she loved being a mother - seeing biology in action, she called it. A few years later, she gave birth to her son, Leonard. While both children turned out to be geniuses, they were as different as night and day. Jemma was quiet and thoughtful. When working through a problem, she would be silent for hours, figuring it out in her head, a perfectionist. Leonard, on the other hand, pondered out loud, even if no one was listening. He would talk through or try all the possibilities, working best when someone played devil’s advocate the whole time. Despite the 6 year age gap, the two children were quite close. They would bounce between their father’s physics lab at the university and their mothers bio lab at Biotech? Fascinated by every single experiment.

When Richard received a job offer from Harvard in the United States, they picked up and moved the entire family from Hampshire to Massestudes, USA.

It wasn't long after this, Cind was blessed with another daughter, Amelia. While her first two children had a mix of both her and Richard’s personalities, Amelia was a carbon copy of her mother. Except for the obsession with astrophysics. For many years, the house was covered in stars - glow-in-the-dark, glitter, stuffies, you name it.

At 15, Jemma, already a genius in biochemistry, with 2 degrees, was offered a scholarship at the Shield Academy of …, a high-ranking science institute in New York.

She was the first of Cindy’s children to leave. He followed his father into the field of physics. This came as no surprise to Cindy, as he had started blowing things up at the ripe old age of 3 using a variety of baking ingredients, a ziplock bag, and a battery.

At 16, he also left home for CalTech in California, leaving Cindy and Richard with young Amelia, who longed to follow in her siblings footsteps.

It wasn’t that her children didn’t come home to visit ever, or that she was worried about losing them, but rather Cindy knew that they would embrace the world and get so enthralled by it, that they may forget to come home to her again.

It came as no surprise to either Cindy or Richard when Amelia, at 15, received a scholarship from … in Paris.

With her children not needing as much of her time, Cindy was now free to focus on her research once again.

The next years flew by with graduation, and marriages, and more graduations.

Jemma ended up marrying a physicist from her Academy, Dr Leo Fitz. Cindy had listened to her daughter talk about ‘the other kid at the Academy’ for years, and maybe it was her motherly instinct or maybe it was obvious to everyone, but it came as no surprise when  they announced their engagement.

Leonard, as well, waited years to finally tie the knot with the woman he loved. Penny Baird, ‘the woman across the hall’ whom Cindy had met a couple times and had heard about  lots, even going as far as to give Leonard advice. Leonard and Penny had been on again off again for years, but Cindy could tell they were really happy when they chose to stay together forever.

Amelia found the love of her life in France, Dr. Philippe Monet - and Cindy knew that her baby would not be coming home again, except for visits.

Then came the first grandkid, then another, and it didn’t stop for the next 20 years or so.

There was a family joke, or maybe jinx, - three kids - the power of three. Cindy had 9 grandkids, perfectly divided by her 3 children.

At the first family reunion after Amelia’s third was born, Cindy commented on the variety of accents present. Any outsider would not have been able to guess the cousins were all related. Jemma’s three: James, Oliver, and Angie, all had picked up the British accent from their mother, mixed with the Scottish one of their father. Leonard’s girls: Jessie, Vivian, and Lexi, were as American as could be. Leonard’s British accent had disappeared not long after the move, and when Cindy first met Penny, Penny hadn’t been aware that her boyfriend was actually British.

With all the time Amelia had spent in France, she had not only adopted the language, but a hint of the accent as well. Her children: Teddy, Violette, and Etienne all spoke English quite well, but it was evident that it wasn’t their first language.

Most of the time, when Cindy’s grandchildren visited, it was usually only a couple at a time, which made sense, given how far apart they all lived. The opportunities to get everyone together decreased as the years went by and the family grew.

Science ran through the blood of her family. Everyone of the grandchildren had a ‘Dr.’ in front of their name before the age of 25.

James, following in his mother’s footsteps, became a biochemist, and ended up marrying one s well, Dr. Alex Kepler. Oliver took after his father and grandfather, becoming a physicist and creating all sorts of robots and technology. Angie’s focus was biology, and she became the first Deaf person to receive 3 PhDs, using both an interpreter and a special pair of transcript glasses that Olier created.

Jessie and Lexi both continued in physics as well. Jessie doing experimental, and Lexi choosing to teach highschool physics. Vivian changed gears and alongside a phd in biology, she became a cardiovascular surgeon.

Teddy could never quite decide what area to focus on. He eventually got a phd in mathematics, but continued to study a variety of other fields. Violette became an anthropologist, moving back to America to study under the very best at the Jeffersonian in Washington. And last, but not least, Etienne followed his mother in astrophysics and became an astronaut, even traveling to the moon once.

While family reunions were difficult to coordinate, Cindy and Richard tried to have at least every 5 years. Not everyone could always make it, but it was always a blast. Richard designed a trivia game each time, with questions spanning through all the scientific fields, and with random teams so no one could say it was rigged. With a group of geniuses, trivia can get pretty intense.

There was a family joke, or maybe it was a jinx, about having three children. Cindy and Richrd had three children, and nine grandchildren, perfectly divided between their three. The power of three - a perfect pyramid, they called it. It was all in jest until James announced that his wife, Alex, was pregnant - with triplets. Somehow the oldest of three’s oldest of three was having three kids. A perfect factu…

Kiaron, Everett, and Cindy’s namesake, Madison, were as smiley and joyful as children come. Instead of just having their parents’ lab to hang out in, they had labs all around the world they could visit. On their 3rd birthday, Cindy gifted them each a personalized lab coat. Not to pressure them into becoming scientists, but rather appealing to what they had already expressed interest in, Cindy claimed.

Jessie and her husband, Dr. Julian McKinley, a marine biologist, were the next to give Cindy a grandchild. Samantha, or Sam, as she preferred. Only 2 more kids, the rest of the family jokingly told her, but Jessie was adamant she was only having one.

Oliver and his pharmacist wife, Dr. Louise Katz had two boys, Aiden and Ezra. Lexi married Andrew Thompson, a young man who already had sole custody over his 3 younger siblings. While the two older ones, Cam and Daphne, were teenagers, Eloise was only 5 and Lexi quickly took the role of mother, and Cindy gladly accepted the role of grandmother. Lexi and Andrew had two more girls, both blonder than blond and with the traditional curly Simmon’s hair.

Vivian married a surgeon she worked with, Dr. Alexander Carr. Together they adopted two Guatemalan twins: Catalina and Graciela.

Angie married a big cat expert who worked at the wildcat sanctuary. Not only did her husband, Zain Mwangi, play with leopards and lions every day, they also let their little girl, Mari, do so as well. The first time Cindy heard this, she almost had a heart attack. She understood studying small animals such as rats, snakes, and raccoons close up, but in her opinion, anything larger should be dead or at least tranquilized before approaching.

Teddy had yet to marry, and he claimed he never would. It would pull his attention away from his studies, he claimed. Violette married an FBI agent, Steven Moore, who was part of a consulting connection with her institute. Together they solve crimes.

Etienne met the love of his life at the International Space Station. She was ‘out of this world’, he always jokes. Yulianna and Etienne have 2 children: Luna and Polaris. Etienne’s mothers love for the stars had been passed on to him.

Cindy looked around at her large and ever growing family. People were eating and talking and running around.

Her family may have spread across the globe, but in the end, they had all come home to her.