Episode Report Card Niki: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Two Makes a Home
By Niki | Season 3 | Episode 16 | Aired on 03.24.2002
From the kitchen, Zoe calls for Lily. Lily rushes in and panics at the sight of a pot smoking on the burner. She flings it off the heat with a yelp, and then races to the sink to run water over her hand. Miriam flutters close behind her, wringing her hands and urgently repeating that she's sorry. She says, "I was making tea. I'm good at tea." Lily, fighting to remain calm, asks why she didn't put any water in the pot, then. Miriam blurts that other people's houses scare her. Lily murmurs that it's okay; they're all fine. "We're all fine," Miriam repeats, trying to calm herself. Aaron clings to her shoulder. Rick tries to lighten the mood by asking who wants ice cream after dinner. Everybody jumps on it, and Judy asks, "Now, where were we?" Lily brings the conversation screeching back to Miriam and the home. Aaron cries out at the mention of taking Miriam back to the board-and-care. Whispering, he asks Judy and Lily why Miriam has to go back. They whisper that Shelley said so. "I'm not going back," Miriam barks. Gently, Lily says she thinks that's for Miriam's dad to decide. Miriam shrieks that she didn't vote for him. She practically bares her teeth, and Lily looks taken aback at the sight. I guess it's a safe bet that Miriam probably doesn't brush all that often. Aaron murmurs that he doesn't understand. Lily starts trying to explain it to him, but he gets agitated, waving his fists and winding up for an episode. He heads for the wall and slumps down against it, rambling that they need their own "kitchen with walls and windows and stuff like that." Judy crouches in front of him and tries to reassure him that he will have all of those things. He grabs his head and starts to cry, saying, "I don't understand why they want me to be alone when I am already." Judy's about to reach out and comfort him, but Aaron lashes out, screaming, "I don't understand!" and kicking over a chair. Lily watches sadly.
Soliloquy Lily perches on a chair and tells us about the younger Aaron, and how he went to clown school when he was eighteen. "He was an amazing juggler," she shares.
We cut to Soliloquy Aaron, effortlessly juggling three pins.
Soliloquy Lily voice-overs that while he was at school he met a girl named Jaimie Davenport, who trained horses at the circus next door.
In the kitchen, Judy and Lily watch helplessly as Miriam cradles a huddled Aaron in her arms, trying to comfort him.
Soliloquy Lily continues: "One night he called to say that he wasn't going back to school in the fall. He was going to marry Jaimie Davenport and join the circus."